About warnings in fics
Jul. 7th, 2009 04:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
x_erikah_xToday I read two posts talking about triggers of strong emotional response while reading fanfic. It's something I had never considered before and I recomend the writers in my f-list to read it as well.
It talks about the importance of warnings to people that had traumatic experiences in the past and that need to know if the story has any triggers that will result in strong emotional response, or even strong flashbacks and the likes. Some time ago someone posted a link to a post made by a person that suffered PTSD and how it feels like. I unfortunally misplaced the link. I thought I had added that to my memories, but I guess I didn't.
These two posts are similar to that one but focus on the triggers that lead to reliving the experience. The triggers can sometimes be as simple as the character having a certain name (which makes it all difficult because there are no warnings for that) or scenes that are explicit in a way that will take them back to their own personal experience.
Sometimes even reading the warnings can be a trigger in itself, which can be tricky. Also, too many warnings can spoil the fic, so I have seen the examples linked in the comments of the post that uses the 'highlight to see' effect with a spoiler warning next to it. We have all crossed fics without propper warnings and that have explicit sexual content, sometimes even non-con or dub-con, violence and torture of an especific kind that totally ruins our fun in reading fic.
We all know warnings in fics are important, but we usually consider only them being about personal dislikes rather than causing a person to have a panic attack because of something we wrote. The posts can also help characterizations in fanfic, if one of your characters happen to go through PTSD themselves.
Warning: Very explicit discussion of sexual assault and the nature, anatomy, cause & effect of triggers. Is itself triggery.
Triggers: What they feel like for me
It talks about the importance of warnings to people that had traumatic experiences in the past and that need to know if the story has any triggers that will result in strong emotional response, or even strong flashbacks and the likes. Some time ago someone posted a link to a post made by a person that suffered PTSD and how it feels like. I unfortunally misplaced the link. I thought I had added that to my memories, but I guess I didn't.
These two posts are similar to that one but focus on the triggers that lead to reliving the experience. The triggers can sometimes be as simple as the character having a certain name (which makes it all difficult because there are no warnings for that) or scenes that are explicit in a way that will take them back to their own personal experience.
Sometimes even reading the warnings can be a trigger in itself, which can be tricky. Also, too many warnings can spoil the fic, so I have seen the examples linked in the comments of the post that uses the 'highlight to see' effect with a spoiler warning next to it. We have all crossed fics without propper warnings and that have explicit sexual content, sometimes even non-con or dub-con, violence and torture of an especific kind that totally ruins our fun in reading fic.
We all know warnings in fics are important, but we usually consider only them being about personal dislikes rather than causing a person to have a panic attack because of something we wrote. The posts can also help characterizations in fanfic, if one of your characters happen to go through PTSD themselves.
Warning: Very explicit discussion of sexual assault and the nature, anatomy, cause & effect of triggers. Is itself triggery.
Triggers: What they feel like for me
