The Various Ways to Handle Trigger Warnings...

[LiquidCeil]

So I have been brainstorming the various ways to flag content that will be triggering or NSFW, b/c I feel it is an important service that authors need to give to their readers. But, I don't want the trigger/NSFW warning at the beginning of the chapter to act as a spoiler... I like some of my scenes to have shock value to them. As a reader, I don't want to be given a heads up when there is NSFW stuff. It makes the content more titillating when it happens, and, as an author, I have the opportunity to do this as well as I am able.

However, I don't wanna get bashed for not giving people a heads up. So I have thought of a few different ways to approach trigger warnings in my series...

A) In the glossary, a list of the potential trigger warnings in chronological order, {or / as well as} by type of trigger (i.e. graphic, violence, gore, childhood trauma, misogyny, homophobia, gender dysphoria, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, depression, tragedy, nsfw, noncon/dubcon, and other sex tags). I would mention this in the author's notes at the beginning of the series.

If I cannot hide the warnings with a spoiler format in the Glossary (I haven't played with it yet), this section will lie at the very bottom of the page, to avoid spoilers for readers who deserve the unexpected. If I CAN hide it in a spoiler, I will put it right at the top of the glossary so it will not be overlooked, in what I will assume to become a fairly lengthy extension of my work. This is a great idea for those who want the warnings, and also those who don't want to be spoiled or given a heads up.

B) A separate chapter/page at the beginning of the series detailing the trigger warnings, and when they occur. With this, can I forego the need for warnings at the beginning of each chapter?

C) Or maybe I should choose to flag chapters under a general banner of "potential trigger warning." Then have a spoiler-formatted section explaining the type of warning in the top, and another spoiler-blurb at the bottom with a summary of relevant content.

So, basically, I have 3 ways to do trigger warnings, to various degrees of spoilering and redundancy. If I choose option A, and not B, then I should probably include both A+C (because I have been told some readers don't check the glossary). If I choose just option B... I might forego adding it in the glossary as well. People may find it distracting/spoilery when looking at my glossary for different things. It might also make the glossary too long. Having a separate warning chapter works well in this case. If I choose option C, then, it can either stand alone, or go with option B. But in general, having option C ruins sudden surprises.

My options are (in order of subtlety, first being the most overt): [ABC], AC, BC, C, B

I welcome your thoughts, advice, and personal experiences in dealing with this issue. I have not yet decided which direction to go in, so I could use the advice of others to help me make a decision.

 

[Ace_Arriande]

Personally, I would put it in the bottom of the synopsis or put it in a spoiler-tagged author's note at the top of the first chapter of the series.

Also, props for considering this at all. Most people wouldn't. I'm admittedly lazy when it comes to it as well.

 

[FriendlyDragon]

Well, maybe not what people would normally do for a webnovel, but you can write a prologue or something that contains those trigger warnings. It'll give readers starting out an idea about what they're getting into. But it's mainly a thing for novels rather than webnovels. So just putting the warnings in an author's note or synopsis would probably be the safest way.

 

[Jemini]

I have placed 2 trigger warnings in my series so far. One was a more social based "trigger warning," not something that would actually trigger anyone's PTSD, just something that gets some people bothered from time to time. It was when some theological stuff was going to be in the chapter and presented in such a way that some people who care about their religion a lot might be a little bothered by. I mainly put this in to pre-empt any objections such people would have, and quite reliably my comment section made comments on that "trigger warning" that wound up creating an environment where such extremist individuals knew their griping wouldn't be very welcome and due to the fact they'd been warned ahead of time there was little they could say. It was really not put in their for consciounable reasons, it was just something to give me fewer headaches.

The second actually WAS for a rather gory scene describing the aftermath of a mob related event. A few chapters earlier, I had shown the beginning of the tensions as they built up. I showed very little of the gory violence on scene, it was only the emotional yelling that lead up to the shit hitting the fan, and then I just diverted the POV off screen while all of the really horrible stuff was going on. Then, I placed the trigger warning at the end of the chapter before the one that would actually show the aftermath of all the things that had been happening off screen. It was a fairly bloody scene, and it included a lot of specific descriptions that would allow a forensically minded individual to piece together exactly what had been going on off screen, and it was pretty brutal.

I also put a similar trigger warning at the beginning of the chapter that stuff appeared in, so the readers had been warned twice. The end result was that the readers in the comments section were to the effect that they were more upset by the emotional build-up scene than they were by the incredibly gory aftermath scene. Personally I think this might be because 1. those readers were lacking in the imagination necessary to build up the scene backwards, and 2. maybe they actually didn't have the kind of PTSD necessary to be upset by such a thing. It was set up to be like viewing the aftermath of an actual recently active battlefield with guts and bonefragments and everything. Very few people actually have that kind of experience.

 

[Vaerama]

I debated putting in a warning for my next chapter, because it included some nasty stuff that struck me as real hard to deal with, but then I realized something. If the reader has made it through the intensity of bereavement, through the relative insanity that follows it, through the human consumption and its related matters, through all the philosophical equivalency with the baddies, and never you mind the immolation:

They'll probably think I'm just mocking them if I feed them a little warning at the top because I'm going to say 'WARNING, WARNING: the main character suffered through some relatively dreadful abuse in the past, some of which will be in this chapter due to its emotional relevance and the main character's sentimental and wholly unreliable nature WARNING WARNING!'

That's my suspicion, anyhow. So instead, I went ahead and put 'the warning' in the synopsis. Said something like 'depictions of cruelty/suffering ain't a joke, yo', but fancier, and it'll probably cost me some readers to have done that, since most people aren't so fragile that they can't read it.

Whether or not it's a good thing to do: I most definitely do not know, but now I'm free to continue tormenting my main character in as constructive a manner as I please ^__^

 

[gaylolis]

all of my stuff makes it an automatic trigger warning, so i can be lazy i guess

 

[GDLiZy]

I already have Content Warning: Gore so I don't think I have to do anything, as the readers should expect it at some point.