Warnings: No Argument, But Some Information
OK, there seems to be a big debate going on about warnings on fic. It's not a debate I have any desire whatsoever to join; just reading the little bit of it I have was kind of emotionally exhausting. However, I think it's not a bad idea for fic writers to clarify their individual stances on warnings and ratings and so on, so I'm going to do that here, in the hopes that maybe those who read my fic, particularly those who are especially sensitive to certain topics and issues, might find it at least mildly helpful.
First of all, I do rate all my stories. I use the American movie rating system, because I am most familiar with it, and because it's used enough in fandom that I think people outside the US are likely to have at least a passing familiarity with it. If not, you can find the Motion Picture Association of America's offical explication of the system here. I will admit that I'm a little more liberal than the MPAA when it comes to things like language, but I figure using those ratings should give you at least a rough overall guide to what you're in for. Here's what they generally mean on my stories:
G: I can't imagine that anyone could find anything in the story to be disturbed, squicked, or offended by. (Unless it's the quality of my writing, ha, ha.) If there's violence, it's probably no worse than you'd see in a Saturday morning cartoon.
PG: This is sort of my default rating, really. There might be some non-graphic violence, some swearing, some mild and non-explicit sexual content. Or it might just have a darker emotional tone or some more mature themes. I figure most of the shows I'm writing for hover somewhere around PG or maybe PG-13, normally, so if it's the kind of thing you're likely to see on the series, I'll probably put it in the PG range.
PG-13: May be used for stuff that's a bit too dark and intense for me to feel quite comfortable calling it PG, but not explicit enough to be R. May include violence that, while not explicit and gory, could be disturbing for some. May include some fairly frank, but not pornographic, references to sex.
R: Used for stories which feature violence or gore somewhere around the level you'd get in an R-rated horror or war movie; semi-explicit sex; or subject matter that is likely to be particularly disturbing, such as rape or torture, even if they're not described in explicit detail.
NC-17: Generally used for extremely explicit sex. Would also be used for things like explicit, gory, blow-by-blow torture if I were ever moved to write that, which seems somewhat unlikely.
So, OK, that's the ratings. Now, I generally do say what those ratings are for in my story headers (and also on my fic index pages), whether it's sex or violence or whatever. The level of specificity I use may vary, but I do try to give people at least a reasonable general idea of what they're in for, and a general sense of how intense it is. I'll even warn for "angst," which isn't the sort of thing that necessarily requires a warning, but I know it can be nice to know going in whether you're looking at a happy story or an angsty one, plus when I write angst it often goes into some fairly dark territory. Unless I have a compelling reason not to (see below), I will certainly warn for things like non-con.
One thing I will not warn for is character death, if I feel it constitutes a spoiler. (If it doesn't -- for instance, if it happens at the very beginning of the story, or involves a canonical character death -- I do warn for it. But that's comparatively rare.) I feel quite strongly about this one. I have had my own enjoyment of fic badly affected by character death warnings, and there are times when, frankly, feeling obligated to give away a spoiler like that at the beginning would make writing the fic in the first place seem entirely pointless to me.
However, here's what I do do, with character death, or with any other potentially disturbing, squicky, or triggering content that I don't want to reveal to readers ahead of time, or with disturbing content that may be hard to pin down and classify. I will include a more general warning, something like: "Contains dark and potentially very disturbing content." If there are other, specific, warnings that I feel OK including, I will include those as well, and I may also be at least a little more specific with the general warning (such as specifying whether the content is sexual or violent in nature, or both). I consider such stories "read at your own risk" (and will sometimes even put "read at your own risk" in the warnings). If there are certain things that you cannot bear to read about, for whatever reasons, I strongly recommend skipping those stories. Although if you want to drop me a line (either via e-mail or on the story comments) and say something like, "I really can't read stories featuring sexual violence/incest/dead babies/whatever. Do you think this one will be OK for me to read?", I will be happy to answer you. I think advising people one-on-one is rather different from announcing to the world, "Guess what? The baby dies at the end!" at the beginning of the story.
Just a few more things...
I try to give slash and het pairings consistent ratings; I don't think a story should automatically be considered more "adult" if it has two men kissing than if it has a man and a woman kissing. I do, however, generally mention the fact that it is slashy in the warnings.
For fics that feature pairings, I believe I have usually included the pairing somewhere in the header. I've never written anything in which the presence of a particular pairing was a spoiler, as far as I can recall, but if I did, I think I'd probably include something like, "other het pairings" or "slash pairing undisclosed for spoiler reasons" or something in the header.
Some of my older fic, by the way, does not have actual headers, but rather features an introductory paragraph before the story. Ratings, warnings, etc. can still be found there.
I do admit that I am probably not nearly as conscientious about warning for spoilers as I ought to be, especially when it comes to older fandoms and to drabbles. Has anyone found this to be a problem with my fic? Is this something I need to worry about more?
First of all, I do rate all my stories. I use the American movie rating system, because I am most familiar with it, and because it's used enough in fandom that I think people outside the US are likely to have at least a passing familiarity with it. If not, you can find the Motion Picture Association of America's offical explication of the system here. I will admit that I'm a little more liberal than the MPAA when it comes to things like language, but I figure using those ratings should give you at least a rough overall guide to what you're in for. Here's what they generally mean on my stories:
G: I can't imagine that anyone could find anything in the story to be disturbed, squicked, or offended by. (Unless it's the quality of my writing, ha, ha.) If there's violence, it's probably no worse than you'd see in a Saturday morning cartoon.
PG: This is sort of my default rating, really. There might be some non-graphic violence, some swearing, some mild and non-explicit sexual content. Or it might just have a darker emotional tone or some more mature themes. I figure most of the shows I'm writing for hover somewhere around PG or maybe PG-13, normally, so if it's the kind of thing you're likely to see on the series, I'll probably put it in the PG range.
PG-13: May be used for stuff that's a bit too dark and intense for me to feel quite comfortable calling it PG, but not explicit enough to be R. May include violence that, while not explicit and gory, could be disturbing for some. May include some fairly frank, but not pornographic, references to sex.
R: Used for stories which feature violence or gore somewhere around the level you'd get in an R-rated horror or war movie; semi-explicit sex; or subject matter that is likely to be particularly disturbing, such as rape or torture, even if they're not described in explicit detail.
NC-17: Generally used for extremely explicit sex. Would also be used for things like explicit, gory, blow-by-blow torture if I were ever moved to write that, which seems somewhat unlikely.
So, OK, that's the ratings. Now, I generally do say what those ratings are for in my story headers (and also on my fic index pages), whether it's sex or violence or whatever. The level of specificity I use may vary, but I do try to give people at least a reasonable general idea of what they're in for, and a general sense of how intense it is. I'll even warn for "angst," which isn't the sort of thing that necessarily requires a warning, but I know it can be nice to know going in whether you're looking at a happy story or an angsty one, plus when I write angst it often goes into some fairly dark territory. Unless I have a compelling reason not to (see below), I will certainly warn for things like non-con.
One thing I will not warn for is character death, if I feel it constitutes a spoiler. (If it doesn't -- for instance, if it happens at the very beginning of the story, or involves a canonical character death -- I do warn for it. But that's comparatively rare.) I feel quite strongly about this one. I have had my own enjoyment of fic badly affected by character death warnings, and there are times when, frankly, feeling obligated to give away a spoiler like that at the beginning would make writing the fic in the first place seem entirely pointless to me.
However, here's what I do do, with character death, or with any other potentially disturbing, squicky, or triggering content that I don't want to reveal to readers ahead of time, or with disturbing content that may be hard to pin down and classify. I will include a more general warning, something like: "Contains dark and potentially very disturbing content." If there are other, specific, warnings that I feel OK including, I will include those as well, and I may also be at least a little more specific with the general warning (such as specifying whether the content is sexual or violent in nature, or both). I consider such stories "read at your own risk" (and will sometimes even put "read at your own risk" in the warnings). If there are certain things that you cannot bear to read about, for whatever reasons, I strongly recommend skipping those stories. Although if you want to drop me a line (either via e-mail or on the story comments) and say something like, "I really can't read stories featuring sexual violence/incest/dead babies/whatever. Do you think this one will be OK for me to read?", I will be happy to answer you. I think advising people one-on-one is rather different from announcing to the world, "Guess what? The baby dies at the end!" at the beginning of the story.
Just a few more things...
I try to give slash and het pairings consistent ratings; I don't think a story should automatically be considered more "adult" if it has two men kissing than if it has a man and a woman kissing. I do, however, generally mention the fact that it is slashy in the warnings.
For fics that feature pairings, I believe I have usually included the pairing somewhere in the header. I've never written anything in which the presence of a particular pairing was a spoiler, as far as I can recall, but if I did, I think I'd probably include something like, "other het pairings" or "slash pairing undisclosed for spoiler reasons" or something in the header.
Some of my older fic, by the way, does not have actual headers, but rather features an introductory paragraph before the story. Ratings, warnings, etc. can still be found there.
I do admit that I am probably not nearly as conscientious about warning for spoilers as I ought to be, especially when it comes to older fandoms and to drabbles. Has anyone found this to be a problem with my fic? Is this something I need to worry about more?