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serynApparently I have successfully divorced myself from all fandoms. I was oblivious to the kerfluffle about whether fic should have warnings.
Heyla! This is excellent. I can read fic and don't have to deal with any of the drama.
I have been a proponent of warnings for a very long time. I think actual books should have warnings (and this is one of the reasons why I prefer fic to published books, though the overall balance between them is more neutral and I still buy books.)
It started because when I was writing, I only wrote stuff that was intended to stab the reader in the emotions. I wanted it to hurt because that was easy for me and I had realized readers equate emotional-connection with quality. It doesn't matter whether the emotional connection is a positive one or if it makes you want to run screaming into the night... the ability to reach people remotely is what makes something art.
However, I do not want to feel like I've wandered into a cave with a pissed off saber-tooth tiger because it's that kind of fic, so I don't read things marked "horror" or "torture" or even just "dark"--- I appreciate knowing in advance too.
I assumed if I'm writing about a woman killing her child by watching it crushed against rocks by the ocean... there are a LOT of people who are going to be damaged if I'm successful. In a fandom full of angsty teens, I didn't want to be the nth writer who described suicide and becoming that proverbial last straw. When you start by writing a suicidal character who makes a big show of it, you have to believe in warnings.
I have problems with some of the warnings on some sites though. A lot of writers are now using "angst" and "dark" on everything even when it's not well enough written to be anything other than laughable. I'm also really offended that slash and threesomes require warnings beyond the adult-ness of the restriction. But writers put graphic graphic childbirth scenes in fic "suitable for all audiences" all the time. I find that really squicky and I think it should have the same adult-restricted nature that most sexually-related activities involving bodily fluids do---- but I don't think it needs a specific warning label.
If we had warning labels for "graphic violence" and accurate genre tags (so I can avoid the horror ones) and character lists that only list paired characters (so those who never read het, never read slash, or never read poly could tell what they were getting into), I think I could go for that kind of generic warnings.
I never want to read stuff like the first Terry Goodkind book Wizard's First Rule, where the main character, Richard, is graphically (on the page, written out) tortured for several chapters in the middle of what is otherwise your everyday epic fantasy. I never want to read something like The Iron Dragon's Daughter. Those kinds of books look like your average fantasy book from the outside, from the summary on the back, etc. There is no way to tell from the outside that it teaches how to hurt someone mentally and physically until the damage is permanent. There is no way to tell that the book teaches the reader how to enjoy hurting people. If those had been fic, people would have been screaming to the mods for warnings but I got them from my public library because the librarians had no way of knowing from the catalogs that the content was so vile.
Heyla! This is excellent. I can read fic and don't have to deal with any of the drama.
I have been a proponent of warnings for a very long time. I think actual books should have warnings (and this is one of the reasons why I prefer fic to published books, though the overall balance between them is more neutral and I still buy books.)
It started because when I was writing, I only wrote stuff that was intended to stab the reader in the emotions. I wanted it to hurt because that was easy for me and I had realized readers equate emotional-connection with quality. It doesn't matter whether the emotional connection is a positive one or if it makes you want to run screaming into the night... the ability to reach people remotely is what makes something art.
However, I do not want to feel like I've wandered into a cave with a pissed off saber-tooth tiger because it's that kind of fic, so I don't read things marked "horror" or "torture" or even just "dark"--- I appreciate knowing in advance too.
I assumed if I'm writing about a woman killing her child by watching it crushed against rocks by the ocean... there are a LOT of people who are going to be damaged if I'm successful. In a fandom full of angsty teens, I didn't want to be the nth writer who described suicide and becoming that proverbial last straw. When you start by writing a suicidal character who makes a big show of it, you have to believe in warnings.
I have problems with some of the warnings on some sites though. A lot of writers are now using "angst" and "dark" on everything even when it's not well enough written to be anything other than laughable. I'm also really offended that slash and threesomes require warnings beyond the adult-ness of the restriction. But writers put graphic graphic childbirth scenes in fic "suitable for all audiences" all the time. I find that really squicky and I think it should have the same adult-restricted nature that most sexually-related activities involving bodily fluids do---- but I don't think it needs a specific warning label.
If we had warning labels for "graphic violence" and accurate genre tags (so I can avoid the horror ones) and character lists that only list paired characters (so those who never read het, never read slash, or never read poly could tell what they were getting into), I think I could go for that kind of generic warnings.
I never want to read stuff like the first Terry Goodkind book Wizard's First Rule, where the main character, Richard, is graphically (on the page, written out) tortured for several chapters in the middle of what is otherwise your everyday epic fantasy. I never want to read something like The Iron Dragon's Daughter. Those kinds of books look like your average fantasy book from the outside, from the summary on the back, etc. There is no way to tell from the outside that it teaches how to hurt someone mentally and physically until the damage is permanent. There is no way to tell that the book teaches the reader how to enjoy hurting people. If those had been fic, people would have been screaming to the mods for warnings but I got them from my public library because the librarians had no way of knowing from the catalogs that the content was so vile.
