Content Warnings
YOU CAN LISTEN TO THIS POST!
The question of content and trigger warnings comes up in the Happily Ever Author Club and among my editing clients all the time: Do I have to include warnings on my work? Should I? And if so, what’s the best way to do that?
I’m not a psychologist or any sort of expert, but I have two personal connections to the issue: I have PTSD myself, and I screwed up big on warnings once. So I did some introspection and some googling, surveyed the authors I work with every day, and came up with some approaches to the subject that I hope will help you in your thinking.
MY WARNING SCREWUP
When I put my historical novel Restraint out in serial form on one of the big online story platforms, readers who loved Regency romances flocked to it. Chapter after chapter, they told me they loved the Austen-esque language and the Regency tropes. They were deeply engaged in its sweeping story of forbidden love. They laughed. They cried. They waited eagerly for the next installment.
Then I posted the final few chapters…and a bunch of readers turned on me.
They felt betrayed. They felt deeply sad. Some even said they felt traumatized. They were furious. Why? Because the story did not deliver the happily-ever-after ending of the typical Regency romance. Even though the story signaled its darker historical tones from page one, they felt I had broken the author-reader contract.
To forestall shattering the illusions of future readers on that same platform, I added warnings up front, even though I hated spoiling the plot even a little. Over time, another 50,000 readers found their way to the story without reporting undue distress, so the warnings did their job.
But when it came time to publish Restraint as a book, I had to rethink the matter, because a book is a different animal from a free serialized story online. I’ll talk about that in a minute.
WHAT ARE CONTENT WARNINGS FOR?
There seem to be three purposes:
Allow certain readers to protect their mental health by warning them of potentially “triggering” material.
Help readers find what they want to read and filter out what they don’t.
Help adults screen reading material for kids.
These purposes are all different, so different factors should play into your decision about when and whether to use warnings. Some of those factors may include:
Your own beliefs and preferences.
Your tolerance for—or aversion to—certain kinds of reader blowback.
The nature of your book—Story Type, marketing genre, and the cultural expectations attached to those.
The demographics of your intended audience.
First let’s draw a distinction between two main approaches to warnings.
TRIGGER WARNINGS
The term “trigger warning” first appeared in 2005 and has come into prominence in the past ten years, especially in academia.
The concept of trigger warnings arose as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) entered the mainstream. The disorder affects more than war veterans or victims of large-scale violence. Many people—including me—have been traumatized in smaller ways that nonetheless result in PTSD symptoms.
When the disorder is activated, i.e., “triggered”, the person can experience intrusive memories, flashbacks to the original trauma, and mood changes. These symptoms can cause distress and dysfunction for hours, days, or longer.
Story elements that some psychologists think could activate a trauma response include:
homophobia or transphobia
rape and other forms of sexual violence
child abuse
incest
animal abuse or death
racism
self-harm
suicide
pregnancy, childbirth, miscarriage
eating disorders
sizeism or fat shaming
traumatic medical diagnosis
Are there others? Undoubtedly. Can you know for sure what story elements might cause an incident? No. You can know what might cause such an event for yourself if you happen to suffer from PTSD, but for everyone else, you’re making your best guess based on lists like this one.
For example, it never crossed my own traumatized little mind that a less-than-perfect romance ending for my story could actually trigger somebody’s PTSD, but readers assured me that the shock was significant.
If your work includes elements from the list above, here are some questions to ask yourself:
Do I believe that words on the page can cause or provoke PTSD symptoms in a reader?
Do I believe that I as a writer have any responsibility for that distress?
Have I ever read anything in a story that disturbed me enough to cause PTSD-level distress?
If so, am I motivated to help others avoid that?
Your honest answers will help you decide whether to use trigger warnings in your work.
OBJECTIONABLE CONTENT WARNINGS
On the other hand, I’ve seen lists of all sorts of elements that might offend or alienate a reader, but arguably wouldn’t actually cause a PTSD incident. Some of the categories of objectionable content include:
politics
religion
violence in general
explicit sex, nudity
swearing, foul language
drug use, alcohol use, smoking
insects or reptiles
bodily waste
blood & gore
This list could be virtually endless. And a moment’s reflection will reveal that it overlaps quite a bit with triggering content.
Objectionable content warnings are intended to filter out readers who would take offense at parts of your story. It also helps adults select books for young readers. And, frankly, it can help limit one-star reviews from disgruntled readers.
DON’T WANT TO USE WARNINGS AT ALL?
There is no law or even general publishing standard that says you must use content warnings. Writers I surveyed had three main reasons for not wanting to use them:
WARNINGS WILL SPOIL MY PLOT.
A big label right up front saying “Cancer diagnosis” or “suicide” would likely give away a major plot point. If your story features an animal character, and you warn for “animal death,” your reader will probably see a tragedy coming. This kind of warning will decidedly change any reader’s experience of your text.
WARNINGS WILL DRIVE POTENTIAL READERS AWAY.
They might. That’s what they’re for. And that’s okay. Those people weren’t your intended readers anyway.
No book is for everyone. The vast majority of “everyone” is never going to read your book. The vast majority of “everyone,” I’m sorry to tell you, isn’t going to read any book. You will attract your readers by being clear about what your book both is and is not.
If a significant plot point involves, say, rape, then you probably don’t want your story in the hands of a reader who wants to avoid reading about rape. Far better to lose that reader with a warning than have them read your book and associate it with harm.
Let the reader decide.
READERS SHOULD BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN MENTAL HEALTH.
This is a legitimate point of view, though a contentious one. If you take this stance and choose not to put content warnings on your YA novel featuring transphobia and suicidal ideation, there may be backlash, and it might be legitimate. If you aren’t concerned about that, then make your stand.
WANT TO INCLUDE WARNINGS?
If you decide to include trigger warnings (as distinct from objectionable content warnings), the most sensible idea I’ve heard is to include a statement in your front matter like this:
[Book title] includes content that might not be suitable for some readers. I’ve included a list of these elements at the end of the book. If you have concerns, please check it out so you can decide whether to continue reading.
Then put a page at the back of your book that warns for everything that could be potentially triggering, with some context. Focus here on helping the reader make the best decision for their own mental health. For example:
CONTENT WARNINGS
[Book title] includes memories of childhood molestation, mental health ableism directed at a secondary character, period-typical homophobia, death of a character’s parent, a scene involving alcohol use and subsequent vomiting…”
WARNING WITHOUT WARNINGS.
The last thing you want is readers who, like mine, think your story promises something specific, and then get upset at you for not providing it.
For instance, you probably don’t want readers to pick up your fantasy action-adventure expecting fairies and butterflies, only to then lob one-stars at you on Goodreads because of its bloody battle scenes.
And that brings us to the point made by most of the authors I surveyed: If everything about your published book signals what kinds of things the reader is going to encounter in its pages, you shouldn’t need warnings for merely “objectionable” content.
If your characters swear a lot, if they are sexually active, if they inhabit a violent world—all that should be implied by your Story Type, your marketing genre (including age of intended reader), the cover’s visual design, and the language you use to tease, describe, pitch and talk about your book.
IN THE COVER’S VISUAL ELEMENTS
This was the lesson I took to heart when I published Restraint as a book. I made sure my cover was dark, the fonts stately and serious, the illustration sexy but brooding. I even chose the interior font to convey a sense of historical realism.
Does all this spoil the story? No, it just signals tone, intent, and likely reader experience. My book cover depicts a hot young man in tight breeches posed to draw attention to his, er, assets. If a reader who’s squeamish about steamy scenes buys my book, I haven’t misled them. They’ve misled themselves.
IN YOUR MARKETING LANGUAGE
On top of all that, I was scrupulous with the back cover language. I included phrases like “impossible love,” “heartbreaking,” and “sacrifice and tragedy.” I’m careful to always talk and write about the novel in terms that make those characteristics clear.
So write your pitch and blurb materials in a way that conveys your story’s
Tone and style (serious and dark? light and bubbly? comic? ironic?)
Main character(s) (their age, central goal or conflict, occupation)
Genre or marketing category (contemporary, YA, science fiction, murder mystery, fantasy, etc.)
If you make it clear that your main character is a world-weary soldier, or a horny college sophomore, or a Victorian spinster, most readers will intuit that in its pages they’ll encounter harsh language and violence, sexual shenanigans, or drawing-room delicacy, respectively.
Then, when you talk or write about your book, be sure to use that same language. You’ll have done your job, and no attentive reader will feel misled.
TO WARN OR NOT TO WARN…
In conclusion, consult your beliefs and your conscience. Consider the culture or subculture you’re launching your story into. If you’re against warnings on principle, don’t use them. It’s a personal choice.
If you believe a warning or two could save a reader some distress or harm, you can use the tools I’ve outlined here to help that reader decide. Making the content, tone, and likely reader experience clear every time you present your work is a sound strategy for your author career.
Whether you’re pitching your story to agents, talking about it in interviews, writing about it to your subscribers, composing your front matter or designing your book cover, it’s your job to attract your intended readers, and to signal to those who might feel disappointed, offended, or traumatized by your story that it’s not for them.