Trigger Warnings?

[Peyton Stafford]

I’m undecided.

I think trigger warnings on screen are a good thing, because the visual can grab you suddenly, before you have time to register what’s happening and switch it off.
But when reading something, one usually has the time to suspect if one is not going to cope with this and stop reading.
(That said, there was a Stephen King I got recommended to me that had a scene in it I still can’t get out of my head and which still leaves me feeling sick. ‘Contains graphic content’ on the back cover would have been helpful).

There was a time, when I had actual PTSD after the deeply traumatic birth of my son, when I couldn’t be in the same room as a tv with someone on it giving birth - even a comedy birth - without shaking, and going into a state of deep terror.
(And after my sister was murdered, I had to closely monitor the levels of violence on the kids cartoons - no Ninja Turtles for them at our house, for about a year or two - for the same reasons. I was having the same response.)

I don’t consider myself a snowflake. I was not offended by things: I was triggered. And that is different.

So i think trigger warnings on screen are vital. But on books?
I wonder….perhaps things that relate to child abuse, for instance, things that will have affected a person at an age when it will have led to real trauma, rather than dislike - maybe a warning, carefully worded, might be appropriate?
Just my thoughts.

Thank you. I was thinking of them as warnings about objectionable content, not about content that would provoke an overwhelming reaction or add to someone's trauma. We all deal with trauma (or not) as we are able. Springing it on someone without warning is wrong.

 

[Hannah F]

I wouldn't put a possibly triggering event as the opening scene. I think it's important to get to know the character and build an insight into how they cope during/after. Or if the character is the perpetrator, why? What in their persona/background/reasoning has lead to this?

Novels which hit us with triggering (to some) topics e.g. domestic abuse, suicide, grief, may indeed trigger the reader, but that is not always a bad thing. It is likely to trigger because #MeToo. So the reader has an ally in the book. Someone else, all be it fictional, has gone through the same or similar trauma. The tears will come. The sitting on the floor hugging the knees. The run like the wind just to get it out of your system. But still, there's a catharsis in not being the only one.

 

[Peyton Stafford]

What about including a triggering scene deep in the story, after the reader has suspended disbelief and begun trusting the narrator? I'm sure everyone has a few examples to bring to mind. How to telegraph this to potential readers without giving away the story?

 

[Barbara]

I've been thinking about this and I'm no closer to an answer.

And this following is in regards to adult fic and in regards to triggers which may cause upset. And I'm also assuming the sensitive subjects are handled respectfully in the writing and the writing isn't set out to deliberately hurt.

So here goes. Some of my musings in a slightly chaotic layout. I have more questions than answers.

TWs are there to safeguard the potentially vulnerable reader.

I can't decide where the responsibility to save guard the reader lies. The book creators or the readers? Probably both. With freedom of speech comes responsibility for the output. We can either choose to speak responsibly or not. Again we are free to decide which of these two paths we take. But there's also responsibly in the listening. We can choose how we react to what we hear.

Thing is, if someone is emotionally wobbly, triggers are everywhere: in a convo we overhear on a bus, the news, a phone call to an old friend who has rung to catch up, a song, a poster in a shop asking folk to look out for modern slavery, a meerkat advert. Books.

How do we rule which triggers need warnings and where? Does the poster about modern slavery hanging in the shop need a trigger warning because it might upset a survivor? Do charity adds need TW? (I get very upset at animal cruelty and swtich off) If the charity adds have TWs they may raise less money because people switch off quicker. They consciously use triggers to prompt us to donate. Is it ok to not have a TW in this case because it raises money for a good cause? Where does it end?

In books how do we decide what and how much of the 'what' is suitable for who? Do we cater for everyone's need and scenario? Could we even? What triggers do we 'cater' for? Who decides?

Or do we trust the readers to make their own decisions of what they can cope with by avoiding certain genres and filter their choices via blurbs?

Is it even right for me as an author to decide what a reader can and cannot cope with? I'm making decisions for them. Should I? By doing that am I taking away their agency (is that the right word?). I'm choosing for them. Most of us want to protect others, which is lovely but when is it too far.

How do I decide how much violence for example is too far? Can I even know? Everyone has a different tolerance. How do we decide on the tolerable levels, and at what point our work needs a TW?

Or do we trust the readers to be adult about it and safeguard themselves, like @Vagabond Heart did by avoiding potential triggers and not watch certain programs? Do we trust a reader to find their feet again after having read a triggersome scene? Is it morally and karmically correct for the creator of the book to control others in that way, even with the intention it's for their own good? Who are we to say what's in their own good? Some people need to be triggered to make changes in life. Some people need confronting their pain full on. Who are we to decide that helping someone avoid a trigger (of a similar scenario that they've been through) is right for them? (That was bad English, sorry.) We can't decide what is right for others. Healing involves confronting the pain. Does a TW take away an opportunity to help confront the pain and hence rob them of a moment towards healing? I just don't know.

Reading about a similar trauma can give the feeling of 'not being alone', of being understood. And if it's fiction it feels safer to confront than reality. It might help us work through our own trauma. But if there's a stark, cold TW, someone might not pick the book up. If we write a scene that addresses ... I dunno, miscarriage for example, if handled right it could be helpful to someone. But someone who experienced it may not pick up the book seeing a TW, and hence not read something that might have even given them comfort because it was written in the right way.

And we can't go through life, continuously monitoring our output in case someone might be triggered. We'd walk on eggshells. I do worry that humanity is becoming less emotionally resilient. And yet, when we write we have one opportunity when we can put a warning out.

I read a book a while back with a scene with a dog. The moment I realised what was about to happen I skipped it. Yes I could have done without even knowing about that scene. I didn't want to see the Misery foot scene either. But I didn't expect the author to take charge of my emotional life. It's fiction and most animal charity adds are worse and that depicts reality, sadly, which makes me sick. Actually had this particular book had a trigger warning on the cover warning about the dog, I'd not picked it up and would have missed out on an otherwise good read. So where's the balance? Again I don't know.

There are lots of things in life I don't like seeing. That's life. Obvs if someone is in a vulnerable state their tolerance is lower. Still, it's life, I've been there, it sucks. It would be nice if everyone was happy and pain free. That's unrealistic. A few years ago I was beyond wobbly. At one point I consciously stayed out of the kitchen because I knew that had I gone in there I'd have take a knife and I wouldn't be here to type today (that might or not be a good thing ). But when I was in that dark place, I didn't expect others to have the burden of protecting me from pain. It's my life. I owned the pain. Someone else had caused the pain, but it was up to me how to go from there: to stay in it and or move beyond. I knew that I had to feel it and work through it to get to the other side. Would a trigger in a book have sent me over the edge? I'm fairly sure it wouldn't have. Real life was worse. Would a TW have helped me? No. I would have thought it patronising of the author to decide what is a) good for me in my state (who are they to tell me) and b) what I can and cannot cope with. But that's me. Others might be different.

Here's a thought: do we put TWs inside the book itself, i.e.this following scene may not be suitable for xyz?

Should there be a movie style system on books, as in over 18? Then we know it may contain challenges.

Another thing. There will be people who will read something exactly because of the TW. Put the words 'sexually explicit' on a cover and I bet the sales go up.

I'm writing Mia. About a young woman who was trafficked and is now trying to overcome her past. Do I put the warning "scenes of child abuse'? Will there be some prev who picks the book up because of that? Probably. Am I now complicit? I'd like to think not as I can't control what others choose to do and because this isn't that kind of book, and yet that nagging feeling that I would be remains. The scenes are only hinted at via Mia's backstory musings, not explicit. Just her telling us it happened, (not what happened) to understand her now. That guy (or woman) will have picked it up because of the trigger, and he did because I'd have put it there. Do I change the warning and simply say 'unsettling scenes'? That, though, could mean anything and doesn't flag the trigger to the people who have experienced similar.

And (the lawyers among you will be able to help on that one, @RK Capps ) if we put a trigger warning... are we now liable? We have just admitted that the content can cause distress. Does that make us liable? Like the person who put a 'beware of the dog' sign on the front garden gate and who then got sued by and lost against someone who was bitten, and then had to put the sign 'German Sheppard lives here'?

So I'm no further with an answer. But I do believe that we have to take charge our own emotional lives and avoid looking for blame outside ourselves. That's not always easy or possible but at least we can try.

Parents want to protect the children. It's in our nature. But parents also understand that sometimes a child has to get hurt and that sometimes it has to cry.

 

[Pamela Jo]

For me Vagabond nailed it. Unbelievably the first copy if IT had all the boys having sex with the girl character as a way of bonding them to fight the monster..... Ok King was a stone cold drunk at the time, but remember that got published. It wasn't changed until much later.
I'm not totally against censorship for visual media. Whatever goes into your head stays there. There is still ongoing research into how children can be sexually aroused by rape and violent images and how that affects what arouses them as adults.

I would think the genre and blurb act as TW for print. But again motivation has to come into it. Are you writing gore porn because you think appealing to the lowest human appetites will get you read? It's certainly worked over the last 2 decades. As Jason so artfully captured.

On the other hand a friend who is Asian and teaching at at Columbia got nailed by some white students in dreadlocks for her lack of TW in discussions about slavery. They were doing a degree in Afro-American studies and felt the descriptions of what happened to the slaves too painful to see depicted without a TW. That is the point my brain switches to BOGGLE mode and can't even.

The only time I've had requests for warnings is for Pitch Wars when almost all the readers said if you are going to cause harm to an animal in your book I don't want to read it. Every agency I've seen has a warning -no violent rape depictions, or violence to a child. If it needs a TW for anything like that I don't think you are going to find a publisher. Personally I don't think the Marquis de Sade should have.

 

[RK Wallis]

And (the lawyers among you will be able to help on that one, @RK Capps ) if we put a trigger warning... are we now liable? We have just admitted that the content can cause distress. Does that make us liable? Like the person who put a 'beware of the dog' sign on the front garden gate and who then got sued by and lost against someone who was bitten, and then had to put the sign 'German Sheppard lives here'?

TW's could honestly open a bag of worms in some jurisdictions (though I hope not. I hope I'm wrong). But it just takes a suitably injured party to find one litigious lawyer, and it's game on. Lawyers would only go after authors if they had money though, that might be the JK Rowling's and Brandon Sanderson's, but it could just be an author with a decent house. I haven't heard of anyone suing Netflix (and co) yet, so maybe authors are safe. I imagine TWs a bigger concern for the self-published because with traditionally published, the publishing house takes over control (as I understand it) and they have more money. Did I ever mention how glad I was to have a stroke and get out of that toxic money hungry world, lol?

 

[Barbara]

Are you writing gore porn

Pam, I just want to check /clarify with you, because my post above yours mentioned Mia, and I'd hate for anyone to get the wrong idea about what I'm writing.

With that, are you asking me, or is it a general question? Im just wondering because your post follows mine and I wasn't sure because of the 'you'.

If you're asking me, then no. That's not what im writing. Far from it. Mia is a character journey. The book has difficult topics and themes. It's about a young woman who was trafficked when she was a teen. She's now trying to let go of her past to make a life. It's about her, trying to let go and heal. Anything that's happened to her is hinted at as opposed to described just so the readers understand her. But the scenes might still trigger someone which is why I mentioned it.

I'm just checking with you to make sure Mia isn't misunderstood. I'd hate for anyone to think I'm writing gore porn. Reading back over my post, I realised the way I had written it could easily have been misunderstood by someone who hasn't heard me talk about her, so I've now amended my post to make it clearer.

I hope you don't mind me asking.