/r/writing: "How do you trigger warning something the characters don't see coming?"

I've noticed more and more traditionally published fiction with "content warnings" at the start, especially those "romcoms" with cartoon pastel covers and titles like "Felicity Sloane Shits Her Pants." Fair enough, if you don't want to be challenged in any way whatsoever you might as well know when a book contains triggers such as ableism, albinism, or parental neglect (discussed).

I wrote a r*pe scene of my main character years ago. I've read it again today and it still works. It actually makes me cry reading it but it's necessary to the story.

This scene, honestly, no one sees it coming. None of the supporting characters or the main one. I don't know how I would put a trigger warning on it. How do you prepare the reader for this?

However, this OP sounds like she's writing something a little more literary. Anyone who reads "serious" fiction knows part of the experience is hitting the completely unforeshadowed incestuous r*pe scene on page 284 right when you were about to recommend the book to a normal human being.

The comments at least tell the OP not to drop a trigger warning in the middle of the text, but most seem to favor one at the beginning.

Any good author who cares about their readers will include a trigger warning for this subject matter. I've even seen authors include resources for survivors at the end of their books.

I didn't know what to do about getting r*ped until I hit the end of the self-published Kindle erotica.

The one thing I will say is make 100% your SA is not used as a plot device.

Instead, make sure that it serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever and could be cut without changing anything.

I'm always a little unclear on what people mean when they use "plot device" as a pejorative. What elevates something (assuming that's what you're recommending) beyond a plot device?

Conspicuously unanswered. Writoids eventually start to forget that their characters aren't real and things happen to them for plot or thematic reasons, then bully each other for killing off the MC's wife's boyfriend "unnecessarily"

Do trigger warnings actually work, genuinely asking

It's a curteous thing to provide for readers. It shows integrity. If someone is unable to handle reading something that graphic, they're going to stop reading when they get to that scene anyway. We don't want to waste someone's time just because we want people to read our book.

As a writer it's important that as few people risk engaging with my book as possible.

So many authors forget the second and by far most valuable person in the equation: the fricking reader. If I read a scene that feels anything short of transcendental which overwrites the gratuitous emotional cheapshots at deep topics (domestic violence, self harm, sexual assault, etc) it feels like a cheap gimmick to make me feel more than I'm actually reading. It's lazy writing or clumsy at best.

And don't even get me started on the dog dying!

I'm struggling to imagine a context where a blanket content warning before a work could possibly cause undue artistic harm to the work itself. State mandated ratings systems exist in a variety of media formats from video games to movies to TV and I've never once heard a critic in those fields voice discontent that those content warnings spoil events.

MPAA ratings are just state-mandated trigger warnings

Lots of books have an author's note at the front with a content advisory. Some authors also have a page on their website with that information, and include the URL in the book. For example, here is the author's content warnings page for the novel Wilder Girls.

(The animals are not pupperinos.)

Not a fan of TW in general, but I can appreciate this approach. Don't put actual warnings in the book where somebody who doesn't want to see them will stumble on them, but put in a URL (or maybe even just point them to a page at the end of the book or something) and say "yo, if you're interested in TW go here" (-99 )

literally no one should be bothered by a content warning. if you're upset that there's a content warning, you have other problems you need to deal with

if a content warning is a spoiler, people have a right to be upset because it ruins the reading experience especially in genres like horror or thriller or crime. Not to mention that at this point, some people require ridiculous warnings for things like spiders, etc. Get real. Not to mention that actual triggers look different for everyone, for many people their trauma isn't triggered by description of something but other things such as scents, locations, etc. There's a huge debate in psychology about trigger warnings and whether they actually work or if they have a negative impact on healing.

saying "content warning: x theme, y theme, z theme" is not a spoiler. it's not like they're saying "content warning: character A does x thing and readers may be uncomfortable because of that."

also what's more important: mental health or a single event in a story

I get that there's such thing as doing a scene for lazy shock value. But honestly doing a "TW: SA " makes it look like you think the scene is just for lazy shock value and isn't a necessary part of the story. Do the scene or cut it. There might be cases where people would create informal resources for avoiding certain sensitive topics, but it shouldn't be writoids themselves preemptively deciding to spoil every mildly upsetting thing that happens in their entire book on the off-chance that someone might drag them on Twitter.

!writecel !bookworms How did you feel when you hit the incestuous r*pe scene on page 284?