Of trigger warnings, spoilers, and tags

Fiction has many purposes. Entertainment, education, enlightenment, and learning empathy are the big four I can think of right now. Good fiction should do all these things, sometimes without your notice. As you learn and grow, the lessons may get more subtle. Maybe the book is just brain candy,¹ meant solely to entertain, and author didn’t mean to do anything

but habitual readers will learn something, even if it’s a masterclass in what not to do.

I don’t know when or where formalized trigger warnings started in earnest (not the rare “The following film contains scenes that some viewers may find disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised.”), but I first saw them on the e-publishing sites in the mid-aughts.

Some took themselves very seriously and come from a place of concern (but this is not on the Kindle buy page):

This series deals with parental loss and terminal diagnosis of a loved one. I’ve been through it myself, so I hope it is dealt with appropriately – with real sensitivity and empathy.

Some could marginally be classified as spoilers:

This is a dark romantic suspense and psychological thriller of 80,000 words, featuring a main character with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Trigger warnings for abuse, self-harm, CSA, pregnancy-related issues.

Some were cheeky extensions on the blurb:

CAUTION: This title contains the jarring and bizarre juxtaposition of explicit sex and overt religion. As an added bonus, there’s quite a bit of libertarian/objectivist philosophy, politics, money, and cursing—the really bad kind. I also threw in a smattering of violence, nude art, the criminal use of mint chocolate chip ice cream, rampant armchair psychoanalysis, a slew of shoulda-coulda-wouldas, and a cat named Dog.

There are arguments for and against, of course, and I am firmly on Team No in terms of warning about problematic or disturbing content.

For one, if they serve as spoilers, there is no point to reading the book if you know what happens before you can click BUY. Whether you turn to the back of the book before you start reading is your problem, not the problem of a potential reader who resents being spoiled without warning.

For two, and this is my biggest WTF objection, don’t read what is clearly marked and shelved HORROR and then complain about what you get.

Somehow trigger warnings spread to academia and classic literature, including Shakespeare, riding on the coattails of safe spaces.

Students in America have been asking for “trigger warnings” to be included on works of literature which deal with topics such as rape or war.

That’s not new. Book banning is a trigger warning on steroids.

I’m not going to go into how people should handle their trauma because that’s not my business. I don’t care about your trauma and you don’t care about mine. That’s as it should be.

I’m also not going to tell you to suck it up. I’m going to tell you how not to suck it up and why you should suck it up.

If you’ve done the above and you choose to read Book Title anyway, that’s on you.

I read One Child by Torey Hayden as a young teenager, maybe 13/14 years old. It’s a true story/memoir covering the abuse and sexual assault of a child, and the resulting behaviour/care etc. The book was from my school library, and the librarian and I had a close relationship. She did not give me any clue as to what I was about to read, just asked me to let her know my thoughts afterwards.

It devastated me, but reading it was also the reason that I noticed my friend was being abused in her home the next year. If there was a trigger warning on that book I probably would have skipped it, or it likely wouldn’t have been approved for a school library. Certainly, I wouldn’t have picked up the clues that my friend was in trouble.

Life has dark parts, I’d rather encounter them in fiction/literature first – even unexpectedly – so I have an inkling of how to manage when darkness turns up in real life.

Trigger warnings/content warnings are for people like me. And no, I am not made of sterner stuff because I endured over a decade of sexual assault, physical abuse and emotional trauma. You have no idea what you are talking about.

Six-year-old Sheila never spoke, she never cried, and her eyes were filled with hate. Abandoned on a highway by her mother, unwanted by her alcoholic father, Sheila was placed in a class for emotionally disturbed children after she committed an atrocious act of violence against another child.

Everyone said Sheila was lost forever, everyone except her teacher, Torey Hayden.

Torey fought to reach Sheila, to bring the abused child back from her secret nightmare, because beneath the rage, Torey saw in Sheila the spark of genius. And together they embarked on a wondrous journey—a journey gleaming with a child’s joy at discovering a world filled with love and a journey sustained by a young teacher’s inspiring bravery and devotion.

“Trigger warnings” (and I use that phrase loosely) do serve another purpose: Marketing.

That thing you don’t want to read? Somebody else is actively looking for it, so it behooves an author to take that into account and arrange their words accordingly.

This

is not a trigger warning or spoiler. It’s a product description. The readers who pick up this book already know what it is and they are actively looking for it. They want precision as to their taste in tropes.

Calling it “clean” romance instead of “sweet” is damaging and kind of derogatory

It always really grinds my gears when people call it clean romance when it is closed door, fade to black, no mention of sex at all, etc. It implies that sex is inherently dirty or wrong in some way. Calling it sweet on the other hand doesn’t have the same connotations, just that the book isn’t steamy or spicy. It’s also putting down those who might like a different kind of romance.
Emphasis mine.

That’s a you problem.

I don’t love the word “clean”, either, but it has one thing going for it: It’s a very efficient term. [ … ] “Closed door” and “fade to black” only apply to certain books, since some books have no reference to sex at all. I guess “no steam” would work, but I feel like “steam” is slowly becoming less popular than “spicy”, so I’m not sure if it will hold up long term. TLDR I’m okay with “clean” because everyone knows what it means.
Emphasis mine.

If you’re an author who doesn’t like trigger warnings, but still need to be precise for readers who are looking for exactly what you’re selling, the solution is very simple:

genre → subgenre → tropes in a spoiler tag

It’s efficient.

Just … don’t be this guy: