Love in Dark Settings

"If you really don't want to post actual warnings, a generic 'I don't warn' statement is better than nothing. Though, please always warn for mpreg and watersports. That way I can find stories I want to read. I mean avoid. Umm, yeah."

--Not giving credit on this one, for obvious reasons.

Below, a slightly edited version of my response to Jane Carnall's post about the warnings issue. Only likely to be of interest to folks in the fan fiction community.

o--o--o

I think that the use of warnings depends on context. When I open a book at a bookstore (the example that K. S. Langley uses), I don't expect warnings because bookstore literature is usually pre-censored. In the few cases where it isn't, the publisher generally plasters warnings all over the book, either through blurbs (I agree with K. S. Langley that this is the best way to warn readers) or by a notice that the book is adults-only (which is publisher-ese for saying, "Triggery stuff ahead!"). So I'm afraid that the "bookstore versus fandom" analogy doesn't work for me, because fandom is inclined to post stories with very touchy content that is unpublishable.

I'd really like to know how the warnings tradition developed in the fan fiction community. When I did a survey of readers many years ago, I found that 50% of them read warnings to find out if the story has something they'd like to read. And that is exactly how the erotica community uses story codes. I think this issue would be regarded a lot less negatively if fandom hadn't chosen to use the word "warnings" to describe its form of story codes.

I decided early on that (1) I wouldn't spoiler readers, and (2) there are ways to give warnings to readers who need them that don't involve spoilering. For the most part, I use this warning. It covers the triggery scenarios in most of my stories without giving away whether any of those activities will actually occur (because in far too many of my stories, the lack of a character-death warning would be a sure-fire indicator that the death-endangered character would live). I think that a boilerplate warning like this (which I link to whenever I post a fic at community blogs) is all that most readers need.

By the way, you'll notice that I warn for love and respect. I really do think that positively wording one's description of the type of stories one writes is the best way to approach such matters.

So I end up taking the middle road on this. If an author doesn't want to give warnings, I'll defend to death their right to not do so. But it seems to me that the amount of energy that some writers spend in saying, "It's against my rights as an author to create warnings!" could be better put to use in creating a one-paragraph, spoiler-free, boilerplate warning . . . or simply saying, "No warnings given," which will alert the reader to the fact that the author doesn't give warnings.

o--o--o

What I didn't mention in my reply is that I do have triggers. My online triggers are all visual. So when I visit a blog where somebody hasn't LJ-cut their art, guess what? I'm often triggered. That can have nasty consequences.

As an Internet addict, I also have the "hey, would you like another drink?" trigger. It goes like this:

Friend: "Hey, did you know that metafandom is having a really interesting discussion of warning labels?"

Me: (*Zips to the computer and spends the next twelve hours online*.)

So I do understand the perspective of folks who say that it's not quite as simple a matter as "Just put the story down if you find you don't like it." By the time you put it down, it might be too late. And friends and recs aren't always the most reliable way to discover what type of story you're going to be reading.

The most reliable way, I've found, is to know beforehand what types of stories the author usually writes. That's why I recommend a boilerplate warning that says something along the lines of, "I just love to write fluffy stories about people who have no problems!" (*image of Dusk hitting the back button*). Or, alternatively, "I kill off characters with frightening frequency!" (*image of Dusk checking carefully to see whether the deaths are gratuitous*). I sure as heck wish a lot of mainstream authors would give such warnings.