Trigger Warnings for Fiction

An interesting question was posed to Lois McMaster Bujold (one of my all time favorite authors) about trigger warnings You can find the full question and answer on Goodreads.

John Kirk asked Lois McMaster Bujold:

As an author, how do you feel about content/trigger warnings? Some of your books have unpleasant things happening to characters (e.g. Elena Visconti). I really like those books, but I've recently been adding my own warnings while recommending them to friends. Would you be happy for an editor/publisher to add official warnings at the start of a book, or would that be treading on your toes?

Lois McMaster Bujold Trigger and content warnings are a custom that has arisen in online fan fiction. Professional fiction for an adult market has never had them, the audience being assumed to be grownups with agency capable of making and owning their own choices. To me, it would feel like infantilizing my audience.

Somebody else choosing and applying such tags for my work pre-publication would feel a little too close to censorship. Though I suppose it would be better than direct censorship. (Though I can see how it could be argued that this would actually remove the need for censorship, as it maybe seems to do in fanfiction. But I suspect it would just result in authors self-censoring in the effort to avoid audience-and-sales-reducing tags, and editors and publishers encouraging it for the same economic reasons.) 

There is also the problem, if one starts such a thing, of where to stop, since there will always be one more outlier who could be imagined to be unhappy about something in the content however arcane or idiosyncratic. Thus those warning/tag blocks one sometimes sees in fanfic that have a higher word-count than the story being prefaced...

Somebody else choosing and applying such tags for my work pre-publication would feel a little too close to censorship. Though I suppose it would be better than direct censorship. (Though I can see how it could be argued that this would actually remove the need for censorship, as it maybe seems to do in fanfiction. But I suspect it would just result in authors self-censoring in the effort to avoid audience-and-sales-reducing tags, and editors and publishers encouraging it for the same economic reasons.) 

Bujold goes on to speculate that this may become simply a generational difference, as writers and readers come to simply take it for granted, like labels on movies for "PG", "R," etc. 

I think her warning about the dangers of one, infantilizing the reader, or two, sliding into self- or community censorship, are very valid. 

There's a third trend I see, which I first noticed in Erotica, that so-called "trigger warnings" are used simply as another chance to advertise. "Trigger Warning: This book contains three smoking hot Alphas, the Big, Beautiful Woman they love, and sexy good times!" 

This reminds me of that job interview question, where your prospective employer asks you, "What are your weaknesses?" and instead of replying, "I'm an anti-social introvert who would literally rather die in a ditch with a knife in my liver than ask for help on something I didn't understand," you reply, "I'm a workaholic and my family complains I spend seventeen hours a day working super hard for my employer rather than going to movies and birthday parties." 

On the other hand, as I reader, I do want the author to warn me about certain things that trigger me. For instance, I the writer to be absolutely clear about Sub-genre. If it's a Reverse Harem, say so up front. In fact, put it in the title or something. I know this is a really popular genre, and that's fine, but I don't want to read it. I have several times purchased or almost purchased this genre by mistake because it wasn't made crystal clear.

Heat warnings are another label that seem like a good idea. This works both ways. Some readers are extremely disappointed to read a Sweet/Clean Romance if they are expecting steamy scenes. I've tried to label my Arcana Glen Tarot Elf series pretty clearly as Sweet because I cut away from the bedroom door.

Cussing is another thing that people are weird about. Generally, in Urban Fantasy and steamy Paranormal Romance, cussing is fine, even explicit terms like F..k and C...k. I guess the idea is that if it's Rated R, go for broke. To me, explicit sex and crude language are quite separate issues. Long bedroom scenes cut into the wordcount of the story, so if that's not part of the sell, I like to avoid them simply because I want to write about the characters doing something else. But vocabulary should reflect the particular character. One character might be a blushing rose, who exclaims, "Oh bother!" and another a hardened mercenary who shouts, "Go f#%k a goat!"

This gave me a lot of trouble in The Demon & the Dryad because the hero is... well, a demon. It felt stupid to have him saying, "Oh bother!" I ended up putting in more cuss words in that book than in other books in the series, but with the same technique I use on my blog, where I oh, so "cleverly" ellipse the center of the word so innocent commuters can't tell what it is. Or something. 

In The Unfinished Song series I also cut away from blow by blow scenes, but there are definitely suggestive situations, a lot of captives stripped naked and ogled, slave girls, slave husbands (one reviewer asked, "Why does Tara Maya like slave husbands so much?" Friend, if you have to ask...) and so on. 

Plus, battles, torture, cannibalism, and references to rape, miscarriages and abortion. I don't have trigger warnings about any of this. Should I?

Bujold also brings up another issue:

There is also the problem, if one starts such a thing, of where to stop, since there will always be one more outlier who could be imagined to be unhappy about something in the content however arcane or idiosyncratic. Thus those warning/tag blocks one sometimes sees in fanfic that have a higher word-count than the story being prefaced...

I'll give a serious example and a sillier example. 

The first example again comes from a reviewer's complaint about The Unfinished Song. This series is Epic Fantasy, but romance is a strong component of the story. Not only the main characters have a romance, but there are other couples who also have romances. One couple in the first trilogy happens to be male/male. I didn't include them to win any PC points, it was simply part of the story I wanted to tell.

Some readers love their romance and some readers HATED it. A few reviewers mentioned they wished that Tara Maya had mentioned there was a "gay couple." Hmm, again, it never occurred to me to put a trigger warning on that, but I admit, if I pick up a romance I want to know going in if it's male/female or male/male or harem or reverse harem. Same if there's some other trope involved, like December/May or Aunt/Nephew, or worst of all, an unhappy romance (curse you, Game of Thrones, for ruining every love story you ever set up... seriously, just go f#%k a goat.)

And it is it as important to warn readers about subplots and side characters as main characters? If The Unfinished Song had been mainly a male/male romance, involving the main couple and storyline, I certainly would have let the reader know in the blurb about the book. It didn't occur to me to mention it about a side plot.

Likewise, I have a romance that's featured in the last trilogy of the book which is not going to end well. Should I warn readers? Not every character is going to make it out of the saga alive. Do I need to warn readers of that? How much can you say before you cross into spoiler territory?

Ok, now for the pet peeve, the "silly" trigger warning.

I really, really, REALLY wish that book blurbs would say right up front if they are written in First Person (Present Tense or Past Tense), or Third Person (Present Tense or Past Tense). 

Maybe I only care about this because I'm a writer. When I am working on a project in First Person, I only want to read First Person, and when I'm writing in Third Person, I only want to read Third Person. 

Waaaaah, I have to peek inside the book and figure this out for myself. Boohoo....

Silly. I told you.

Also, I'm the worst. I actually alternate in The Unfinished Song, setting some sections off by First Person to give a deep, quick peek into side characters here and there. What the heck, Tara... that's weird. Give a reader some warning! Am I right? Or is that even sillier. Anyway, I don't warn anyone. Interestingly, some readers pick it up and others don't even notice.

By the way, every single thing written by Lois McMaster Bujold is awesome and worth your time if you love great character-driven science fiction and fantasy.

Trigger Warning: This book has a shark that swims in a river instead of an ocean. Also, the shark turns into a hot dude. Real sharks don't.