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.

True. But that is a pretty recent innovation. I mean, its certainly had its merits, but I don't know if its fair to declare that a default. Particularly for a form which is far more like a form with no warnings at all.

Except then there are authors who feel that even the presence of a whitefonted warning gives something away.

Maybe use orangefont?

(And, really, I don't think you need to be more explicit than 'deals with potentially triggery issues' in your warning - something generic and heads-up-ish would be fine, surely, without spoiling one's storytelling.)

THIS.

Granted, I'm coming at this from the perspective of a spoiler-ho who doesn't read much fic, but my general feeling is - if your work can't stand up to the kind of vague minor spoilers we're talking about? It probably needs rewriting anyway.

wrod. I don't know, Connie, how much do they discuss it in the story? If they do, I might, but if you're too crazy about that, every story about fictional abuse survivor Tim Bayliss should have a warning on it(Many of them ought to anyway, but that's more a 95% of everything is crap thing.)

God, 95% of everything is crap, isn't it? I do find that the majority of the stories I click on in SPN have me hitting the back button within a paragraph.

sighs

It's not that I don't grok that there are lots of attractive people on the show, because, yes, I am shallow - but, ffs, I'd so much rather read them in-character chatting over coffee than out of character shagging.

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.

This makes sense. Also, it might be possible to have a generic may or may not contain rape, murder, incest, orange. Drop me a note if you want to know more.

Yes, Fay, this. It's enough to give a woman eternal bleeding.

The generic warning sounds like a good compromise. God knows I've heeded various warnings in the past--and wished for some that weren't there--and respect people's concerns, but as a writer I can see myself wondering "Will this bother someone?" everytime I go somewhere gritty. Sometimes gritty is just there for the shock factor but sometimes gritty is necessary, and sadly that means it's a story that should be skipped by certain people. Sucks to be human, sometimes.

BOO!!

runs away....

Moooooommmmm, tommyrot oranged meeeeeee.