[Trigger warning: this post talks about trigger warnings.]
So, let’s just get this out right at the open: this is a topic about which, it seems, some people feel very strongly. I ask that you remain polite in the comments, or you will find a bootmark on your ass as you tumble helplessly into the spam oubliette.
[Trigger warning: spam oubliette.]
Let’s talk about trigger warnings.
I wrote a book: Atlanta Burns.
Here I note that it is $3.99 for your Kindlemachine, and under $10 for print.
[Trigger warning: total shamelessness.]
It is a young adult book, ostensibly crime fiction, about a young girl who straddles the line between detective and vigilante. It is a book about bullies. About people who abuse other people and also about people who abuse animals — in this case, dogs, through a dog-fighting ring. I had to do some pretty gnarly (as in challenging, not as in radical, dude) research for this book. The book also features teenage drug use, bullying, references to sexual assault, lots of naughty language, teenage suicide, and a teenager who uses a gun to mitigate her problems (though that is not without its complications in the story). It’s a hella rough book. “Mature YA.” (A lot of reviews in fact seem to gravitate toward: I hated it before I loved it. Which is probably right on.)
Should the book have trigger warnings? Should any book?
If so, who’s responsible for them? The author? Publisher? The bookstore?
The audience, through reviews?
Is a trigger warning an extra set of warnings similar to what you see with movie ratings or drug side effects? [WARNING: this book may cause sphincter-clenching psychological trauma and also restless leg syndrome.] Or should it be artfully folded into the description of the book?
I’m not opposed to trigger warnings — I understand that some argument against them is that fiction should be uncomfortable at times and blah blah blah if you don’t want to risk discomfort don’t pick up a book. And then, something-something, life should have a trigger warning.
Except, for me, I don’t want people to just blindly stumble onto things that traumatize them — the point of fiction can be discomfort, but often a kind of controlled discomfort. A book is a controlled environment. Safe, even when unsafe. But when that book runs the risk of clipping a tripwire and setting off trauma-bombs inside your own head, that safety factor is hell-and-gone. And trigger warnings are ultimately granular in that they help people understand what’s in the book. It’s not a vaguely ominous warning, but rather, something more specific.
(And actually, it would be quite helpful if life did have trigger warnings.)
The question becomes, what counts? What’s a suitable trigger warning? Obviously, some seem obvious: child abuse, animal abuse, sexual assault. Trauma, though, comes in a lot of ways: the violence of war, for instance. But some folks are also traumatized by clowns, so should Stephen King’s It have a trigger warning: “WARNING: CONTAINS CLOWN” –?
(Actually, maybe that’s not a bad idea. *shudder*)
I think the fear becomes that trigger warnings are a slippery slope toward a rating system — the rating system that governs film is basically inconsistent and downright nuttypants. It’s a fucking mess, that system. It’s governed and shepherded by a secret cabal of out-of-touch Hollywoodians who are prejudiced against sex and toward violence. And the ratings system over time has almost perfectly guaranteed that going to the theater means almost never seeing a film for proper adults. It’s superhero reboots all the way down — comfortable PG-13 line drives right down the middle. Not too many R-rated bonanzas at the theater anymore.
(Another comment about trigger warnings is that they’re spoilery. I dunno if that would be a problem, really, if they were handled somewhat generically — though something to watch for?)
I’d never be comfortable with mandated trigger warnings — because mandating them means someone, some moral body, some council, is in charge of it, and councils are very often how you subvert the goodness of the thing you wanted and turn it into a hot crap sandwich. But I’m eager to get your thoughts. (Again, be polite.) What about trigger warnings? What say you, commenters?
[Trigger warning: there’s a comment section.]
Alex Washoe says:
As I have said elsewhere, “Bait Dog” triggered me — it made me want to find a big book and beat Chuck Wendig over the head with it. But the thing about good fiction, I think, is that there’s a kind of redemption in taking the whole ride. If you stop at all the triggers alone the way then that’s it, you’re stuck there. If you take the ride all the way through, and if the author is good, then there should be some release, some payoff beyond the triggers. I think the Atlanta Burns stories provide that.
February 2, 2015 — 12:01 PM
mckkenzie says:
The thing is, trigger warnings are just a nice thing to do. I would feel terrible if someone read something of mine and had a PTSD episode. I don’t want to do that to people and I certainly would never want to contribute to a child doing something self-destructive because he or she read something of mine. So, you know…why not just include a brief warning? It doesn’t have to be dramatic, it’s a heads-up.
You don’t _have_ to hold the door open for the guy behind you. You don’t _have_ to refrain from mentioning Aunt Ginny’s three ex-husbands at Thanksgiving, but you generally do those things just because you want to be courteous. So doesn’t it follow that you should be courteous when it comes to something that really, truly harms people? It’s maybe one sentence. It just doesn’t seem that hard.
February 2, 2015 — 12:03 PM
Lizaskew says:
Is it harming people, or is it people allowing themselves (or their children) to be harmed by something which is usually not intended to cause harm? With the internet at all our fingertips, that just seems lazy and self absorbed. With certain, more serious subjects, especially if said subjects are written in an especially visceral way, yeah a warning seems fair and friendly–but that is the kind of thing one looks to the reviews for.
The author is responsible for demonstrating the intention of their work, not labeling it list-style for the safety of everyone who might conceivably have some random problem with some part of it because of some aspect of their personal life or personality. The acknowledgement that the world does not revolve around you must be remembered in matters of personal preference. You just can’t please everybody. If you try, when does your work begin to suffer for it, and when can your efforts ever be enough?
Anyway, If your triggers are extra sensitive, that is *your problem* and you really should do more research on what you want to consume, in order to protect yourself.
I feel like such a crotchety old lady about this. I’m sick of hearing so many people bitch about being offended, as though they have some divine right not to be at all times. It’s so undignified.
February 3, 2015 — 3:57 AM
Brigid Kemmerer says:
I could not agree more, Lizaskew. You’re not alone in this.
February 3, 2015 — 8:51 AM
mckkenzie says:
I agree with you that it might be lazy and self-absorbed if someone were to demand or expect trigger warnings on everything, but that wasn’t my suggestion. I just think it’s a courteous thing to do. I don’t mind providing warnings, and I guess I don’t really understand why people get upset about being asked to provide them. You can always just say no.
Also, it’s not about people being “offended.” It’s about triggering a PTSD reaction in someone who has had something terrible happen to them. I do not require trigger warnings, but I can’t help but feel empathy for those who do and want to help if I can.
February 3, 2015 — 9:32 AM
Lizaskew says:
Like I said, I’m a crotchety old lady on this and I know it. I can’t help myself on that, though I understand and respect what you are saying. Anyway I think I understand how you feel. Reading rape is really an adrenaline inspiring experience for me. Still, I don’t blame authors for that, as it’s clear you also do not, and I recognize that there is an art to writing such parts of human experience which does not always end up being perfectly navigated by those who attempt it. I look at the less adept and the more gritty examples of rape in literature as something I’ll have to deal with in my own way if I want to explore and enjoy literature.
February 3, 2015 — 8:27 PM
Devon Lynn says:
*Clapping*
February 3, 2015 — 10:59 AM
Andrea Ragadio says:
mckkenzie,
I completely agree. It’s not that difficult and it hurts no one. It’s just a nice thing to do.
February 4, 2015 — 10:35 PM
Hellu says:
I imagine reading a book with trigger warnings to be like walking in a zoo instead of a jungle, because it would spoil it a bit too much or put boundaries on the experience.
“Oh, but he definitely won’t get attacked, since there’s no trigger warning about it, but is this when the dog gets hurt?”
I do understand some people have problems with it though, so it could probably be ok if they put it in tiny writing somewhere you won’t see it too easily, but the website-idea someone already mentioned sounds better to me.
February 2, 2015 — 12:05 PM
Akiva says:
Suffering from PTSD, I understand the desire for trigger warnings. However, it is not society’s responsibility to adapt to me and warn me of these things. It is MY responsibility to be aware of MY issues and take the appropriate steps to protect myself.
Are they nice? Absolutely! But, life isn’t always nice. No matter how hard society tries to make life nice, it isn’t ever going to be. But that’s where I have to be pro-active and read the teaser, description, or reviews and decide for myself if it may possibly be a trigger for me.
The only thing I expect from any media is that the teaser, description, or review be honest about the media itself. If the description says it’s about sunshine and rainbows, I don’t want to suddenly find myself reading a murder mystery.
February 2, 2015 — 12:06 PM
Laura W. says:
Honest advertising really goes a long way. For me it is part of managing an illness. I tend to get suspicious of the trigger warning argument, because some people co-opt something that can actually be useful and turn it into “You shouldn’t write or consume those things period.” Trigger warnings in or on reviews can be helpful, and should be used where needed, since many people go to reviews first when deciding if something is safe or healthy for them to read.
February 2, 2015 — 3:19 PM
Desi Valentine says:
I don’t want to be protected. I hesitate to speak for anyone else, because people have been purporting to speak for me for most of my black, poor, marginalized, feminine, underprivileged, marginalized, eating disordered, and abused (you get the idea) life. And that’s a problem. Not necessarily that I didn’t exactly get an easy ride as a young adult, but that young adults are inherently disempowered and we have to be aware that protective discourses — like trigger warnings — contribute to the construction of their perceived disempowerment. Trigger warnings are a way of designing and reinforcing people like me — people who have been beaten, exploited or excluded — as a TYPE of person who cannot handle certain stimuli and who is therefore weak.
I’m not weak.
Additionally, I’m not convinced that trigger warnings are effective. I’ve been safe for over two decades. I’ve built a pretty good life for myself. My husband and my kids and I are loving and secure, etc., etc. But what ‘triggers’ me, what brings me back to that little girl cowering on the floor is the smell of melting butter because the man who beat me often had butter on his hands. How the hell do you trigger warn for something like that? What ‘triggers’ me is the human monster in the closet (like that Dr Who episode with the girl who coloured people into pictures, or The Sixth Sense) because his assaults so often came out of the dark. Which does not mean that I did not or could not enjoy those films, and it doesn’t mean that it’s up to you or anyone to protect me from them. It means that my experience of life, media, culture and fiction might be different from someone who has never been abused. It MIGHT be more upsetting, for me. But it might be less so. And isn’t that how it is for everyone? I mean, don’t we all know someone who cries at sappy movies and also someone who laughs at them for it? Or someone who can’t handle any of the Saw series films and someone who loves them? Don’t make me weak just because my survival is difficult for you to understand. Don’t exclude narratives of abused kids’ survival just because the fact of our abuse is difficult for you to understand. Transgression is the whole point of art, and giving voice to those uncomfortable stories that have been and would be silenced is the ultimate transgression, and potentially our salvation.
February 2, 2015 — 12:07 PM
Ashlee Jade says:
I think people should be responsible for their own safety, and that they should be informed enough to make a responsible choice about their own safety. I think trigger warnings serve a valuable purpose to this end. They are like a ‘caution: wet floor’ sign, warning people of what they are about to experience without restricting choice.
Outside of that, I have never been traumatised and a trigger warning is actually more likely to get me to read something (because I’m morbid that way), so I am in no real position to talk about the effectiveness of trigger warnings. BUT if I had had a traumatic experience, and wished to avoid content that called back to that experience I would prefer to be notified of what I was getting myself into before the PTSD flashbacks began. My own book currently involves domestic abuse, rape, suicide, murder and war. It’s a real field of daisies, and you can bet your ass that I’m gonna put a trigger warning on that thing. It doesn’t stop anyone from reading it, but those who want to avoid that kind of content are given the choice.
February 2, 2015 — 12:15 PM
Andrea Ragadio says:
“It doesn’t stop anyone from reading it, but those who want to avoid that kind of content are given the choice.” <–exactly.
I completely agree with you.
It just doesn't make sense to me why people are so against them. If something has a trigger warning, and you don't need trigger warnings…so what? What do you lose from that trigger warning being there? Ok, so you have to stop and take the effort to groan, eye-roll, and have a mental rant about "grrrr p.c. nonsense grrr first amendment grr back in my day grrr character building." Then you get to carry on and read the bloody book. Or not. The end. No, I don't think they should be mandated. That introduces common courtesy into the realm of bureaucracy. It's just like you said, a caution: wet floor sign.
February 4, 2015 — 10:33 PM
miceala says:
Context on me as a commenter: As someone who grew up with abuse of many kinds, eating disorders, and depression and who spent most of college in and out of treatment, residential and outpatient, for the lasting impact of all those things, I talked and was taught a crap ton about triggers. My therapists and I and the other lucky people in treatment discussed triggers around food, triggers around weight, triggers around body image, triggers around physicality and sexuality and self-esteem. There are about a *makes up really funny-sounding humongously big number* triggers out there. Some of them might stir feelings in me of wanting to not eat for a week, or puke up anything I do. Some of them might make me want to tear my skin apart. Some of them might send me flying back into a near-hallucination of memory-based, stimulus-galvanized panic attack where what’s real and what’s not becomes really slippery and I have to tell myself over and over and over again that the floor is real, the wall is real, the door is real, the friend beside me is Person X or Y and they are there to care and not to hurt me like my brain is trying to say there are, conflating them with so many person Z’s in the past who have. Triggers can be loud, concussive noises that send my adrenaline bursting. Triggers can be soft, gentle, well-meant and goddamn *wanted* kisses. Triggers are songs and sentences and slantwise jabs from strangers. tl;dr – triggers are everything.
But they are not everything *always.* What could poke at my emotions or my sanity one day might be something cathartic and beneficial another day. If the entire world is a trigger, then, as I have been told in so many group sessions again and again, it is not my job to censor the world. That’s not feasible. And that’s not fair. While I am not responsible for what’s happened to me, I am responsible for how I deal with it. If I want to do any semblance of living, it is my job, now, to figure out warning signs and preventative measures and people to throw in my safety net and what to tell them about different scenarios and breathing techniques and focusing techniques and fighting techniques and no, it’s not fair that I have to do all these things, but that’s just how it is. Because that’s how I get better. That’s how I fight back the triggers and pick off their numbers, one by one. Neural plasticity is a wonderful thing. But if I continually hide, never ever deal with the thing that hurts me, never practice coming up against it because I’ve cloistered myself from any possible sharp thing, then I am never going to change. I am going to remain crippled and afraid and hiding. And that’s when everything that led up to these triggers wins.
Yes, flashbacks are damn painful but I’d rather navigate my way through them than never be kissed by another human being ever again.
Yes, reading about suicide might make me remember my own attempts, but it also reminds me that hey, there are people out there who have experienced these things too, or who at least understand them well enough to write about them this way. And that’s way more valuable, how much less alone that makes me feel, then reading about rainbows and sunshine all day long. Because really that’s only going to make me nauseated.
There’s a difference between seeking out specifically triggering material and reading material that might crop up some stuff. I know not to go reading pro-ana or pro-mia stuff. That’s just intentionally triggering. And dumb. And not well-written, really. And on a day when I’m teetering back and forth across the line of sanity, I know that maybe I should pick up a Harry Potter book instead of Forman’s ‘If I Stay.’ But on days when I am angry at the world and what it has done to me, IS doing to me, then it’s those days that I really, really need Miriam Black and Palahniuk’s cast of psychopaths and N.K. Jemisin’s gloriously unsafe Nahadoth. I need characters with dangerous thoughts and dangerous emotions because they make me feel unalone in mine. They make my existence feel justified. They make me feel like I’m not just some aberration amongst the rest of the human race.
It’s up to me to know when my brain can play nicely with them, or meet them, if I’ve never perused their pages before. That vigilance is not your job. The only amount of warning you’re required to give me is a synopsis on a book jacket. Anything more, and it’s really just cheating.
February 2, 2015 — 12:18 PM
Clementine Danger says:
I’ve put a fair bit of thought into this. It’s something I’ve wanted for myself and others who have my problem so badly. I’m a content creator as well as consumer, so I see both sides of the dilemma, and I really believe this could serve an often ignored group on both sides of that fence.
Basically you can go two ways with it: organize by trope (Lady Trophy, physical abuse of children, Strong Female Character Is Sexually Depowered, you know, the ushe) or you can go by title (Taken: all of them. All the trigger warnings.)
The second option seems more manageable and actually helpful, the first one seems like it would have more of a draw. Something like this absolutely NEEDS community participation, and I know from experience that I’m shit at selling my ideas. Of course if there were some prolific and socially aware content creators around to signal boost, well, that might be a different story.
But yeah, in the year or two since I’ve started entertaining the idea, I keep noticing a demand for it. Trauma Tropes? Trigger Tropes? Dear God This Culture Is Doomed Tropes? I’ll work on it.
The Bechdel Test has something similar, a database of titles and a check for whether or not they pass the test, with optional user comments and reviews and debate, if it’s a gray area. Something like that?
http://bechdeltest.com/
February 2, 2015 — 12:20 PM
Erika says:
I think it’s good to have trigger warnings for books aimed at kids. I wish there had been a trigger warning on that awful How to Train Your Dragons Two movie. It did traumatize my kids, especially my younger one who sobbed in my arms when the father died for no good reason. I made the mistake of trusting the brand and they screwed their audience over. It gets exhausting having to research everything because you just don’t know what they’re going to put in kids books now. Usually it’s pretty clear where a book or a movie is coming from, but once in awhile they throw you a loop like the Dragons movie. I know we’re talking about books and not movies here, but that was the example that came to mind where a trigger warning could have saved my kids a bad experience. If a book cover and the blurb on the back are done correctly, maybe a trigger warning wouldn’t be necessary?
February 2, 2015 — 12:30 PM
Kay Camden says:
commonsensemedia.org helps me a lot with this. Kid movies have more character murders than adult movies. I got sick of traumatizing my kids with things that are supposed to be fun, so I research all shows and movies on this site now.
(Forgive me if it’s already been mentioned. I’m a little late to this post and I’m working my way through the comments.)
February 3, 2015 — 10:06 AM
Tasha Turner says:
I include trigger warnings with my reviews. Trigger warnings do not mean “don’t read this” it means “you have a choice about whether to read and when to read”. I think most people involved in the debate don’t know the 2nd part. I read a number of books that contain big triggers for me. If I know the trigger is coming I can mentally & emotionally prepare, I can talk with my Goodreads group and find a buddy or two to read with who will be there to offer support, I can let my husband know so he’s prepared if I’m overly sensitive/crying/become suicidal, I can schedule extra time with my therapist to talk about what’s going on.
It also means that I won’t end up reading 5-15+ triggering books right in a row which is really important when you’ve got PTSD. For those of you that don’t have PTSD you don’t know what it’s like to be triggered day after day just by picking up a book, watching a movie, watching TV, listening to music. Being able to do those things daily and pick and chose which day(s) will be difficult and which days you can relax and breathe is critical. No we can’t be protected from life but media for enjoyment should not be a constant bombardment of triggers.
This link gives some great basic triggers http://trigger-warning-guide.tumblr.com/triggers . Would it really destroy the book world if authors/publishers/reviewers voluntarily included those. Part of marketing is to sell to the right consumer. So many bad reviews on Amazon and Goodreads are due to mis-categorizing and mis-leading blurbs (not including critical info like triggers as well as forgetting to mention it’s got romance or it’s really violent and gory…) causing people to downgrade their review.
February 2, 2015 — 12:34 PM
Erika says:
People talk a lot about how fiction “should” be challenging. I don’t buy into that at all. Fiction “should” be whatever the reader wants it to be for them. Entertainment and fluff, comedy, and work that in no way challenges the reader are all perfectly valid. I had a traumatic childhood the stuff of nightmares in many instances. I’ve lived through some serious hell as an adult too, since my screwed up childhood made me ill equipped to avoid choosing a few monstrous men as partners until I got enough therapy and learned enough to avoid those types. I don’t need to relive the shit of my life in fiction. I love middle grade novels because I am entertained and often they don’t challenge me. I’m not saying that’s all I read. One of my favorite books is Holes and that certainly challenges you, but it’s not traumatizing. I have some pretty strong limits on what I will endure with fiction because I’ve suffered enough and wrestled with enough self loathing in my life that I know what I will and will not tolerate. I’m very particular about what I read because of what I have endured in life, so trigger warnings would be helpful. It does get tiring having to research everything before you read it. I envy those who had relatively healthy childhoods and normal, not insane and abusive parents.
February 2, 2015 — 12:44 PM
Jenni C says:
Erika, I’m so sorry for what you have been through. I so agree with you. I have a few skeletons but nothing like what you have experienced. My life might have looked from the outside like what you wished for. Having said that, I would say that even if you are just extremely sensitive, you have a right to control what you read or view. I’m so glad to hear someone say that fiction and movies can be just escapism in a safe environment with an expected happy ending and no or low level trauma or fear. I started to feel I was missing something by having never read Stephen King, and tried to read his latest novel. Half way through I was so filled with dread and felt so horrible I had to return it. I don’t deny other people may like that scary feeling, but I feel that there is enough of that in real life. When I read I want to feel better than I do in reality. That doesn’t mean no emotion, but, as Chuck said, controlled by me. Mostly I can tell from a description, but I don’t want to be shocked in the end. Hello, Chick Lit!
February 2, 2015 — 1:01 PM
Tasha Turner says:
I’m with you. Books for me as a kid were a way to escape. Not every book I read should be challenging. Media is supposed to be entertaining – that’s why we do it in our time off.
I’m sorry you had abusive parents and that led to picking abusive partners. From another one raised by an abusive parent – may we get the healing we need and find fun and entertaining books to read.
February 2, 2015 — 1:40 PM
Von Jocks says:
Yes — sometimes books (and movies, and TV shows) can be a SAFE place when we desperately need one. I think this is one reason why genre readers often stay within genre. A novel with “romance” stamped on the spine guarantees an optimistic ending. A novel with “mystery” stamped on the spine is promising the murder will get solved. I, for one, appreciate when the book let’s me know one way or the other.
February 5, 2015 — 4:17 AM
wysewomon says:
I mention potentially triggering things in reviews. As for books themselves, I think cover blurbs can be written to effectively warn people who might need warning. Something like, “In a violent world of child sex trafficking where a teen’s only power is her gun, ” says just as much as “Trigger Warning for sexual & emotional abuse and firearms,” and says it more elegantly. Once you get into actual warning labels, you’re dancing with dicey territory. Took the comics industry decades to get out from under the “Comics Code Authority.” I think anything similar for straight fiction would be a mistake, and might influence authors against tackling difficult subject matter.
February 2, 2015 — 12:46 PM
Maya Langston says:
In books, I generally don’t need a trigger warning. For movies and shows though, it’s a completely different story.
For example, I’ve worked my way through most of the Outlander series. Most of the books deal with my specific trigger in great detail. And it didn’t bother me. Sure, I skipped paragraphs and pages when necessary, but I was alright. However, when they complete the first season of the series on Starz this Spring, I won’t watch it, because actually seeing one of those scenes acted out will be too much for me to take.
But do you know what really messed me up in those books? The mention of centipedes (Can’t even type the word without shuddering). I’ve actually had to put the book down on because she uses it as a simile on several occasions. It’s one of my triggers, but it’s within the realm of *really random trigger* that it would be unreasonable for me to be upset.
I think that’s what it boils down to. A lot of people have triggers when it comes down to rape, abuse, etc and I don’t have a problem with a heads up. I think it’s reasonable to put a ‘Hey, this may not be your cup of tea’ note, especially when it’s graphic. I’d have no problem doing that as an author.
It gets ridiculous when you’re expected to think about every possible trigger. And if someone talks about wanting a trigger warning, when in fact they’re talking about a ‘may be offensive’ warning, that’s on the reader. There’s a big difference between something that may literally re-traumatize someone and something that will just make someone angry.
I’ve seen authors put at the bottom of their Amazon description *Not suitable for audiences under 18, contains graphic sex, disturbing situations, violence* and I think that’s a good balance. It doesn’t completely give away the plot, but it’s also an effective warning.
February 2, 2015 — 12:57 PM
Melissa Clare says:
Thought my brain had glitched for a moment when I finished reading this blog post, then opened an email from Goodreads that told me Neil Gaiman had a new book out called… Trigger Warning.
February 2, 2015 — 1:01 PM
Phil says:
I’m so out of it that I had no earthly what a trigger warning was and when I saw the tittle of the post I thought it was going to be about Neil Gaiman’s latest collection. The irony, I suppose, if there is one to be had, is that the title of Gaiman’s book refers to this very thing. I had no idea it was a topic, let alone a controversial one.
I have to admit that my knee jerk reaction when reading Mr. Wendig’s post was to think, “Who is such a hot house flower they need to be warned about every little thing they might deem offensive or might send them spiraling off in some sort of breakdown?” However, after reading some of these heartfelt responses maybe the idea of a trigger warning isn’t so out of bounds.
I don’t know if I’m able to have a passionate opinion on this one or the other. I wouldn’t take great umbrage if there were triggers warning, but I would definitely prefer that books, or really any media, did not have these trigger warnings. With all due respect to any one’s issue, I think it falls on the reader to do their due diligence to see if they are about to read a book or watch a movie that has the potential of really harming them in some way. I don’t think it’s the creator’s obligation or warn anyone, and they should not be blamed if someone stumbles upon their work and finds something unsettling. I agree with a previous post that good art is SUPPOSED to trigger something in its audience. If it doesn’t, what is the point?
On a slightly tangential note, I was in junior high when Tipper Gore and the whole Parental Advisory campaign with music happened. There was nothing that guaranteed me wanting to buy an album more than slapping one of those of stickers on the cover. I can only imagine being fourteen or fifteen browsing the local library looking for a new treasure to take home and reading on the cover that the book contains: dog fighting, teenage drug us, sexual assault, adult language, teenage suicide and violence. I would not only want to read the book, I would need to read the book RIGHT THAT VERY MINUTE. In that way, maybe the trigger warning wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
February 2, 2015 — 1:01 PM
johnadamus says:
I come at it like this – if I’m writing a thing, it doesn’t get a trigger warning. When I’m contracted to write, I’ve got enough leeway and I trust my editor(s) enough to let me know when I’ve strayed into territory where problems can bubble up later. If I’m editing, I give the same advice to the writers. I don’t do it to dissuade them from taking the story in a direction, I just want them to know that they’ve crossed a threshold that for some readers leads to turning back or slowing down.
If I’m writing ABOUT writing, or anything really, I give it a trigger warning. And that’s only because when I’m talking about myself, there’s content there I want people to informed about. Whether or not the sentences at the top of the text make them read or not read, that’s not something I can control. But it’s there, and if I write it clearly and without any sort of contempt towards the hair-trigger-offended crowd (since I believe there’s a difference between practical trigger warnings and impractical ones), I’ve done my part to give people a heads up.
February 2, 2015 — 1:04 PM
Janice Grinyer says:
The problem with trigger warnings is – you dont know exactly what may trigger angst in someone.
For example; We and our ranch were in a running crown wildfire. We survived by driving down to one of our hayfields that had been cut. Fast forward 6 months later. We are tough people out here in Montana, we’re rebuilding and moving on. It was the holiday season and the new movies were out. We went to go see the legendary “The Hobbit” in 3 D. Great mood watching the opening, until the Smaug the Dragon slaying the village with fire scene – right there I was gripping the chair, hyperventilating and it took everything inside of me to tell myself not to run. The noise, the blowing flames were only on the screen for 3 minutes, but for the rest of the movie I was on edge. I didnt know that i was that affected by what we experienced that summer, until I sat in a movie theater watching a Hobbit movie.
I believe there should be certain warnings as Maya Langston has mentioned i.e. “I’ve seen authors put at the bottom of their Amazon description *Not suitable for audiences under 18, contains graphic sex, disturbing situations, violence* and I think that’s a good balance. It doesn’t completely give away the plot, but it’s also an effective warning.”
This concept may not prevent all triggers, but it is a heads up so someone can make an educated decision on what to read
February 2, 2015 — 1:15 PM
Arinn Dembo says:
No one is “responsible” for trigger warnings. There is no way to make empathy or concern for other human being compulsory. That’s why the world is such a dark, miserable place full of broken, angrysad people.
Oh wait, you want the world to NOT be a zombie apocalypse without real zombies? Then hey, maybe show what empathy you can for others. It really doesn’t cost you much at all. Labelling your work is just part of your honest negotiation with the audience, especially if you write dark or difficult material.
If an author really wants someone trapped on a dark ride without having consented to it, how is that author fundamentally different from any other rapist/ abuser/ harasser / bully? Your only virtue at that point is that your preferred mode of violating people is psychological rather than physical, and any victim of cyber-bullying can tell you that’s a really thin defence.
February 2, 2015 — 1:22 PM
Von Jocks says:
I kind of like the bullying analogy. It kind of comes down to who is trying to force their agenda on someone else, doesn’t it? That’s why I cringe a little bit when I read that “that is what literature *should* do” or “that’s what art is for!” I want to say, “Says you,” because it’s only sometimes correct, depending on the reader. Those of us who aren’t up to getting involved in that kind of read do what we can to avoid it. There’s no *requirement* for a trigger warning, and thank goodness for that, because it steps ickily close to censorship. But the warning is surely is appreciated by a lot of people, when it’s freely given.
I definitely dislike the idea (not yours) that “that’s the risk you take if you read a book.” Are people really implying that if someone wants to be able to read a novel without heartbreak, they need to just not read a novel?
February 5, 2015 — 4:29 AM
Jessica says:
Excellent food for thought, Chuck. I hope you and/or some of your readers will glance at this piece I wrote on trigger warnings and why I don’t like them– but if it’s tl;dr, short answer is that I only like trigger warnings when they’re willingly assigned by the creator of the intellectual content.
Longer answer here: https://bookouroboros.wordpress.com/2014/06/
February 2, 2015 — 1:43 PM
David says:
This, pretty much, plus some hand-waving about the evils of generalized rating systems.
February 6, 2015 — 12:12 PM
Jessica Scott says:
I wrote a book about a breast cancer survivor then I wrote a short story about the same couple. I saw a response on goodreads to an Advanced reader copy from a blogger who was highly upset that she had no warning about the breast cancer in the book (she’d lost her mom to the disease). I felt terrible because a) I’d assumed that if people were reading the short story, they’d read the first one and knew about the cancer but b) because she’d been blindsided.
I don’t normally reach out to reviewers or respond online to them but this made me feel terrible. I changed the blurb so that readers would know that this was a story about a woman who’d survived breast cancer. Did I have to? No. I could have just said this is my story and that’s that.
But there’s no point in hiding the fact that the story is about breast cancer survivor, either and honestly, I’d rather readers know what they’re going into before they start.
I have another novel where a secondary character commits suicide in front of both the main characters. It’s organic to the story and it’s necessary for the character arcs of both main characters. I asked my editor about putting in a trigger warning or something to let readers know that this is in there because, like breast cancer, it’s sadly not an uncommon thing. We decided against a warning or anything. I haven’t seen anything on it (but then again, I stopped looking at reviews for the most part) so I don’t know what people’s reactions have been to it.
I’m on the fence about both decisions honestly. On the one hand, for Atlanta Burns, I think if readers pick up the book and it intrigues them, then go for it. It’s not like there are kittens on the cover and you’ve done a bait and switch. They’re probably aware of what they’re getting from a Chuck Wendig novel and if not, they can easily find out. I also think that kids tend to be smarter than we parents give them credit for. I’d rather have them read about this stuff in a book than see it on TV. Gory images stick with you in a visceral way that words don’t seem to. Which isn’t to say that a book can’t have a strong impact.
I guess, even as a parent, I don’t want ratings on books because that opens us up to who is doing the rating and why are they doing the rating. I’m happy if there’s a place online that I can go to with my kids to see what they’re reading and make sure it’s not stuff that maybe they should wait until they’re a little bit older to read. And I”m not unsympathetic to the idea that people avoid things that trigger them. I promise you there, are things I avoid because they get stuck on the repeater in my head. But I also worry that we’re sanitizing life too much that anything that makes us uncomfortable thus meets the definition of traumatizing.
February 2, 2015 — 2:56 PM
Laura W. says:
It is so tricky knowing what kinds of things trigger people that just saying “trigger warning” is not going to help unless you get spoiler-y. I agree with you.
This topic came up in a discussion about whether professors of literature should have trigger warnings on their syllabi for certain books. I strongly distrust that because a) if you as a teacher can’t say, “The Illiad contains graphic descriptions of violence that may be disturbing to you, as well as mature themes and topics that may upset you such as rape and horrific violence, etc., and as a class we are going to handle this in a mature way which I as the professor will mediate” on the college level, you shouldn’t fucking be teaching literature. In a classroom setting, it may be ok as the point isn’t to learn about the plot, but…proceed with caution, and a printed trigger warning on a syllabus is SO NOT an adequate way to introduce “mature material” to a classroom. And b) most of the books requiring “trigger warning” will probably be most books you’d find on a list of banned books. While the books aren’t explicitly banned, the teachers/professors would probably de facto ban them because of the trouble of having to put trigger warnings on them.
As for books written for personal consumption and entertainment…let’s go with a personal example. If you are living with PTSD or a similar condition which may have triggers, you learn to self-censor. A recovering alcoholic wouldn’t go to a bar, and I wouldn’t pick up a book about self-harm. There are plenty of clues that the content of a book may be upsetting or even triggering: genre, book cover, inside flap description, back of book synopsis, previous books by the author listed on the front page, or if it’s online, the list of tags that describe the book. All this information about the content is easily and readily available to you without even having to read chapter 1. You filter out the things that seem mostly likely to be a problem.
Speaking of reading chapter 1, this discussion brings to mind The Broken Empire trilogy by Mark Lawrence…If the back cover description of the MC as an evil bandit leader/warlord, the “dark and gritty” review snippets on the cover, or the cover art of the piles of bodies didn’t tip you off, well — the MC burns a village to the ground and leads off a gang rape of the survivors on the second page. It’s the equivalent of a trigger warning…a litmus test that filters out people who will be too disturbed to read on vs. people who will be disturbed but will read on anyway. It’s not a graphic description; it gets just a couple of sentences. But if you’re writing a series with a psychopath as the main character, well…let’s just say it gets worse from there. :/ Still, though, the design and description of that book are very accurate to its content and there’s no reason for a trigger warning because it advertises itself honestly. You can pick up on the clues. I wouldn’t pick up the Atlanta Burns novel expecting a dreamy, sweet story. It practically screams “gritty” and I would be mentally prepared for disturbing content.
My only plea would be that if you are going to use trigger warnings, use them effectively. “Trigger warning” tells me abso-fucking-lutely nothing about the content. “Trigger warning: graphic violence,” “Trigger warning: sexual violence,” “Trigger warning: self-mutiliation, drug use, bulimia,” “Trigger warning: animal violence,” these things are actually useful.
February 2, 2015 — 3:07 PM
Laura W. says:
***wanted to edit: not the “equivalent” of a trigger warning, because it isn’t, but a filter that functions in a similar way.
February 2, 2015 — 3:12 PM
wizki says:
I dunno, Chuck–with respect to everybody who believes in them, I will only say this: Trigger warnings, smigger warnings. That about sums up my opinion. There are two reasons for that, one being the danger of honest-to-grok censorhip.
In Japan, which has been my home for nearly 16 years, there is (obviously) a thriving manga and anime culture–some of it’s great, some of it’s middling, some of it’s smut, but point is, all of it deserves to be out there, right? Right. But lately, due largely to Western (OK, US) influence, the Japanese government is gradually starting to crack down on things, especially visual media that might have violent or sexual components. There’s even a proposal in the works that would prohibit the possession of certain works retroactively–in other words, you could still get in big trouble for owning something deemed inappropriate even if you purchased it before the law went into effect! Ewww…
Now of course, putting a trigger warning on something and censoring it outright are not the same thing, and I don’t mean to make them so. I’m just pointing out that, if we’re not careful, the DANGER: EXPLICIT _____ labels we like to slap on everything could lead to outright censorship of said music, art etc. because we are essentially allowing government bodies, groups to tell us what’s OK to look at. If you wanna label your own stuff, though, more power to you.
There is a second, less lawyerly and more primal reason for my opposition to trigger warnings: I bristle at the culture of offense that seems to grow stronger by the day, especially in The Land of the Free. Everything seems to offend somebody these days–we move daily through a minefield of potentially hotbutton topics, never daring to say what we think (beyond the obscure chatroom or three) for fear of making people unhappy. We put a lid on anything potentially interesting because it may also be divisive–I pity us! To me, trigger warnings are the same. They are an invitation NOT to engage with said material, NOT to bother lest it offend. But I say: If you don’t want to be offended, don’t get out of bed!
As for the deeper problem of whether certain works have the potential to go beyond offense and into traumatic territory, that’s harder to address. Some of this comes down to cultural differences and levels of tolerance–in Japan, for example, child actors routinely appear in movies more violent or weird than we Westerners are comfortable with, yet public outrage barely exists. The actors, producers and viewers all see it as fiction, to be treated as such. It’s not that Japanese society somehow lacks a moral compass, but that its compass is simply adjusted differently–this stuff simply isn’t a big deal, and most people aren’t traumatized by it one way or the other, and waves of crime do not ensue because of it. So culture is a strong component, I think.
By their very nature, I think trigger warnings might cause someone to be even more sensitive than they might otherwise be. Shouldn’t we allow somebody the pleasure of reading Huck Finn and discovering the (often admittedly awful) flavor of the time in which it was written, dehumanizing bits and all, rather than being told up front that it contains racist material or, GASP, taking that material out before it can be experienced? As Burke Breathed wrote: “Bleh!”
I know: Huck Finn is a cheap, easy shot. But at the risk of offending, I think that perhaps we need to grow thicker skins. As a disabled, left-leaning gaijin who often laughs at handicapped jokes and can also make fun of his own foreignness (my hosts don’t hesitate), I think I’ve earned the right to say that.
February 2, 2015 — 3:43 PM
Laura W. says:
“To me, trigger warnings are the same. They are an invitation NOT to engage with said material, NOT to bother lest it offend. But I say: If you don’t want to be offended, don’t get out of bed!”
The intent of trigger warnings is supposed to be to give a heads up to someone reading it who may be severely affected, or triggered, by the content. They aren’t a warning not to engage; they’re a warning that you can choose whether or not to engage. It’s not a “warning: may offend”; it’s intended as “warning: may contain material that triggers panic attacks, sobbing fits, flashbacks, etc.” in people with, say, PTSD. On the one hand, people are to some extent responsible for handling their lives and don’t need to be coddled. On the other, people are also managing serious illnesses that affect their daily lives. The concern goes beyond just slapping a “trigger warning” on anything remotely controversial.
I understand your concern, though, because it seems like people are trying to get “trigger warning” to apply to anything remotely offensive…which is not helpful to someone with PTSD trying to navigate their media. The “content warning” is gaining ground (at least on my facebook feed…), which is a looser term for material ranging from legitimately triggering to mildly offensive to not offensive except to homophobes (example: “content warning: contains gay romance”). Most things on a generic “content warning” are things you could discover from the back book cover or some other clue. Trigger warnings, I think, should be things that wouldn’t otherwise be readily apparent.
February 2, 2015 — 5:22 PM
wizki says:
Laura, thank you for the calm and clear clarifications re: what trigger warnings are supposed to be! I see your point about most people who should be handling their own lives on the one hand and people dealing with serious illnesses on the other. That said, I wonder if we shouldn’t give more credit to the people who have said illnesses. What I mean to say is, unless people are too debilitated to do so (a possibility, I’ll admit), I think that they would be, as somebody else in this thread pointed out, self-monitoring. That is to say that, if they had a concern about a given product, there are usually plenty of places to look up everything about it before consuming it–we live in the spoilery age of the Wiki, after all! As for those times when that’s not possible, well, that’s harder to say. If I could be persuaded into anything, it might be to put something like, “Warning: Contains content that may offend some users,” a totally generic warning that doesn’t really say much. The point being that it’s up to the reader to decide whether to proceed.
You mentioned kind of continuum of offensiveness, from “legitimately triggering” to “mildly offensive” and my favorite, “not offensive except to homophobes.” 😉 But that’s just it: Creating a continuum like this assumes that there exists some objective gauge of all this stuff, which of course, there just ain’t! I am a writer, but in my day job, I spend most of my time putting other people’s decidedly vanilla-tinged thoughts into intelligeable English–if you’re offended by business websites or articles about chocolate, read at your own risk! But seriously, if I had to go through every one of my short stories and pick out what might or might not rile somebody in some group, I would spend more time doing that than writing! So there goes the idea of writing trigger warnings for “things that wouldn’t otherwise be apparent.”
I don’t subscribe to the idea that “literature should be uncomfortable,” but nor do I hold onto the fantasy that people enjoy vanilla all the time. Most things that challenge us in some way also disconcert us, I think. I actually cried when I saw “Where the Wild Things Are”–it brought back some nasty memories of my own experiences as a child of divorce. I also saw Clint Eastwood’s movie about the 2004 tsunami while living in Japan in 2011–right around the time we began having terrible earthquakes! Do I regret having seen either of these films? Absolutely not! If someone had given me advanced warning about the content, however, I may have missed the experience altogether.
Thanks Laura–let’s do this again sometime!
February 3, 2015 — 11:46 AM
creativityinthebox says:
I think that as long as the book is honest about what it contains (not pink and sparkles on the cover but containing a gritty, close-up exploration of a violent crime or something) then policing triggers has to be in the hands of the readers. You’d think that with the internet we could have a community warning system, where people can seek for recommendations for books that do not contain whatever it is they’re triggered by. (Me, extreme cold. Why, I do not know, but show me a description of hypothermia and I feel like I’m about to pass out even if I only read a sentence of it).
Of course, this being the internet, some asshole would recommend books which are extremely triggering just to screw the system and other people
February 2, 2015 — 4:11 PM
tolladay says:
I dunno if there is a “real” solution to trigger warnings, but I think its an interesting topic. Frankly I think it would be fun to have an on-line independent source that tracked what kind of trigger-warnings went with what kind of work. For those that don’t like to be surprised, it’d be a nice way to evaluate a work based upon their specific needs. We already already evaluate work based upon things like the author, the genre awards the work has won, etc. One more evaluator doesn’t sound like that big of a deal.
If such a trigger evaluator were available, it would also be handy if authors could upload a text file and get an immediate evaluation of their work. Don’t ask me how it would work, or if it is even possible, but as a “tech” idea I think it might be useful.
My only problem with all of this is that it tends to point the finger at the author, as if they are the only source of the trigger. When it comes to triggers I suspect the truth is more that reader is as much involved as the author. So do we then create a trigger evaluator for readers as well? Would it be useful to know that my triggers include violence and pastrami sandwiches when evaluating which book to read next? And do I have a separate set of triggers for movies? For TV? For rainy days?
As it happens I finished “Atlanta Burns” over the weekend. I had to set it down a few times as it started to make my heart race and affected my attitude (I was tempted to act like Mr. Cranky Pants). If I was at home this would not be a big deal, but since I was out in public it was another matter. In both cases was able to pick the book up later with no ill effect. I can’t recall another book changing my emotional state quite so much. I don’t know if this means I ran up against a trigger, was having a bad day, or what. At one point the book also made me LOL on the bus. Which makes me wonder 1) if there’s humor trigger, and 2) are we only looking for negative triggers and not positive ones?
February 2, 2015 — 4:54 PM
dianadiehl1 says:
I could make a shopping list of specific triggers for me; it would be impossible to create a specific trigger warning. So, I say, make a group trigger warning. “This book may contain one or more of the following trigger scenarios: torture, sexual assault, graphic or extended violence towards (including but not limited to children or animals), sociopathic manipulation, graphic bodily trauma, mass or serial murder, [etc. ]. Please see reviews containing spoilers if you need specifics.” Another level of trigger warning might say the same thing, but say that there are only references to topics such as these.
You can’t give away what is in your book. The problem is that this sort of warning will make even a book with a bad guy who kicks a dog sound like it’s a serial killer thriller, but you’ve done due diligence to protect readers who suffer PTSD or have other physical reasons to avoid dicey topics.
Books are a safe way to address some difficult situations. You can set them down, you can skip pages if you must. But if someone needs only Polyanna material ( t one time, my doctor said to watch or read no news, stay away from violent cinema, etc., for the health of my heart (arrhythmias + high anxiety are a drag)), a warning will help them skip the whole thing.
February 2, 2015 — 5:17 PM
Britt B says:
I really want to keep pointing out that feeling uncomfortable/offended and being trigger are not the same thing.
I am a rape victim. It happened almost a decade ago and triggers always were an irrational thing for me. I hear a lot of discussions or conversations of rape, and that can sometimes make me uncomfortable but it doesn’t trigger me. The more it is brought up, the more uncomfortable it is. As someone said in one of the above comments, hearing about rape and reading/seeing a rape scene are completely different. When I’m viewing media that might have several rape scenes, the uncomfortableness will grow, almost exponentially. If it’s especially graphic, it has the potential to trigger, but I’m the same way with any kind of realistic graphic violence. At that point I generally I turn it off and resume it at a later date when I’m feeling more up to it. I’ll probably feel exhausted by that point and the rest of the night I probably want to refrain from intimacy or other things that might be emotionally trying. I am not triggered, I am severely uncomfortable. Which is still not a good feeling.
I think this could sum up a lot of people though, no just those with PTSD. We don’t like to be reminded of weaknesses in our condition. I do get triggered, but not by EVERYTHING, like some people seem to think. And again, it’s not about thickness of skin. But I would appreciate going into something knowing that there will be a rape scene in case it’s one of those nights where I’ve hit a limit so I don’t have to feel shitty the rest of the night (a problem which seems to only have emerged in the last couple of years with an overabundance of rape conversations or depictions in media). I’m not being triggered, I’m just at my wits end. It really seems like there’s so much more rape in media that it isn’t ridiculous for me to say, “Hey, I can only handle like three rape scenes a day before I’m just really not enjoying anything the rest of the day.” I think it’s an incredibly overused device for female plot development (or worse, male hero motivation) but that’s for a completely different discussion.
Now when I’m triggered, that’s a completely different mess. Generally seeing coercion of any kind towards a woman or something really graphic/descriptive can put me into a fit where I can’t be touched at all with a lot of sobbing and whatnot and I have to sleep in a bed separate from my husband that night. This is what can’t be controlled. I don’t have a limit for this. I don’t have prediction meter for it. Sometimes something as simple as someone coming up from behind me in the dark can put me into a fit. It’s not because I’m seeing or thinking of rape, it’s because it REMINDS ME OF THE SITUATION. And that’s what a trigger is. I don’t expect anyone to ever really be able to predict that for me, or anyone for that matter, and then slap a label on something about it.
There are probably people out there that are a lot more sensitive to this than me. Sometimes consuming media that has touchy subjects in it can be helpful and open up discussion for some difficult topics for me. Other times, I don’t want to be FORCED to deal with it. I want my consumption to be on my own terms. I’m not telling you that no one wants it, to censor yourself, or even that I don’t want it. I’m just saying I would like to be able to make that decision for myself based on my mental stability that day.
***Now should we slap trigger warnings on everything? I don’t really think it’s reasonable to require it. Should we make people with PTSD look up absolutely every piece of media they want to consume up? I think that’s unreasonable too and probably not that helpful with more abstract triggers. I do think we should be a little bit more considerate though and maybe not shut people down for being “thin-skinned”. I’m not sensitive, and I’m overstimulated. If you rub someone enough, even softly, they’re gonna get raw. Maybe just consider being one of those considerate people who warns others, “Hey, this media might not be for you if…” and then let me decide if it’s for me. I’ll appreciate the thought.
With instances of things like sexual assault growing (or even combat related PTSD cases), you don’t know how much of your audience might be affected by it. People with PTSD might be more inclined to read the work of people who are willing to work with them as opposed to those assholes that say, “Not my problem”. I think it’s just human decency to respect your audience. No one is censoring you. All you’re doing is telling some people that maybe this piece might not be for you. Which is entirely different than telling someone that your entire body of work is not for you, which is what you do when you refuse to work with people or show any respect towards your audience. And that’s just marketing sense.***
I also want to thank you, Chuck, for having this little “warning”, if you will, about Atlanta Burns. I tend to devour just about everything you put out. Knowing that there might be upsetting things in Atlanta won’t stop me from reading it, it will just ensure that I make sure I’m in a good state of mind when I do.
February 2, 2015 — 5:26 PM
Britt B says:
Also, not sure if I got it across, but uncomfortable=annoyance. I don’t think as artist we should strive to not make people uncomfortable and challenge them. People need to grow and think about things. That’s kind of the whole point. But please, understand what a trigger actually is.
I DO think that maybe too many people are overusing the term “trigger warning” to the point where we don’t understand what triggers really are, and I believe this could be because of a shift in online culture/mental illness culture, where people with real, legitimate issues actually use the internet to find solace in a community of people who understand. People then misconstrue their intentions and see the frequency of phrases like “trigger” used so often and it becomes almost like a fad as they try to “own it”, not realizing that perhaps there’s just a lot of troubled people on the internet.
It delegitimizes it and makes people think that “trigger warnings” are about censorship. All they are is a warning to steer clear if it is going to give you a panic attack or something similar. They are not there to tell you about something that makes you uncomfortable or something you would just rather not think about. That right there is the true assholery: people who don’t like feeling uncomfortable making it harder for people who have legitimate issues. It’s like parking in a god damn handicap spot.
February 2, 2015 — 6:02 PM
Olive says:
If you can read, you ought to be able to find out if something is right for you. For God’s sake, live in the world. No one can make it safe for you. What, one of you who needs this thing, would you have it be?
February 2, 2015 — 6:37 PM
athenagrayson says:
Book Descriptions do multiple jobs, not the least of which is act as marketing copy to sell the book. Marketing copy is designed to tell you what you will love and why you must have this book, not why you want to run far away from it. It is a judgment call as to whether the entity putting the book up for sale is more interested in warning you away from personally offensive material, or in convincing you to drop five bucks for a product. And it’s not always all mercenary–IIRC, Samhain publishing used to put entertaining little content warnings like, “contains steamy pirate sex and inventive cursing with fashionable flair.”
But “trigger warning” is no substitute for actual reading comprehension, either. You could put up a book titled “COCKBARGE: A free short story about giant dongs in naval battles” and you will *still* get reviews that are shocked, shocked, Itellya, that there are dongs in the story, shocked about how short it was, and shocked that it takes place on a ship. And they’ll challenge your maritime history and also think they paid too much for it. Sometimes this is not the reviewer’s fault–there’s been more than one story about how an erotica made it into the “Christian fiction” categories, and I’m sure it’s happened the other way, too.
I know a lot of authors who endeavor to put content warnings in their book descriptions in YA or NA categories expressly to help curators determine the best age ranges for their works. And I think *that* is where the most help can come from for the people who need to identify actual trauma triggers (as opposed to “this makes me mildly uncomfortable/offended/fails to address my pet issue” warnings). Curation is going to do a LOT more via crowdsourcing than any single author or publisher could do. If you are susceptible to triggers, then chances are you already know or know of places and people to whom you go when you need safe haven. Acquiring the coping skills to manage your sense of safety is part of your trauma management–curating your reading material is better left to you and your mental health guides (be they professional or community-based, because they know *you* and they know trauma) than a random author of a random book who may not have the foggiest clue as to the nature of a trigger episode, or that they’re even writing something that could cause a trigger episode.
One other thing I find problematic about Trigger Warnings is that they may just interrupt the healing process. Enough people are suitably squicked by the “50 Shades” to object to its portrayal of an abusive relationship as something that is either desirable or an accurate representation of the BDSM lifestyle–but that is because they had the opportunity to encounter it at all. But the same thing that makes me panic at the idea of my daughter reading it and deciding that billionaire abuse is stalkeriffic twu wuv, makes me fear that some other book out there, about a person who triumphs over their abuse or trauma, might not reach out to someone in that same trauma and show them a path out of the dark. Books are inherently gateways to other worlds, and there’s always a chance that, even if you’re reading about something painfully close to home, instead of triggering trauma, it might trigger healing instead. And that’s where trauma-community curation would come in most helpful.
February 2, 2015 — 6:46 PM
Elizabeth says:
As a person with PTSD, I think that generally, people really, really don’t understand why trigger warnings are important, and in what situations they are helpful.
A trigger warning is there for those of us with such psychological disabilities (and yes, it is that severe that many of us have to go get declared as having a disability in order to participate in things like university classes–especially when sometimes, being enrolled at a university is the only way to get access to treatment). It’s there because CONTROLLED EXPOSURE to triggering material is important in mitigating the impact that PTSD has on one’s life. That’s not to say that we don’t ever read triggering materials. We do, and sometimes it’s actually *helpful* to read them. Engaging with triggering materials can sometimes be GOOD–but only when we’re in the frame of mind to be able to do that. Only when it’s NOT likely to completely take over and make it so that we can’t complete the other tasks that we are supposed to do. If I had adequate warnings, I wouldn’t engage with triggering materials right before I have some sort of deadline, for example.
But most of the time, you don’t get any sort of warning. And saying “oh, well you have a responsibility to research it beforehand” isn’t really helpful, because while I do try to do that, it’s not always something that’s actually possible. For example, say I watch a TV show regularly, and in general I’ve found it to be completely fine, with no triggers. But suddenly, there’s a plot twist which now DOES involve a triggering subject. This is the first time the episode has aired, so I wouldn’t be able to rely on other people to tell me before that comes up. So the plot twist happens and now I’m already triggered, but I have a choice: keep watching, or stop? If this is a show I’m watching as it airs, then I’m pretty invested in the show, so most likely I’ll keep going unless it’s really, really bad. But I’ll start to get more wary of the show, and treat it with greater caution in the future.
And there are of course triggers which are personal, and it’s totally unreasonable for me to expect anyone to know about, or warn me of. I would suggest that the only triggers we should reasonably expect others to care about enough to warn people about are the ones that are very common–especially various types of violence and abuse.
But all of those unexpected triggers ADD UP. And they’re pretty frequent, even if they’re minor. It’s a death-by-a-thousand-cuts type of scenario.
So while you’re not *required* to use trigger warnings, you really should be advertising what sort of content your book includes in SOME way (good blurbs don’t require trigger warnings, because they’re descriptive enough that it becomes redundant information). If you don’t, I’m gonna think you’re either bad at blurbs or kind of a dick (being too scared of “spoiling” your work to adequately advertise what kind of content it contains is kind of narcissistic, in a way–it assumes that everyone reads books for the same reasons, or the same reasons every time), or possibly both. (And btw, I should note that I’m using a general “you,” not talking about you specifically–the blurb for Atlanta Burns was fine as far as I could tell without reading it.)
The situation is different when it comes to blogging and assigning books in a classroom setting.
People blog because they are having discussions within their communities. Not using trigger warnings–or making fun of them–is a passive-aggressive way to marginalize people with PTSD, and edge them out of their own communities. It reduces trust, and makes talking about trauma with the community harder.
Teachers at universities have a responsibility to keep in mind the needs of disabled students, including those with PTSD (who again, may only be still enrolled because they need to stay there in order to get treated at all). That means being flexible enough to have alternative assignments available, allowing students with issues like PTSD to turn in assignments late, having ground rules about content warnings in creative writing workshops, and yes, providing warnings when the assigned material is especially likely to be triggering to students with histories of trauma. I’ve had many teachers not only fail at accommodation in that way, but also create a hostile environment by perpetuating rape myths and making other very inappropriate comments (these not just from literature teachers but also from things like Human Sexuality 101 teachers, who should *really* know better). Being in a hostile environment that you really can’t escape like that REALLY marginalizes people who have ALREADY been victimized. Many bright students just have to drop out because of this.
So… yeah. Trigger warnings are most appropriate for discussion settings like blogs, and especially important for classroom settings. Smart writers can certainly get by without resorting to using them if they’re good enough at blurbs, but the content SHOULD be advertised in some way–or else you’ll just marginalize readers who shouldn’t have been your target audience anyway, and probably get some bad reviews.
February 2, 2015 — 7:12 PM
Nina Bargiel (@slackmistress) says:
I’m someone who has worked with fight dogs and pit bulls in general so I knew that I would never read the book, but I am pretty confident that you, Mr W, would not make dogfighting seem glamorous. So I bought Bait Dog (or Kickstartered it?) but it was clear to me from the title that the novel could have easily been called TRIGGER WARNING. It was pretty clear to me that it would cover uncomfortable territory, so therefore I don’t think it needed a trigger warning. That said, I didn’t read the book. HEY I CAN SUPPORT PEOPLE WITHOUT FURTHER TORTURING MYSELF.
This was probably not useful at all.
February 2, 2015 — 7:17 PM
Chris Dangerfield says:
Trigger warning: I don’t feel like I have many specific triggers.
Maybe just subtle automatic ones. I tend to put books down that feature the abuse of children. I’m not (usually) upset that it was written, peopled do get to write what they want. However, I hit that scene in a book and if it’s not set up just perfectly to support an important idea, then I’m often triggered to quietly close the book and drop it in the bin of disposable lit… and if, from time to time, I miss a great book because I didn’t march through it to the end… then, oh well, my loss.
I will say that, just as with anything readers take objection to (misogyny, homophobia, racism, etc… etc…), I find that I’m usually moved to stay or go by what I “perceive” as the author’s purpose. If I think there’s an important idea there, I may stick with it, hoping that the end justifies the moment. If I think the author is just some pig getting his happies out of one of those subjects I’m not so keen on? Well, then I reserve the right to drop kick the book and move on.
My read? My choice.
February 2, 2015 — 7:50 PM
deadlyeverafter says:
I wrote a book, as yet unpublished, that deals with some taboo topics but as tastefully as I could treat them in the story. One of my beta readers was totally thrown by the mere allusions to the topic, and I apologized. I never intend to hurt with what I write, but if that’s part of the discovery a reader makes, it’s still a discovery. Reading should surprise you, shock you, change you. Trigger warnings be damned.
—Julie Turts
February 2, 2015 — 8:14 PM
steven novick says:
Chuck- I enjoy your blog. Thank you. Trigger Warnings? Seriously? Isn’t saying a book is YA or MG or Romance a trigger warning? Many books are going into the YA category simply to sell more books despite their content obviously dealing with issues teenagers do not have the capacity to process properly, just because the main characters are teenagers. Hmm… I guess “The Exorcist” by WPB should have been YA because the main character is eleven years old. Did that book have a trigger warning? Does that bother me? Do I blame authors or publishers for doing that just to sell more books? Atlanta Burns is not listed on amazon as a YA book. I applaud you and your publisher for listing a story about: “teenage drug use, bullying, references to sexual assault, lots of naughty language, teenage suicide, and a teenager who uses a gun to mitigate her problems” correctly. Adult books need no warnings. People can read reviews now. Trigger warnings make me MORE interested. Just like R rated movies- the more censors try to restrict what any age level tries to see the more titillating it becomes and the more everyone wants to see it read it or consume it.
February 2, 2015 — 8:32 PM
Lisa says:
I think a lot of people don’t understand that the idea of triggers is that they are worst when they catch you by surprise. Sure, some people will see a trigger warning and take it as a signal not to read/watch/etc. That’s their decision to make. For other people it just takes the surprise factor out of the equation, giving them a chance to take a breath and brace themselves before they white-knuckle through it. This makes triggering material more accessible for people who would otherwise have a bad experience and add you to their shit list.
February 2, 2015 — 9:02 PM
olivia (@CissyDudie) says:
I think it’s very important to include trigger warnings about certain things such as sexual assault, abuse, eating disorders, etc. Not because they might be uncomfortable for someone who hasn’t experienced these things but because they can be traumatic for those who have. They should know before reading something that it contains material that is triggering and choosing whether they are all right to read it or not.
February 2, 2015 — 9:55 PM
lisaoliver79 says:
I always include trigger warnings because all of my books are in the mm genre and are about the paranormal. Some topics I have included in the past is PTSD, sexual and domestic violence and self harm. Although none of the books are actually about those topics, because my main characters might have experienced them in the past, and they are bound to be discussed in that “whole getting to know you” part of the story, I think it is only fair to warn my readers before they read the book. I don’t want to cause upset to someone when I basically write books to help others feel good and I would far rather warn someone and have them not buy the book, than buy it, get upset with me and then want a refund for their purchase.
February 2, 2015 — 10:50 PM
wagnerel says:
I think it’s important to clarify that trigger warnings weren’t originally intended to protect people from things or ideas they find upsetting or distasteful, bot from things that trigger post traumatic incidents. I completely agree with the principles behind trigger warnings: a polite heads up, so people who are suffering post traumatic syndromes as a consequence of trauma can avoid reading about the kinds of things that are likely to trigger symptoms. The main problem I see is if more and more of us feel obliged to label anything that might reasonably be triggery to someone somewhere, or if we feel compelled to label anything that might simply be upsetting or uncomfortable for some readers, such warnings will become so ubiquitous that they’ll be meaningless. Like our movie rating system, where I have no way of knowing up front if the R rating is because a character drops a few f bombs, or if it’s because someone actually had sex on screen, or if it’s because someone was raped.
I think sexual assault and child abuse are biggies for trigger warnings, as these are the kinds of common experiences that are likely to give people PTSD. But there are other things that can too: combat scenes, disasters and so on. There may be fewer combat veterans or survivors of plane crashes walking around than rape victims, but this doesn’t mean their mental health isn’t important too.
So I just don’t know quite how to handle it either 🙁
February 2, 2015 — 11:01 PM
deliriumend says:
I think one of the problems books have that say, movies and television doesn’t but may add to, is that our genre system in a sense kind of looks like a rating system from the outside. Crime, Horror, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy come with things you can expect. Crime may very well involve psychological trauma and the not-so nice sides of people. Horror definitely will try to make you uncomfortable and scared. Sci-Fi and Fantasy will likely depict action and violence.
However, this becomes even worse from an outside perspective when you look at some of the newer less contest specific genres. Specifically the fact that we have “Children’s”, “Middle Grade,” “Young Adult,” and now “New Adult.” These genres specifically reference an age range, and in doing so imply that everything not in those genres is “Adult.” A 16 year old kid may feel like a Middle Grade or Children’s book is goofy/childish, and that is ok because those books are meant for a younger audience. However, others may love them.
Only, the thing is, is that Young Adult (which seams geared towards 13-17 year olds) has some of the darkest and most brutal worlds modern fiction has come out with. Atlanta Burns aside you have things like Battle Royale and the Hunger Games where teenagers are literally forced to fight to the death on national television for the amusement of others. Other young adult stories think nothing of dipping into aspects of sexual assault, assault and battery, abusive parents, and every other dark nook and cranny there is.
The authors write these things because they trust the Young Adults that read them can handle the stories, and yet if done to the same level of graphic violence the Hunger Games movies would be rated R (you have to be over 17 to see them) but the book, which also goes into the horror of things a lot more seems to have a “PG-13” rating because it is young adult.
How does this relate to triggers? Because maybe, for the genres that represent an age group and not a content choice, we should have them. Maybe someone deserves to know if the book they picked up for their 13 year old is going to have a graphic discussion of brutality and murder, or if it is going to instead be a really fun romp on a hobbit-esque adventure story. As it is, you never know which you’re going to get when you grab a book off that Young Adult shelf, and I can see how that could cause some people to be upset when they get blindsided by stuff they didn’t expect in a book aimed at younger audiences.
February 2, 2015 — 11:29 PM
Tracy Rowan says:
Where do we stop? It’s been my experience that however many warnings you can put on something, there will always be people who then lose their minds because their trigger warning was omitted. Who am I to say that a person who is triggered by the mention of the word “butterfly” is not as genuinely affected as someone who is triggered by scenes of sexual abuse? I don’t know their story, I don’t know why they get the shakes imagining a Monarch on a flower. I accept that it’s real, but do I warn for it? No.
Common sense suggests that if you are so fragile in some way that a written description can send you into a tailspin, you really need to address that issue before you pick up a work of fiction, or you need to talk to people who have read it and ask, “Does it talk about butterflies? Is there any mention of Monarchs?”
In the end, my warning would be: This book contains words and ideas. Use with caution.
February 2, 2015 — 11:42 PM
Tasha Turner says:
So you include the big trigger/trauma warnings. I think it’s reasonable to do that and those of us triggered by other things know we can’t expect warnings. Or should know better. If I know rape or child abuse is in a book I can choose to read it or not or when to read it. i have a fear of spiders I don’t expect that to ever be a warning on a book although I’m more likely to find spiders mentioned than rape in blurbs which is a problem when the book contains both. I’d prefer to be warned about the rape than the spiders.
I’ve been in therapy dealing with my issues due to childhood abuse and rape as an adult. I’m not a fragile hot house flower. But how many books in a row should I have to read with women/children abused and raped due to bad covers, mis-categorizing, and crappy blurbs? I read reviews and unless there are a number of negative ones I may not find out about the abuse & rape until it’s too late.
February 3, 2015 — 1:09 AM
torilynnslibrary says:
I agree, trigger warnings can definitely be spoiler-y! But you definitely have to be considerate when you’re writing about things like abuse and sexual violence. Whilst I’m all about diving right in, I know there are plenty of people who might not feel the same. It might make some people choose not to read your work, which sucks, but at the end of the day that’s what being a good author is, taking responsibility and looking out for your readers!
February 3, 2015 — 12:29 AM
warjna says:
I believe that good cover blurbs can serve as trigger warnings without being spoilers. And, of course, some genres can serve as trigger warnings in and of themselves. As an example, one does rarely finds explicit or strongly written rape or abuse scenes or the like in straight romance novels, while they are more likely to be found in thrillers, mysteries and action/adventure novels.
One quote I’ve found that may help explain my outlook is this: “Your heartache is someone else’s hope. If you make it through, somebody else is going to make it through. Tell your story.” — Kim McManus. That said, no-one should be forced to read something that will make them uncomfortable (and don’t think I use that word to lessen the impact!) in any way. Another quote that goes with this is from G. K. Chesterton: “Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons [or monsters] exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed.”
I don’t believe I have ever read a book in which trauma and suffering have been left to stand. Obviously, that doesn’t mean that there are none, just that I haven’t run across such. And if I did, I would be very wary of reading another of that author’s books! But I believe that most books do not include such things gratuitously; rather, that they are there to show that dragons can be killed.
Books should give hope. Such evils, whether Sauron and Saruman and Shelob in the Lord of the Rings series, or psychopathic serial killers in Kay Hooper’s Bishop/Special Crimes Unit series, or the Prophet in S. M. Stirling’s Change series, must be painted black in order for the heroes to prove themselves worthy and prevail.
I have done this in the series of books I am working on now. They do contain rape (not explicit!), physical abuse (some explicit), and mental/emotional abuse, as well as the threat of harm to a child. My antagonist uses all these to force my heroine to betray her House. She willingly undergoes this trauma to protect the child, but shows her moral strength by not only overcoming it but using it to turn the tables on her tormentor. (As well as learning some lessons herself along the way.)
I asked several of my friends to read and comment on the first book, but if they expressed interest in doing so I gave them a complete trigger warning first because there are no cover blurbs or websites for them to research. Many of my friends have been through their own ordeals (as have we all, frankly!), and I wanted to make sure they were safe. That is my responsibility! But once a book is published, the cover blurb is there to give the warning. My logline is this: A courageous young woman, once the victim of a psychopath, must face another to save a young girl on an alien world. The cover blurb would expand on that.
Do I believe there should be a trigger warning, or perhaps a rating system? No. Who would devise it? Who would monitor it? Do I believe that we have a responsibility to our readers? Yes, I emphatically do. And I believe that they are best served by our using the same quality and standards in writing the cover blurb as we used in writing the book itself.
February 3, 2015 — 4:58 AM
Ed says:
I think they are useful up to a point. For example parents wanting to chose things for thier children. Hoowever i really have to wonder when films have them and we see things like “contains mild peril”. Either you in peril or your not, how can peril be mild!!!!!!!
Makes my blood boil!
February 3, 2015 — 6:17 AM
Marge says:
I’m all for options.
I look up IMDB’s parental advisory sometimes when I intend to watch a movie. I like that the option exists to look at it, to read that yes, this movie features certain things, and now that I know I can decide whether I feel good enough to deal with it.
It’s the option that I like. I wouldn’t want trigger warnings in the book itself, but being able to find a review or two mentioning that the book features certain things is nice.
(I’ll be honest, I read mostly fanfic, where these things are usually well-warned, and often the dark stuff is the whole point the story gets written. If I want my non-con I know where to find it, if I don’t want it, I’d rather not stumble upon it.)
February 3, 2015 — 12:52 PM
Beth Bernier Pratt (@bbpratt) says:
I have no idea how to create any kind of system of trigger warnings for books. How to deal with spoilers, with censorship, with any of the other issues that arise, I just don’t know.
But I have read a couple books that I really wish I’d known ahead of time what to expect. An example is when I had a new baby and I read a novel in which a subplot concerned an instance of truly horrific child abuse of a newborn. I had nightmares for months, and still occasionally do. If I’d known what was in that book, I wouldn’t have read it, or at least not at that particular point in my life.
The negative for the author of that book is that as a reader, I’ll never again read this person’s work, nor works by authors who appeared on an Amazon page as “readers also bought” with this author, and would actively discourage friends from reading those books as well. Plus, the source of the recommendation to read this book is also forever tainted for me.
February 3, 2015 — 1:42 PM
Karina Cooper says:
Warning: Some triggers, naturally.
I am conflicted. On the one hand, I suffer—like many of us—from severe triggered reactions. Panic attack, all messed up, and sometimes, self-harm-inducing level of reaction. They are sadly triggered by a common enough trope or two, and it’s something I have learned I have zero control over. Unless, of course, someone is kind enough—in blurb, a review that I happen to catch, or as a trigger warning—to warn me.
The warning doesn’t serve to push me away. It serves as “more data” I can use to then decide if I am in a place where I can handle the trigger or not. If I can read about that thing that triggers me, and how the characters overcome or deal with, and end up stronger for it—or if it’ll result in blood on the floor. And I find that what a trigger warning DOES give me is the opportunity to brace myself so that I CAN push through to the end—read about a person who overcomes what I am struggling with, give me hope.
If I were to just stumble across it with no warning, I’m more likely to put the book down. So there’s that.
But my responsibility IS to handle it. To make the best choice I can.
The problem with that is, of course, it requires that trigger knowledge to be out there. Somewhere. And preferably in a way that doesn’t require a LOT of digging.
On the other hand, I am a content creator—I’m a writer, and I write about things that get pretty borderline. Sometimes cross the border. I don’t want someone to be scared away from the story of redemption or overcoming because I mention a trigger warning. And I worry about what will happen if the government or some corporation gets involved with rating my books.
But because I suffer from triggers, I understand the need. Catch-22.
In the end, I don’t have a lot of answers. I can just go by what I think is best for me, and it’s this realization that I’ve come to: it’s not MY right to tell YOU what you can or can’t read, it’s not my job to force upon you a book. It’s just not my right to make that choice for you. It’s my job to give you all the information in a way I am comfortable with. Whether it’s trigger warnings, adult warnings, dedicated blurb descriptions that say what trigger warnings are meant to, or whatever.
I don’t want to sneak my book past someone with serious issues. But I also can’t be responsible for someone with serious issues who looks past the data offered and is triggered.
It’s my job to handle my triggers, and I truly hope that every author I read really does try to make it clear what their books are about in some way or another—at least out of courtesy, if nothing else. I mean, who wants to pick up a book that looks like it’s X and then find out the blurb is shady and it’s actually about Y? That data is, to me, the best we can do without formalizing some kind of corporate rating, which I am not a fan of.
But I also don’t like this thread of “if you’re triggered by things, just don’t read” that ends up occasionally thrown out in these sorts of discussions.
There’s a middle ground. In a perfect world, that rests in the hands of blurbs and marketing, but we don’t always get a say in how trad pubs market or write the blurbs. It’s an imperfect solution, at the moment.
I guess what it comes down to for me is that I recognize that triggers exist, and I recognize that I need to try and do my best to ensure that what I market makes it clear that it’s a book that may trigger certain things, but the responsibility really is shared between creator and consumer. And common sense. If a reader picks up a book about a serial killer, “violence” should be a given. If a reader picks up a mainstream romance, “sex” is likely.
But if it’s a dark suspense romance that also includes depictions of child abuse, does it need a trigger? Well, at the very least, I’d like to know it exists—in the blurb (“Detective Jack Salome is on the trail of a child prostitution ring…”) or on the website or something. That’s true marketing AND a trigger warning, all wrapped up in one.
As I said, conflicted. Maybe I just wish that everyone’s marketing could be trusted. And that all readers did some due diligence. Data’s not THAT hard to find—if the data is honest, anyway.
But more often than not, a trigger warning ends up being a CYA statement for the people who don’t get subtext. They need it spelled out, so that the publisher or whomever can go, “IT SAYS RIGHT HERE THE COFFEE IS HOT.”
I wonder how long before a reader sues an author/pub for emotional distress.
February 3, 2015 — 3:59 PM
T. Jane Berry says:
Content note: Profanity, description of grave injuries
Sometimes, this discussion veers into a defense of triggers. Why it’s good to shock yourself. Why it’s morally justified to shock others in service to a cause. What pussies we’ll become if we block ourselves off from challenging material. The futility of trying to block all triggering material from your life.
And this not that discussion.
This is a discussion of the warning itself. Of the social obligation of the content creator to let others know there is a challenging path ahead. Yes, warnings are imperfect. How am I to know that the sound of a vacuum triggers memories of your sexual assault? But we, as crappy humans looking to become less crappy humans, should always strive to do the least injury to others. Put the goddamn line before the story.
Early on in the days of the internet, a friend linked me to a website called Something Awful. Which was, as the title claimed, awful. But I was a newbie and I clicked, finding an image that is seared into my brain to this day. A man in the ER, after a helmetless motorcycle accident, jaw torn (or sanded) off by contact with the pavement. His blood-soaked and impossibly-long tongue lolls out, straight downward. His eyes are round and alert, asking, “Why the fuck are you taking a picture while my jaw is over there on a metal tray?” The link was intended as a practical joke, so I wasn’t offered a warning. Had I been given a warning, I might have clicked, but only after careful reflection and the conscious choice to do so. We are not pandering to others’ weaknesses by offering them a choice, we are handing them the power of self-governance.
We also need to stop calling these “trigger warnings” — it puts the focus on those who experience effects from challenging content and inevitably leads to a kind of macho “I don’t experience anxiety at anything” one-upmanship. As if the father who feels nauseated after seeing a photo of a stranger’s deceased child is somehow a lesser man for his reaction. He should suck it up and get over his deep protective instincts. There’s bad shit in the world, buddy, and you should have to look at ALL OF IT.
I use the term “content note” and I urge other writers to do the same. The task is simple. Note the content that will likely be challenging for your intended audience. Chuck, you list the usual suspects in your post and that is a fine place to start. A sentence that says: “Content note: graphic depiction of internal injuries” does not in any way spoil Palahniuk’s “Guts.” I’d make content notes standard on the copyright page, where they can be found, but only by someone who cares to read them.
I put a content warning at the start of this post. Did it mar your experience? Did it pussify you? Or did you know what was coming and choose to forge ahead, confident in your self-knowledge and decision-making ability?
February 3, 2015 — 4:06 PM
scrivare says:
May I share some information with you guys? Those of you who describe such a high sensitivity to your triggers. My therapist practices a trauma treatment known as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing or EMDR. It worked on me and my little woes and it works on vets with PTSD and girls with eating disorders, etc. It’s an amazing, wonderful treatment and it works. http://www.emdr.com/general-information/what-is-emdr.html. This is the way to desensitize yourself from your past and ease those triggers, perhaps even defuse them completely. Of course, there’s ifs and buts. Years of counseling will not take the place of this treatment. Please at least read the website or let me know if you want me to share my experience with you, which I’d be happy to do.
Be well
Holly
February 3, 2015 — 4:16 PM
bardgirlwahoo says:
I wish there had been a warning about animal violence on Headhunter, by Michael Slade. If there had been, I wouldn’t have read it. There was a scene in that book that makes me cry every time I think about it, and it’s been over seven years. I desperately wish I could remove my memory of it. I can deal with violence against humans (or I wouldn’t have picked up a book about a serial killer), but violence against animals upsets me terribly. *sniff* Excuse me, I have to go hug my cat.
February 3, 2015 — 4:28 PM