Warnings - The Dead Tree Remix

[thisgirl_is]

I was talking about fandom stuff with a friend the other day, and the subject of warnings came up. Basically, we came down on opposite sides of the on-going argument about them. I'm for them, as I like to know what I'm getting into. She doesn't like spoilers, and feels that warnings can rob a story of its impact. (She did also point out that

Comments

[blamebrampton]

I love this post! Though it significantly overstates my own brilliance. But YES! Books give us all sorts of warnings in their deign, genre and over blurb, and then reviews give us a stack more. Moreover, most of us still buy books in bookshops, where the staff have usually read them and can give us a heads-up if they think we will need it.

In the end, I often pick up a book far more thoroughly warned than I would have been by a fandom 'violent themes, character death' announcement.

And thinking to add the code to white out warnings is actual brilliance.

[thisgirl_is]

You are just sort of all-purpose brilliant, really. :oD

It wasn't something I'd properly considered before, but there are huge differences between the way we come into contact with books and fic.

I aim to be helpful as much as I can!

[curia_regis]

*nods* I come down on both sides of the fence in this. On one hand, I'm not really squicked by anything and as you said, you can generally surmise from the pairing or summary what the fic is going to be about. But on the other hand, some people can be triggered or squicked by things. I like the white-out feature. It's awesome.

For example, Greyback/Ginny is unlikely to be full of flowers

I once had somebody demand that I put in a dark!fic warning for something similar. It was in another fandom (John/Todd, SGA) but it was blatantly a pairing that was very, very unlikely to be fluffy. It sort of made me wonder whether it was necessary to warn for something that was implicit from the pairing. Plus, I thought the dark aspects in the fic were implicit in canon too! *g*

[thisgirl_is]

I have plenty of squicks, but even when they sneak up on me, they are easily dealt with by the back button. :o) I think the problem arises when people without triggers don't fully appreciate the impact of a full-on trigger.

I am not at all familiar with SGA! I guess, though, that if you use a less extreme example than Greyback then it could go either way. Lucius/Hermione is around, in both dark!fic and romance genres. Not necessarily happy!fluffy!romance, but nonetheless a far cry from torture and rape.

I begin to wonder whether some fine-tuning of fic headers should be done. Quite how, I'm not sure, but I do wonder.

[scarletscarlet]

I'm pretty comfortable that I'm in an extreme minority (possibly even of one) with my general loathing for warnings. And, as I suspect you've noticed, I do warn. For the reasons you've outlined above. Because *other* people *do* care, and I'm not in this thing to make anyone's day more difficult

[thisgirl_is]

I don't think you are in such an extreme minority in not liking warnings. The problem seems to occur when people decide that that's sufficient reason to not do them at all.

Another point in the fic vs book factors that wordflake raises below is that fanfic (and fanart) are often way the hell more explicit than anything you'll find in mainstream media. So things that may appear in a glossed-over, fade-to-black kind of way in a novel or on TV, are laid out in excruciating/glorious (depending on your tastes) detail in a fic.

The white-out code is a great way for everyone to be a winner. I am kicking myself for not using it in hds_beltane, but I totally will be next year

[scarletscarlet]

I'm sure I've seen a fest somewhere that had separate sections for "warnings" and "enticements" - something like a kinkfest, maybe.

Explicitness... naw. Not really. Vs most TV, sure, even when shows like Spartacus, The Wire, and Oz (even True Blood is a bit more R-rated than usual) enter the mix. Shortbus had explicit sex, but it was pretty mild.

But books? I've read nothing in fanfic which is MORE explicit than things I've read in print. Irvine Welsh doesn't exactly pull his punches, nor do any number of pulpy horror or crime writers I read as a teenager - and I found that generally, if a book was going for explicit violence, it'd go for explicit sex, too, and about half the time would split the difference and go for rape, lovingly described over multiple pages.

The proportion of sex (and I'm using sex, here, as extreme violence is unusual in fanfic, other than as a prelude to some sort of H/C sex) to story - that's something I would think any publisher other than one of erotica would point to and make "ahem" noises about plot. Am

[wordflake]

I have actually never reflected on this since I'm one of those people that read everything that have an interesting summary. The only time I even look at the warnings is when the summary tells me it's gonna be quite a dark story and I want to know how dark, or if the author has chosen to make some word in the warnings bold or extra big to stress them.

I think another quite big difference between fanfiction and "real" fiction is that fanfiction in general probably is much more detailed. I mean, just think of all the pr0n out there, if there were so detailed sex scenes in books as in fics it would have been a big thing and media would have reported about it and so on. And fics can be pretty detailed in other areas too. Maybe some people need warnings in fics because there are more things to warn about?

[thisgirl_is]

I think that unless one has specific past traumas, it's really not something one does think about until your attention is drawn to it. I certainly didn't until one of the semi-regular rounds of wank about it. (Every so often there's a big argument about it, usually because someone's being a dick about it.)

I'm not sure. I sort of agree, but as ships_harry pointed out above, there is some pretty gory stuff in some mainstream media, especially if you get into so,me of the crime-type stuff. I think it would tend to be the kinkier stuff. Although, I was about to throw in the example of incest, but Virginia Andrews was all over that years ago. And I got that out of the high school library, now I think about it.

I think the people who need the warnings always need the warnings. It's just that they're more likely to get them in fic, and it stands out more when someone makes the decision not to warn.

[wordflake]

I don't read books that are crime-or horror related, so maybe that's why I've never really seen any of it in books. Though on the other hand, I'm pretty tolerant against stuff like that (a result of being permitted to watch horror movies when I was a child) so I don't think I really think about it. It's more "Hmm, he's being disemboweled ... oh, chocolate! *munches*"

You're probably right with I think the people who need the warnings always need the warnings. Maybe it's just easier for people to complain when it comes to fanfiction since it's so much easier to contract the author.

[celestlyn]

I have always appreciated the warnings and have never thought of them as spoilers. I want to know exactly what to expect from a story. I don't want specifics, of course, but I'd like to know before getting into a fic if it's a death fic or if it's chan or non-con. Those are fics that I could do without. I don't have a lot of squicks, but I'm not interested in S&M. I don't find it at all sexy or a turn-on. The mental image of somebody beating someone bloody for sexual gratification is a big squick for me. I realize that many do not feel that way and I have no problem with them other than I personally, will take a pass. One of my favorite authors is writing a fic and it's probably heavy on the bdsm. I have no way of knowing for sure until I read it, so I'm going to wait until it's finished and ask someone. I don't want to give the impression that I'm a lightweight. I have a few kinks of my own, but that just doesn't happen to be one of them

[thisgirl_is]

They've never bothered me either, but I can see the point of those who do.

How easy would it be to code a dropdown? I have absolutely no idea, but if it's in any way complicated, I suspect people wouldn't bother. I know a lot of us are terribly lazy and/or technologically challenged. :oP

[celestlyn]

Uh....well, I'm the queen of remedial tech. I barely know how to use a cell-phone. I'd really have no idea how to code either one, or anything else, for that matter. It's probably a good thing I don't consider warnings spoilers. And I always read the summaries, too.