InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "contemporaneous documentaion!"

janecarnall (janecarnall) wrote,
@ 2009-06-23 22:07:00

Current mood:	indescribable
Entry tags:	meta, my fanfic, on writing, warnings

Without doubt I am going to go to hell
I read this.

And it made me think two things:

1. I do get the point of having "If you want to read it, there's a warning associated with this story". Except I also agree much more strongly with this (from livejournal, three years ago) and this from fanfic symposium: warnings are not obligatory.

2. But given that, as she outlined very clearly, a trigger may be something as unexpected as calculus - ought we all then to warn for every event in the story, since any event may be triggering?

I don't want to cause anyone unwanted distress.

But if you read my stories, you should know that I want to harrow up your emotions like a fork in butter frosting: to make you cry, make you laugh, turn you on, startle you like a thin knife that pierces your heart before you know your skin is broken, suck you in as if I were a black hole and you were my light, make you shake, make you shiver, melt your brain, make you keep coming back -

...if you want me to do that to you.

If you don't, you shouldn't read my stories.

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whatho
2009-06-24 02:09 am UTC (link)

Yes, fair enough. Certainly getting a sense of a writer's style and usual themes is advisable, and you can do that by asking around. I think research is a lot more sensible. As writers can't know what will and won't affect people, common themes aside, surely it makes more sense from everyone's point of view for the onus of the reader's comfort to be on the reader.

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janecarnall
2009-06-24 03:12 am UTC (link)

Over on dreamwidth (I think) the author of the first piece was arguing with one of the anti-warning fans about how one in four women have been sexually assaulted and so need trigger warnings for stories about rape or other non-consensual sex.

But I am one of her "one in four" - though nothing as terrible as what happened to her happened to me - and I hate being "warned" for most plot twists. There are things I do not care to read and wish I hadn't read, but not enough to want warnings on them, because in general I want to get to read a story for the first time.

And I think - if you know you are in the state of mind where reading something upsetting will really knock you off balance - this is a state of mind for re-reading. Stories I already know I like. No warning necessary because I already know what happened.

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whatho
2009-06-24 03:51 am UTC (link)

There are things I don't want to encounter, especially in film (oddly I seem to lack most issues in prose), and I've largely managed to avoid such things, which suggests there is a level of summarisation I find useful. I wouldn't, for example, want to see animal abuse or graphic violence or vomiting, say, and generally I can read reviews or take heed of BBFC warnings or just ask people (which, online, includes the author of the piece) about the content. Sometimes that's gone wrong and I've very much felt I wished I hadn't seen/read whatever it was, but I can't say I ever felt it was the business of the author to keep me away. Most authors give nothing away pre-publication and it's the reviewers you have to depend on. Basically I sort of take it as a racing incident. If you read or watch or listen, one day it'll happen.

But ... I do think there are things it's far easier for a writer to say than they are for a reader to hear and it's easy for me to be blase. While I think a reader would be running a risk to assume all authors are going to protect, I've no objection to being courteous in a medium where that's facilitated. I gather quite a lot of this discussion (I'm reading through a lot of it now) centres on the question of what to do if someone comments on your fic and points out that something in it is triggery, not as a judgement or anything but as info. I think that counts as the reader's taking care of her own state of mind and I don't want to hurt people, so I guess I'd take it into account. As I say, I've never encountered many of these issues: my readership's always been very small and I don't particularly consider anyone beyond it because I assume they're not reading. While I'd follow community procedure, I don't summarise in my LJ. I think I've gone as far as 'quite dark' in the knowledge that people can ask me for further info or give it a miss (I think it's important to bear in mind that 'giving it a miss' is always a valid option and that no-one's being forced to read anything). As it is, I know that there are people on my flist for whom self-harm is an issue and as such I'd warn for it, and if someone commented that a certain uncommon image or what have you had had a certain effect on them I'd bear them in mind in the future.

It's deathfic that really stalls me though. By and large that's a heck of a plot point to reveal at the very beginning and a lot of the time you may as well not write the story. I guess, again, fic differs from other media because your characters have a fanbase already in place and a lot of that base will be happy to read a fic they've been completely spoiled for because one major purpose of fic-reading is to see that character in action regardless of whether or not you know what's coming plot-wise - it depends what my goal is, but I occasionally read fanfic in a non-linear way if plot isn't my foremost concern. But even so I can't quite shake the thought of what it'd do to my narrative. I guess it's pretty privileged of me to be able to think 'I don't want to warn for it because it hurts my story' when the other side of the argument might want me to warn for it because it hurts them personally ... but most fiction isn't going to be courteous and I can't help feeling that this is the risk if you're going to read. There's research, reviews, further questioning, choosing not to read. I really think there are better ways for readers, writers and narratives than relying on a warning system that may or may not cover you specific needs.

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whatho
2009-06-24 03:59 am UTC (link)

(I was going to clarify that I would always warn for self-harm regardless of who I thought was reading it because I don't want to trigger further self-harm in anyone. Then it occurred to me that I'd written about self-harm in a non-fic albeit unpublished way but for which there isn't any opportunity to warn potential readers. I think that really highlights the necessity of relying on something other than warnings.)

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janecarnall
2009-06-24 04:28 am UTC (link)

I wrote about a character self-harming: I did not warn for it: I sent it off to a friend who I knew had self-harmed (though I wasn't thinking about that when I sent it to her - she'd been reading the fic piece by piece as I wrote it, and I certainly wasn't going to stop now) and her reaction was, summarised: "Wow, yes, that's exactly what it feels like."

I appreciate that sometimes, some people, for some things, reading prose about something very upsetting is going to cause extreme emotional upset. But the dividing line isn't going to be between "People who have experienced that in RL" and "People who have not" (which is what this person was arguing on DW): it's something else.

(I had the TV on recently and there was a scene which, I suddenly realised, was probably going to end in some messy painful physical damage with which I would be unable to cope, and I leapt up and switched it off. Yet I could probably have read it without difficulty. I think. But even the tense buildup was something I didn't want to see.)

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whatho
2009-06-24 04:57 am UTC (link)

But the dividing line isn't going to be between "People who have experienced that in RL" and "People who have not" (which is what this person was arguing on DW): it's something else.

Yes, agreed. It's way too complicated to pin down. I don't know enough about it, stuff, the world in general, but I've sort of been assuming that the majority of people have triggers of some description - hopefully not, the majority of the time, connected to traumatic events, but present nonetheless. I kind of think reading/viewing with an awareness of the risks is relevant for everyone. It's how I choose to operate anyway.

Currently in the discussion I'm reading the responses to the [para]phrase 'acting that way puts you in danger ergo don't do it' ain't a great thing to say to an abuse survivor, which, yes. As I say, I would warn for most dark themes that people expect to be warned for in this medium, and I suppose the different expectations in different media do come into play. And yet I still think it's safer for every single reader to read awarely - I don't think awarely is a word - but I really don't want that to sound judgemental. I don't know. Reading has risks. Currently I'm glad I'm largely into comedy fandoms. This is all quite outside my fic-writing experience. Not my other writing though, and I am very interested in questions about writing and responsibility ... how abuse and writing abuse relate to one another.

Yet I could probably have read it without difficulty. I think. But even the tense buildup was something I didn't want to see.

It's interesting. I can read about things I'd never dream of watching as well. Not entirely sure why, but I expect it's because if I'm reading I controlling the way I see and hear the imagery - there's much less of a sense of its being overwhelmingly forced on me as it would if I were in a cinema.

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