Trigger warnings and why they are important!

 

So, you are standing in a bookshop. You found a pretty looking book, with a beautiful cover, in your favorite genre, and blurb on the back tells you that you would love this book. Excited, you open the book to the first pages, you see a title page, a map, and another title page, then you see a list of trigger warnings. You roll your eyes, annoyed, and go to put the book back. "Why is this even here?" you ask yourself, "Who needs a trigger warning on (Genre Here)?" 

    Well, Love, pick that book back up and let's take a closer look, shall we?

    Trigger warning lists may not mean much to you, but they could me the world to someone else. Even in genres like Horror, Extreme Horror, or Romance, trigger warnings can mean the difference between thrilled in the best ways, or chilled in the worst. 

    If you're reading horror, you expect to be scared, and left haunted by the words on the page. But what would happen if you were reading a horror, and then the dog is killed by the monster? If animal death if something you find upsetting, and off putting; you'll want to put the book down. What if you had known before hand that the dog would die- Would you still read the book? Probably not. 

    There are some people who would still choice to read the book, with or without knowing about the animal's death. 

    Trigger warning lists are not to scare off protentional readers. Trigger warning lists are there to help readers and viewers make informed decisions about the content they consume. Even if you are triggered by the content listed, you can still chose to read the book if you believe you can handle it. Instead of reading a book, blissfully unaware of something in chapter 12; then when you get there you are completely caught off guard. 

    You're upset, you're confused, and most importantly, you're hurt. Some people wish they would have known because for some people, being triggered can hurt them severally. I know, as a writer myself, I would never want to hurt my audience and I know other writers feel that way too. All of my work in progress projects have a trigger warning and a kink list that I fill in as I write.

    So, maybe trigger warnings aren't for you. So what? Not everything is for you. Maybe a trigger warnings list is, in itself, a trigger warning for you to not read the book. That's okay. At the end of the day, most people want to have in informed decision when reading.

    The rest of the blog contains discussions of Kink (18+)

    I also think the same is true with listing Kinks at the beginning of the book. I don't think I've ever seen a book have a list of kinks at the beginning, but any time if a perfectly good place to start. 

    I also list the kinks at the beginning of my WIP projects, because I continue to believe that every reader deserves to have a fully informed view before they read something.

    I have been reading this NSFW series for a while, and it is typically good at preparing the readers for the content they'll be reading; with short views and visual aids (cough), but recently in a new chapter, they did not have a warning for a personal trigger of mine. I realized what was happening and began to skim very fast until I knew it was safe to read again. 

    I believe I, and whoever else, should have been warning so that content wouldn't caught us off guard and potentially cause harm.

    On the more light hearted side, Kink lists are just as important because I really don't wanna see your foot fetish stuff.

Love and light!