Recently I read this article about how “YA novels are rife with profanity.”  The study showed that the average YA book had about 38 swears within its pages.  So, out of curiosity, I decided to do a “find” on my most current full YA manuscript, Hitchhikers, to see how many swears it contained.  Admittedly, when I was writing Hitchhikers, I had decided to let the expletives fly.  This was the first time I had really turned off that particular inner editor and I feel like the novel turned out better for it.

• F-Bombs: 18
• Sh*t: 16
• A$$: 5
• B-yotch: 3
• H-E-double hockey sticks: 15
• Piss: 4
• Total: 61

I’m not sure that anyone would really consider “piss” a swear these days but it was on that old list of the 7 words you’re not allowed to say on TV.  For a minute I thought I must really love the word “ass” but then I realized that the find feature was counting words like glass, grass, pass, etc.  Brought that particular total down by about 150.

So, really, not that bad.  Much higher than average, but considering that the study found one YA book that contained 500+ swears in it, this isn’t so terrible.