Friday, June 26th, 2009 10:20 am
warnings, spoilers, and everything
A few more links on the warning debates:
Anonymous and Shopfront talk here about triggering, automatic thinking, and the effects.
shopfront goes into more detail here.
Warning: Both these contain links to and descriptions of mental illness, self-harm, and suicide.
Like
impertinence's essay Sexual Assault, Triggering, and Warnings: An Essay (Warning: Very explicit discussion of sexual assault and the nature, anatomy, cause & effect of triggers. Is itself triggery.), both are frank descriptions of how triggers work for them and the effects of this kind of mental illness. The first link I've been following since the thread started and highly, highly recommend reading the conversation; the second link I read this morning and am still thinking about.
All of these reflect, with specific examples and reasons, why a warning system for readers with triggers is so important and the absolute necessity of writers making sure people have the tools to choose whether to read their fic.
I recommend reading both of these.
Added Thoughts
Months ago, someone did a review on a fic of mine that surprised me regarding how I structure a story (I am not one to give away information early in the story if I can piecemeal it out in drabs before dropping the major arc right on top of the reader). It wasn't something I'd noticed consciously, but suffice to say, the fact I tend to use a single line or two from a story as a summary should tell you how much in general I loathe giving away anything I don't have to on a fic before it is read. I really hate it. It drives me nuts. This is where I admit, yes, apparently I do have a goddamn artistic temperament about this sort of thing, and you have no idea what it cost me to say that, because I never thought I did.
( longer entry is longer than expected )
Anonymous and Shopfront talk here about triggering, automatic thinking, and the effects.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Warning: Both these contain links to and descriptions of mental illness, self-harm, and suicide.
Like
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
All of these reflect, with specific examples and reasons, why a warning system for readers with triggers is so important and the absolute necessity of writers making sure people have the tools to choose whether to read their fic.
I recommend reading both of these.
Added Thoughts
Months ago, someone did a review on a fic of mine that surprised me regarding how I structure a story (I am not one to give away information early in the story if I can piecemeal it out in drabs before dropping the major arc right on top of the reader). It wasn't something I'd noticed consciously, but suffice to say, the fact I tend to use a single line or two from a story as a summary should tell you how much in general I loathe giving away anything I don't have to on a fic before it is read. I really hate it. It drives me nuts. This is where I admit, yes, apparently I do have a goddamn artistic temperament about this sort of thing, and you have no idea what it cost me to say that, because I never thought I did.
( longer entry is longer than expected )