Trigger warnings in stories

[KeithD]

How about this as a trigger warning:

Assume my story will trigger you and proceed accordingly.

Or take responsibility for yourself and read on some nonadult story site.

This all points to the downslope of readers not taking responsibility for themselves and expecting the writers to babysit them--each and every one of them. That's not going to happen with me, so all of those readers should observe the guidance to read someone else.

 

[Aerolineas]

An author here has trigger warnings at the beginning of stories regarding the inclusion of de-caffeinated coffee, broccoli, rhubarb, and similar items.

 

[vladm]

First, I can't believe someone is so offended or triggered by things that they see while reading a story on a website that they read in the downstairs bathroom after midnight with their sweatpants around their croc-ed feet. If so, then the universe at large must be super terrifying. I identify in my bio thing my stories' and future stories' themes, and these may appear regardless of posted category. I try my best to do tags too. I can't be bothered to go past this, and I'll accept the bad grade anyone wants to toss for this.

Second, how DO we get that italicized special disclaimer part on some stories?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Second, how DO we get that italicized special disclaimer part on some stories?

Ask Laurel nicely. One of my recent stories has both a transgender theme and an incest theme. I asked Laurel to put it in T & C, not I & T, which she did, with an Editor's Note at the top.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Who is responsible for the "bad" change?

According to the online Etymology dictionary, "trigger" as a noun has existed in English since the 1650's, and similar spellings existed prior to that. "Trigger" in the sense of "cause something to happen" has existed since the 1930's. It's use in psychology to mean "to cause an unusual negative emotional response in a person" came about by 1986.

If anyone changed the use of the term, it was the psychology community.

I addressed this in the post immediately above the one you're replying to:

I'm sure you have enough experience with the English language to be well aware that a word may have a general meaning in one context, while also having a much more specific and technical meaning in another context. The existence of the former doesn't refute the latter.

...

Similarly, nobody here is arguing against language like "the recession was triggered by poor economic policy" or even "the author's insecurity was triggered by a critical comment", because it's clear that those are the general usage. But in the context of content and trigger warnings, it causes confusion with the psychiatric term of art, which then makes life harder for actual PTSD patients.

 

[KeithD]

Well, no, you're just choosing to ignore that the response was to your post that "the term 'trigger' is associated specifically with PTSD." It's not, no matter how much you dance around it. You can just stop dancing now.

 

[Hypoxia]

...how DO we get that italicized special disclaimer part on some stories?

Insert the following at the beginning of your text. I usually add the title and description, too.

<i>Author's disclaimer: All fuckers in this fiction are over 18 in human years. Tags: mopery, dopery, muggery, thuggery, Bolivian triplet dwarves, raw artichokes. Septuagenarians are abused. If such bothers you, stop reading now.</i>

<center><b>*** Ivanka and Her Friends ***</b>
Where are aardvarks safe?</center>​

The disclaimer, one long string of characters, is italicized. The titles are centered; the first title line is bolded. Take it from there. Note: such formatting will not appear in the LIT Android app so don't worry too much.

 

[vladm]

Insert the following at the beginning of your text. I usually add the title and description, too.

<i>Author's disclaimer: All fuckers in this fiction are over 18 in human years. Tags: mopery, dopery, muggery, thuggery, Bolivian triplet dwarves, raw artichokes. Septuagenarians are abused. If such bothers you, stop reading now.</i>

<center><b>*** Ivanka and Her Friends ***</b>
Where are aardvarks safe?</center>​

The disclaimer, one long string of characters, is italicized. The titles are centered; the first title line is bolded. Take it from there. Note: such formatting will not appear in the LIT Android app so don't worry too much.

Hah totally awesome thx!

 

[Bramblethorn]

So, tell me if anyone can, what was the last book(on paper) published that you read that had any kind of disclaimer or warning at the beginning?

I have read all kinds of books(paperbacks mostly) and have never seen a warning about what was going to happen in the story.

Really, you never looked at the covers of the books you read? Here's one that I've been reading recently:

https://i0.wp.com/www.tor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Gideon-the-Ninth-cover.jpg?resize=640%2C989&type=vertical&quality=100&ssl=1

At first glance, the cover art involves swords and a shitload of skeletons. If I'm averse to violence or skeletons, it probably wouldn't be a good book for me to read. The combination of skull makeup and sunglasses tells me that this is going to be an odd mix of styles and not the straight fantasy that I might otherwise have guessed.

At second glance, Charles Stross's blurb tells me that the book contains "Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space! Decadent nobles vie to serve the deathless emperor! Skeletons!" (note that this is much longer than the blurb permitted on Literotica.) Since I'm familiar with Stross's own work, the fact that he's blurbed it also gives me a bit more of an impression of what to expect: probably going to have an intricate plot with complicated world-building, probably going to have a body count.

I might then look at the back cover, which includes a précis: "The Emperor needs necromancers. The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman. Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead nonsense."

The back cover also includes five more blurbs:

"Unlike anything I've ever read... as sharp as a broken tooth, and just as unsettling." - V.E. Schwab
"Goofy and gleaming; a profane Daria in space." - Robin Sloan
"Crackling, inventive, and riotous... Also the author is clearly insane." - Warren Ellis
"Punchy, crunchy, gooey, and gore-smeared... will delight and horrify you to the bitter end." - Kameron Hurley
"Necromancers! Dueling! Mayhem! ... disturbing and delightful in equal measure—I loved it to pieces." - Yoon Ha Lee.

Unsettling. Insane. Gore-smeared. "Bitter end". Disturbing. Gosh, some of those sound almost like... content warnings? Naah. Couldn't be.

The cover also shows me that it's published by Tor, which again tells me a little about what to expect (quite different to if it had been Baen, for instance).

If the cover isn't enough to answer my questions about the content, I could then go to Tor's website, which has lots of pages about the book. This one, for instance, gives a short plot summary (still vastly longer than a Literotica blurb!) and also provides story tags:

Swordswoman/Necromancer
Angst With Jokes
UST (Unresolved Skeletal Tension)
Lots of Queer Characters
Hurt/Comfort
Childhood Enemies
Bone Friends
Bone Prom
BonesBonesBones
Dad Jokes
Crying

Even without opening the book, I now have a lot of information about what to expect. If that still isn't enough, I can go look it up on Goodreads or Amazon and check other user reviews.

The reason "content warnings" are more of a thing in amateur online fiction like Literotica hosts is that our stories don't have cover art, blurbs, publisher promotion, Goodreads reviews, and all these other things that print books have to provide content information.

Back before those options were available, print publishing did front-load a lot more information within the story, which is how we ended up with book names like "The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders Who was born in Newgate, and during a life of continu'd Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Years a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her brother) Twelve Years a Thief, Eight Years a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest and died a Penitent".

(BTW, we went over all this the last time this exact same topic came up on this board, but some of y'all have the memories of goldfish, and others just like playing obtuse.)

 

[SimonDoom]

Well, no, you're just choosing to ignore that the response was to your post that "the term 'trigger' is associated specifically with PTSD." It's not, no matter how much you dance around it. You can just stop dancing now.

I have a rule I try to follow in online debates (Simon's Rule 7.53) which says "Don't turn real debates into debates over definitions or word use." The corollary to this rule (Simon's Rule 7.53(a)) is that when you have a choice of interpreting somebody else's post as a post about something substantive or as a post about a definition, choose Door A.

I think the real point here is that not all of what we loosely consider "triggering" is really "triggering" in the clinical, psychological sense, and it's useful to have a word (whatever it is) to identify the one thing from the other.

Our society has gotten sloppy and loose with the term "triggered," and these days people say they are triggered when what they really mean is they're just offended. It's not the same thing, and it doesn't follow that our response to each concern as authors should be the same. I think it's useful to use "trigger" in a narrow way because I think it does more justice to those suffering genuine psychological trauma or distress. But the more important thing is to appreciate that this large phenomenon that we commonly call "triggering" is really a variety of different problems and behaviors, and they should be considered separately, whatever words we choose to describe them.

 

[NotWise]

Our society has gotten sloppy and loose with the term "triggered," and these days people say they are triggered when what they really mean is they're just offended. It's not the same thing, and it doesn't follow that our response to each concern as authors should be the same. I think it's useful to use "trigger" in a narrow way because I think it does more justice to those suffering genuine psychological trauma or distress. But the more important thing is to appreciate that this large phenomenon that we commonly call "triggering" is really a variety of different problems and behaviors, and they should be considered separately, whatever words we choose to describe them.

How do you distinguish between them when you're writing your trigger warning? What's the difference between, "This story might trigger your gag reflex," and "This story might remind you of Bad Things?"

Either way, how do you decide what to warn about? "Someone in this story may touch the female protagonist's elbow from behind," "Something in this story might smell like stale urine," "You may react strongly to the male protagonist's middle initial."

You can't predict what might trigger a reaction, whether the reaction is from PTSD or from simple distaste. Once a reader reacts you can't tell if they reacted--much less why they reacted -- unless they're the one-in-six thousand viewers who bothers to comment.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Look! I have a new identity.

There is no way we could know what your triggers are, so I guess you are bound to suffer.

It's impossible to predict every last thing that might be a PTSD trigger for somebody. But it's not at all difficult to identify some of the major/common triggers and warn for those.

"If it's impossible to do it perfectly then it's not worth even trying" is not a good principle to live by.

 

[Bramblethorn]

You can't predict what might trigger a reaction, whether the reaction is from PTSD or from simple distaste. Once a reader reacts you can't tell if they reacted--much less why they reacted -- unless they're the one-in-six thousand viewers who bothers to comment.

It bewilders me that people who aspire to be authors - a hobby that's all about using words to induce certain reactions from their readers - are so insistent that it's utterly impossible to predict how readers might react to their words.

If I seriously believed that I had zero insight into how my stories are likely to affect readers, and that I was incapable of ever acquiring that kind of insight, I wouldn't be here. Why would anybody?

 

[NotWise]

It bewilders me that people who aspire to be authors - a hobby that's all about using words to induce certain reactions from their readers - are so insistent that it's utterly impossible to predict how readers might react to their words.

If I seriously believed that I had zero insight into how my stories are likely to affect readers, and that I was incapable of ever acquiring that kind of insight, I wouldn't be here. Why would anybody?

What triggers do you avoid? What do you warn about? My example of touching the woman's elbow from behind was a real trigger. When do you know to avoid that?

As far as I know, most triggers aren't even things people read in stories. They're environmental stimuli -- sights, sounds, and smells, for instance. My son-in-law is triggered by the sound of certain fireworks. Years ago (before PTSD was even a diagnosis) I was triggered by the sound of rushing water and by nearby lightening.

 

[KeithD]

I have a rule I try to follow in online debates (Simon's Rule 7.53) which says "Don't turn real debates into debates over definitions or word use." The corollary to this rule (Simon's Rule 7.53(a)) is that when you have a choice of interpreting somebody else's post as a post about something substantive or as a post about a definition, choose Door A.

My rule is to try not to post absolutist nonsense about word use to begin with.

 

[KeithD]

How do you distinguish between them when you're writing your trigger warning? What's the difference between, "This story might trigger your gag reflex," and "This story might remind you of Bad Things?"

Either way, how do you decide what to warn about? "Someone in this story may touch the female protagonist's elbow from behind," "Something in this story might smell like stale urine," "You may react strongly to the male protagonist's middle initial."

You can't predict what might trigger a reaction, whether the reaction is from PTSD or from simple distaste. Once a reader reacts you can't tell if they reacted--much less why they reacted -- unless they're the one-in-six thousand viewers who bothers to comment.

I write my stories to try to trigger arousal. I don't see where a bad connotation need be assumed by use of the word. (I noted I'd try to use the word as the language permits in my next ten stories. One down and nine to go. )

 

[Mal_Bey]

Offensensitivity

The best statement I have seen on this issue was actually a Bloom County comic 30+ years ago. I am just finding my way on these forums, so I am not positive the best way to post to external content, but a Google Image search of "Offensensitivity" should get you there. It is true whether you are Amish or Antifa, or anywhere in between.

 

[SisterJezabel]

So, tell me if anyone can, what was the last book(on paper) published that you read that had any kind of disclaimer or warning at the beginning?

I have read all kinds of books(paperbacks mostly) and have never seen a warning about what was going to happen in the story. Now the books I picked up by Anonymous in Dalton Book Seller kind of surprised me when I was younger, with the stuff that was in there and this was print, not electronic like here.

Some of the stuff in there was really sick and was probably meant to shock the reader. But, no warning, no tags, not even a forward about who, what, where, when, and how.

So, even though I received comments about killing off the main characters in the end, over all the reader liked the story. Except for those who nitpick about things they think they read but isn't there.

Now, I haven't even picked up a book in I don't know how many years, do any of the newer publication have disclaimers at the beginning?

I've read newspaper and journal articles that mention content might upset some readers. To me it's courtesy, especially if it's popping up where you wouldn't expect it.

 

[Bramblethorn]

What triggers do you avoid?

For myself? I don't have a PTSD or related diagnosis, so I wouldn't call them triggers per se, but there are a couple of things that will occasionally hit me in such a way as to be "feeling physically sick" level distressing. In the context of fiction, it's very uncommon - last time I can recall would have been about 13 years ago.

As to what they are... nothing in this discussion so far has persuaded me that it would be a good idea to post instructions here on how to manufacture my personal Kryptonite.

What do you warn about? My example of touching the woman's elbow from behind was a real trigger. When do you know to avoid that?

That's certainly not one that I would have anticipated, and I probably wouldn't have done any different to what you did. I'm not suggesting that all triggers/buttons/etc. can be foreseen, only that some can.

For an example of what I do warn about, here's the content warning I included in the latest-but-one chapter of my current series:

This instalment took an unexpected turn into fetish territory, with BDSM food play and discussion of childhood bullying and body image issues. If you'd prefer not to read about those topics, I suggest skipping the date scene at the end of this chapter.

In another venue where I do book readings, I give more detailed warnings, both because the technology there makes it easier to do so without spoiling the story, and because the audience there expect it. I've warned for things like "mention of terrorism and death of parents", "mention of terminal cancer", "disconcerting uses of human body points", and "use of a slur for a disabled person".

As a short and non-exhaustive list, I'd give strong consideration to warning for the following:
- Violence, serious injury, and violent death, especially suicide or murder (depending somewhat on the genre - expectations in a stock fantasy setting are different to expectations in a mundane romance story)
- Abusive relationships, including domestic violence, rape, etc. etc.
- Eating disorders and other self-harm/body image stuff
- Terminal illness
- Mental illness
- maybe serious drug abuse? It's not something I have much inclination to write so I haven't really needed to figure out whether and when to warn for it.

All of this depends on context. If I'm posting a story in NC/Reluc, obviously the category is already a de facto content warning for that particular element. If I'm writing a page-long scene from the perspective of the protagonist committing suicide, that's likely to have higher impact than a brief mention of a minor character doing the same, and that influences whether I need to warn for it. Similarly if I'm surprising readers with a scene rather than building to it slowly. I'll also apply more caution when I don't know the audience so well.

As far as I know, most triggers aren't even things people read in stories. They're environmental stimuli -- sights, sounds, and smells, for instance. My son-in-law is triggered by the sound of certain fireworks. Years ago (before PTSD was even a diagnosis) I was triggered by the sound of rushing water and by nearby lightening.

As best I know, you're quite right about that - there are many triggers that don't act through this medium (or not often). I'm only concerned with the foreseeable ones that do.

(and at this point, I will add a content note for a description of suicide)

I know a young lady whose father died by suicide; she walked into the house to find him dangling from the ceiling. It was obviously an awful experience for her that affected her deeply. A couple of years later, she went with a friend to watch "A Star Is Born". There's a scene in that movie where a father-figure character kills himself by hanging. She wasn't expecting it, and was deeply upset; IIRC she had to walk out of the film at that point, and her evening was ruined.

More recently, the same young lady wanted to listen along to my book reading. As it happens, the book involves a scene where the parents of a major character hang themselves when she's ten years old. I already post content warnings each week before the reading - it's the norm in that community - and those do cover the suicide, but I double-checked to be sure she was aware of that aspect of the story. Forewarned, she got through that reading without being unduly bothered by the suicide scene AFAIK.

Suicide is unfortunately a pretty common occurrence, enough so that pretty much any story posted on this website is likely to be read by people who've lost loved ones that way. It's not hard to anticipate that surprising people with a close-up description of parental suicide might be hard for some, even without the specific knowledge I had about my friend's situation.

The other things I mentioned in my list above are similar, one way or another - many readers will have been touched by them, and writing about them has a lot of potential to evoke painful memories, depending on how it's handled.

 

[SisterJezabel]

I write predominantly in romance. If I were to include a scene that might be more appropriate in another category, I think it is polite to let readers know. I suspect that this is probably mainly an issue in the romance category where there are lots of readers who come to have their happiness increased with love and roses and chocolate and walks along the beach and happily ever afters. It's ludicrous to think that someone writing a story in erotic horror, for instance, needs to let people know there is a dude with a chainsaw out to massacre half of Texas, however, if out of nowhere, the hero in a romance story started hacking at folks with axes, there might need to be a warning at the start of the story.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I've read newspaper and journal articles that mention content might upset some readers. To me it's courtesy, especially if it's popping up where you wouldn't expect it.

Okay, but that is something the every day Joe will be reading. This is when all is said and done a porn site. People come here to read about other people having sex in different combination or multiple combination. What kind of warning do the really need? Especially, when they are clicking on stories in specific categories... like Incest/Taboo, Loving Wives, Gay Male, what do they think they will find there?

I warn about the length of the story and in LW about which kind, BTB or RAAC or neither.

Other than that, the category says it all.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Really, you never looked at the covers of the books you read? Here's one that I've been reading recently:

At first glance, the cover art involves swords and a shitload of skeletons. If I'm averse to violence or skeletons, it probably wouldn't be a good book for me to read. The combination of skull makeup and sunglasses tells me that this is going to be an odd mix of styles and not the straight fantasy that I might otherwise have guessed.

At second glance, Charles Stross's blurb tells me that the book contains "Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space! Decadent nobles vie to serve the deathless emperor! Skeletons!" (note that this is much longer than the blurb permitted on Literotica.) Since I'm familiar with Stross's own work, the fact that he's blurbed it also gives me a bit more of an impression of what to expect: probably going to have an intricate plot with complicated world-building, probably going to have a body count.

I might then look at the back cover, which includes a précis: "The Emperor needs necromancers. The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman. Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead nonsense."

The back cover also includes five more blurbs:

"Unlike anything I've ever read... as sharp as a broken tooth, and just as unsettling." - V.E. Schwab
"Goofy and gleaming; a profane Daria in space." - Robin Sloan
"Crackling, inventive, and riotous... Also the author is clearly insane." - Warren Ellis
"Punchy, crunchy, gooey, and gore-smeared... will delight and horrify you to the bitter end." - Kameron Hurley
"Necromancers! Dueling! Mayhem! ... disturbing and delightful in equal measure—I loved it to pieces." - Yoon Ha Lee.

Unsettling. Insane. Gore-smeared. "Bitter end". Disturbing. Gosh, some of those sound almost like... content warnings? Naah. Couldn't be.

The cover also shows me that it's published by Tor, which again tells me a little about what to expect (quite different to if it had been Baen, for instance).

If the cover isn't enough to answer my questions about the content, I could then go to Tor's website, which has lots of pages about the book. This one, for instance, gives a short plot summary (still vastly longer than a Literotica blurb!) and also provides story tags:

Swordswoman/Necromancer
Angst With Jokes
UST (Unresolved Skeletal Tension)
Lots of Queer Characters
Hurt/Comfort
Childhood Enemies
Bone Friends
Bone Prom
BonesBonesBones
Dad Jokes
Crying

Even without opening the book, I now have a lot of information about what to expect. If that still isn't enough, I can go look it up on Goodreads or Amazon and check other user reviews.

The reason "content warnings" are more of a thing in amateur online fiction like Literotica hosts is that our stories don't have cover art, blurbs, publisher promotion, Goodreads reviews, and all these other things that print books have to provide content information.

Back before those options were available, print publishing did front-load a lot more information within the story, which is how we ended up with book names like "The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders Who was born in Newgate, and during a life of continu'd Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Years a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her brother) Twelve Years a Thief, Eight Years a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest and died a Penitent".

(BTW, we went over all this the last time this exact same topic came up on this board, but some of y'all have the memories of goldfish, and others just like playing obtuse.)

Gee, like I said in my post, it's been awhile since I picked up a 'real' book. Yet, I would, I guess glance at that cover and I immediately decide it's not for me.

The books by Anonymous back in the 70's and 80's just had plain yellow covers with some innocuous title in the Adult section.

The last book I purchased way back when... what does that cover tell you?

Oh by the way that book did include some incest.

And then again there authors here that ramble on and one with their warnings, so much that the warning is sometimes longer than the story. I won't mention any names.

And little, let's make the author feel good about his shit, blurbs aren't really warnings in the sense of what this thread means.
.

 

[Aerolineas]

Nothing in this discussion so far has persuaded me that it would be a good idea to post instructions here on how to manufacture my personal Kryptonite.

Well said.

 

[NotWise]

For an example of what I do warn about, here's the content warning I included in the latest-but-one chapter of my current series:

This instalment took an unexpected turn into fetish territory, with BDSM food play and discussion of childhood bullying and body image issues. If you'd prefer not to read about those topics, I suggest skipping the date scene at the end of this chapter.

In another venue where I do book readings, I give more detailed warnings, both because the technology there makes it easier to do so without spoiling the story, and because the audience there expect it. I've warned for things like "mention of terrorism and death of parents", "mention of terminal cancer", "disconcerting uses of human body points", and "use of a slur for a disabled person".

As a short and non-exhaustive list, I'd give strong consideration to warning for the following:
- Violence, serious injury, and violent death, especially suicide or murder (depending somewhat on the genre - expectations in a stock fantasy setting are different to expectations in a mundane romance story)
- Abusive relationships, including domestic violence, rape, etc. etc.
- Eating disorders and other self-harm/body image stuff
- Terminal illness
- Mental illness
- maybe serious drug abuse? It's not something I have much inclination to write so I haven't really needed to figure out whether and when to warn for it.

You're very considerate of your readers sensitivities. I guess I'm not.

I've given some thought to the content in my stories that might deserve a warning. Hannah's childhood physical, sexual, and emotional abuse in "Love is Enough" would probably be the most evident case, but in that story I wanted the reader's stomach to turn. I wanted readers to feel for Hannah the way I did when I wrote it. I wouldn't shoo them away.

I'm not going to warn readers about things that occur in the course of a normal life or things that they'll see in their daily local news reports or on the street corner on the way to the market. I do assume my readers are fairly normal adults, and I don't want them stumbling through warnings to get to the opening scene.

 

[KeithD]

I warn about the length of the story

One of the good things about the new look of the story pages is that the wordage of the story is given up front.