warninggate, or whatever they're calling it
Everyone on my flist is talking about this. And I haven't read any of the original posts and I don't have any idea how all this started, but reading y'alls posts has made me think a little bit about my own fic and warnings and such. It's probably easier in popslash, or safer in some ways, because we simply don't have that many writers anymore, and headers/warnings were never really standard to begin with. I mean, for Make the Yuletide Gay and DWNOGA before it, all you knew before clicking a link were the characters involved.
(And sometimes, that was a lie, too. Ahem, the story I received my first year.)
So now I'm thinking about it. And I mean, there are a couple really obvious fics I've written that I definitely put warnings on, not really as a conscious decision involving triggers or whatever, but just because I knew that most people would probably not want to read an Iraq War AU, or MPREG, or a fic about depression.
(Actually, I'm not sure I put warnings on 'What Color Is Your Parachute' now that I think about it. Hmm.)
But I just realized, you know... I've written a couple Britney fics. I remixed withdiamonds's Lambs Epic last year, from Britney's POV, and there were definitely some references to her mental illness and the whole Sam Lutfi Hostage Crisis situation. And then I wrote another Britney fic for word2urmomma which was heavily involved in the aftermath of that, and you know... I didn't even think about putting warnings up for references to mental illness and past trauma. In some ways, I guess I didn't think I needed to because it's a fic about Britney Spears and everyone pretty much knows what happened to her. But then again, most of the comments I got on that fic were kind of like, "This isn't what I was expecting." So now that I think about it, I really should've warned. HMM.
I think what it comes down to is, sometimes writers don't want to warn for things they think will turn someone off their story, because they want people to read the story and not pass it by due to warnings. And yeah, it sucks when you write something you really love and no one reads it because you kill off Nick Carter and the entire story is about PTSS and whatever. Not to be too specific or anything. But! Character death, it has to be warned for. It just does. Fanfic is not the same as a novel. We might want to pretend it is, but it's not. These characters don't exist only in the author's head and in her stories, they exist across a whole fandom of stories and in the collective minds of many many people. When you kill off a character in fanfic, it's really emotional because the reader doesn't just know the character as you've written him in that fic, the reader knows the character from the original source, plus hundreds of other fics.
I think as fanfic writers, we have a moral obligation to remember that we don't own the characters. We can write whatever we want to about them, but we have to give our readers the choice of whether they want to read about a character they know and love dying or being hurt or going through trauma or whatever. Some people aren't going to read your War AU, and you just have to accept that. We don't get to trick readers into reading our stories by failing to warn for Bad Shit Happening. That's just kind of selfish and cruel.
Personally, I don't know that I have triggers. But I've also been through a lot of therapy and I'm pretty open about the Traumatic Events of My Past, and I think that helps me. Not to say that certain stories don't move me. But I think I can read a story and empathize with the situation and relate very strongly to it and even cry my eyes out, and instead of feeling shame/hurt over the feelings the story is evoking, I feel catharsis. I don't think most fanfic readers feel like that, though. I think I'm pretty lucky in that respect.
Anyway, I'm actually really glad everyone is talking about this, because it's making me more aware of the way the things I write might affect people, and it's definitely helping me get over my disappointment that not many people read 'Dear Goodbye.' Which I really need to get over, and try a lot harder to understand other people's point of view re: fics involving death.
We can't make everyone happy all the time, and there are going to be missteps, things we don't think to warn for. But it's not hard to TRY, and it's even easier to listen to readers when they tell you that something in your fic was a trigger for them. Forest fires can be prevented! And all that.
In other writing meta talk, since I'm already talking about this instead of doing actual work, I was talking with musicboxgirl this morning about pop culture references in fic. This is something I do all the time; it just comes naturally to me. And she was like, "Most people don't think in Buffy quotes though." And I was like. REALLY?? Because man... maybe it's just my particular group of friends, because we share this sort of wide breadth of pop culture knowledge, we have a weekly movie night, we all tend to watch the same shows, and since I went to college with some of them, we've read the same books and we all make mixes for each other and things like that. So we share this pop culture knowledge and I'd say like half of the conversations I have with my friends are in song/movie/tv quotes. Like, if I'm talking to mitcharf I can say, "Jesus, take the wheel!" and that will be a whole conversation and he'll know what I mean. If I'm talking to dazifudo and I reference the Blue Box, she'll know I'm talking about Mulholland Drive and my pet theory about the box representing the feminine and the key being masculine and how the entire movie is about the patriarchal industrial complex. (I know. Let's not get into it.) If I say, "Andy's annoying me, must be Tuesday," they will know what I mean.
So uh, my point is. I guess most people don't do this? My brain is so saturated with these pop culture things that actually mean a lot to me, I can't imagine not thinking like that. And when I write fic, I tend to do these really tight POVs and get very into the headspace of a certain character. When my beta was reading over 'Wizard Not Included,' she made a couple comments about my pop culture references, like the VMars one (because not everyone has seen VMars even though EVERYONE SHOULD, so that whole line might not make sense) and she also didn't realize that "doubting your commitment to Sparkle Motion/I made you lead dancer" are quotes from Donnie Darko. (What she said was, "Who's Scarlett, because she just sounds like you, especially those last few lines." LOL.)
Anyway, I don't really have a point here. I just think it's interesting. I learn new things every day! And most of them point to how weird my brain is. I am like the Seether. Uh, the Veruca Salt one. Not the other band. (And see? Veruca Salt = Willy Wonka reference, so clearly I am not alone.)
(And sometimes, that was a lie, too. Ahem, the story I received my first year.)
So now I'm thinking about it. And I mean, there are a couple really obvious fics I've written that I definitely put warnings on, not really as a conscious decision involving triggers or whatever, but just because I knew that most people would probably not want to read an Iraq War AU, or MPREG, or a fic about depression.
(Actually, I'm not sure I put warnings on 'What Color Is Your Parachute' now that I think about it. Hmm.)
But I just realized, you know... I've written a couple Britney fics. I remixed withdiamonds's Lambs Epic last year, from Britney's POV, and there were definitely some references to her mental illness and the whole Sam Lutfi Hostage Crisis situation. And then I wrote another Britney fic for word2urmomma which was heavily involved in the aftermath of that, and you know... I didn't even think about putting warnings up for references to mental illness and past trauma. In some ways, I guess I didn't think I needed to because it's a fic about Britney Spears and everyone pretty much knows what happened to her. But then again, most of the comments I got on that fic were kind of like, "This isn't what I was expecting." So now that I think about it, I really should've warned. HMM.
I think what it comes down to is, sometimes writers don't want to warn for things they think will turn someone off their story, because they want people to read the story and not pass it by due to warnings. And yeah, it sucks when you write something you really love and no one reads it because you kill off Nick Carter and the entire story is about PTSS and whatever. Not to be too specific or anything. But! Character death, it has to be warned for. It just does. Fanfic is not the same as a novel. We might want to pretend it is, but it's not. These characters don't exist only in the author's head and in her stories, they exist across a whole fandom of stories and in the collective minds of many many people. When you kill off a character in fanfic, it's really emotional because the reader doesn't just know the character as you've written him in that fic, the reader knows the character from the original source, plus hundreds of other fics.
I think as fanfic writers, we have a moral obligation to remember that we don't own the characters. We can write whatever we want to about them, but we have to give our readers the choice of whether they want to read about a character they know and love dying or being hurt or going through trauma or whatever. Some people aren't going to read your War AU, and you just have to accept that. We don't get to trick readers into reading our stories by failing to warn for Bad Shit Happening. That's just kind of selfish and cruel.
Personally, I don't know that I have triggers. But I've also been through a lot of therapy and I'm pretty open about the Traumatic Events of My Past, and I think that helps me. Not to say that certain stories don't move me. But I think I can read a story and empathize with the situation and relate very strongly to it and even cry my eyes out, and instead of feeling shame/hurt over the feelings the story is evoking, I feel catharsis. I don't think most fanfic readers feel like that, though. I think I'm pretty lucky in that respect.
Anyway, I'm actually really glad everyone is talking about this, because it's making me more aware of the way the things I write might affect people, and it's definitely helping me get over my disappointment that not many people read 'Dear Goodbye.' Which I really need to get over, and try a lot harder to understand other people's point of view re: fics involving death.
We can't make everyone happy all the time, and there are going to be missteps, things we don't think to warn for. But it's not hard to TRY, and it's even easier to listen to readers when they tell you that something in your fic was a trigger for them. Forest fires can be prevented! And all that.
In other writing meta talk, since I'm already talking about this instead of doing actual work, I was talking with musicboxgirl this morning about pop culture references in fic. This is something I do all the time; it just comes naturally to me. And she was like, "Most people don't think in Buffy quotes though." And I was like. REALLY?? Because man... maybe it's just my particular group of friends, because we share this sort of wide breadth of pop culture knowledge, we have a weekly movie night, we all tend to watch the same shows, and since I went to college with some of them, we've read the same books and we all make mixes for each other and things like that. So we share this pop culture knowledge and I'd say like half of the conversations I have with my friends are in song/movie/tv quotes. Like, if I'm talking to mitcharf I can say, "Jesus, take the wheel!" and that will be a whole conversation and he'll know what I mean. If I'm talking to dazifudo and I reference the Blue Box, she'll know I'm talking about Mulholland Drive and my pet theory about the box representing the feminine and the key being masculine and how the entire movie is about the patriarchal industrial complex. (I know. Let's not get into it.) If I say, "Andy's annoying me, must be Tuesday," they will know what I mean.
So uh, my point is. I guess most people don't do this? My brain is so saturated with these pop culture things that actually mean a lot to me, I can't imagine not thinking like that. And when I write fic, I tend to do these really tight POVs and get very into the headspace of a certain character. When my beta was reading over 'Wizard Not Included,' she made a couple comments about my pop culture references, like the VMars one (because not everyone has seen VMars even though EVERYONE SHOULD, so that whole line might not make sense) and she also didn't realize that "doubting your commitment to Sparkle Motion/I made you lead dancer" are quotes from Donnie Darko. (What she said was, "Who's Scarlett, because she just sounds like you, especially those last few lines." LOL.)
Anyway, I don't really have a point here. I just think it's interesting. I learn new things every day! And most of them point to how weird my brain is. I am like the Seether. Uh, the Veruca Salt one. Not the other band. (And see? Veruca Salt = Willy Wonka reference, so clearly I am not alone.)