Is there any talk of adopting a Not!Warning warning? Something along the lines of: For creative purposes I do not give warnings on my stories. Please ask a friend who is aware of your concerns to read it first.
That's one suggestion people have floated.
Another is using whitefont (or some other color-on-color spoiler font, where a person would have to highlight it to read it) for warnings. (Except then there are authors who feel that even the presence of a whitefonted warning gives something away.)
Also, books are unusual in that regard - movies, TV shows and video games ALL come with "This Beautiful Unique Creative Snowflake has been rated Z for strong language, sexual situtions, and explicit use of the color orange" warnings on them.
I'm not sure where the line should be drawn re: fears of triggering. If you've got a scene of explicit nastiness, that's obvious, but if you're referring to nastiness in a character's past without anything explicit, is that something to be warned about? IE, if a character is being raped, put a warning. If a character has been raped before the story occurs, does that warrant a warning? Does it depend on how well the character is coping?
Yeah, with books, generally, one can glean the topics from either the back cover summary, or the blurbs from the folks recommending it.
Yeah, with books, generally, one can glean the topics from either the back cover summary, or the blurbs from the folks recommending it.
And you still wind up with authors acting like complete asshats (Alice Hoffman, I'm looking at you) because they take exception that a reviewer didn't like their book and "spoiled the plot."
"This Beautiful Unique Creative Snowflake has been rated Z for strong language, sexual situtions, and explicit use of the color orange"
Yeah, I've never noticed Quentin Tarantino crying "But, but, MAH ARTISTIC INTEGRITEEEEEEEEE!!!!!"
Except then there are authors who feel that even the presence of a whitefonted warning gives something away.
I can see that too.
Personally, and granted I'm not dealing with personal trauma in this, there are things in RPF that I do not want to read because the RPs involved have expressed discomfort. With very few trusted-author exceptions, I don't read fic without the thumbs up from Cass. It's not
that
arduous when in fic-reading mode to ask your friends also in that mode (since we tend to run in packs on this), "Is this story alright for me?".
Yeah, I've never noticed Quentin Tarantino crying "But, but, MAH ARTISTIC INTEGRITEEEEEEEEE!!!!!"
That's because when he says it, it's MAH MOTHERFUCKING ARTISTIC INTEGRITEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
