Do books NEED trigger warnings?

Are they actually helping the readers it's intended to help? Are they doing more harm than good? Are they leading to spoilers...or even censorship? Let's talk about it!

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 To warn or not to warn
02:56 Misleading marketing
04:35 What if trigger warnings don't work
05:23 Spoilers
05:54 How many triggers are there
09:15 Genre expectations
10:14 Censorship
12:08 Reader trust
13:07 Self responsibility
17:27 Publisher and author responsibility

Check out my writing courses!

Stuff I use as a full time writer/author (that you may have spotted in this video!) (affiliate links are afoot):

WRITING/WORK STUFF

COFFEE STUFF

VIDEO MAKING STUFF
______________

________________
SUPPORT INDIES!

________________


**full disclosure: the above link is a referral! If you sign up and get a project, you and I each get $100!**
___________
MY BOOKS
__________

DISCLAIMER: Links included in this description may be affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I may receive a small commission from purchases. There is no additional charge to you!

[Raiin]

The problem with trigger warnings is that as censorship is becoming more and more prevalent (re: authors having their books removed and accounts suspended), authors, especially those who write dark fiction, horror, erotica, etc basically put a target on their backs for Amazon to remove their books because of "content" that now can be easily seen by anyone on the first pages if a trigger warning list is included upfront. This opposed to content simply existing in these books - as they have always had - but only being found by actually reading the book and thus not just getting the graphic content but the context to which to judge this content by. ie. "Why include rape? How dare you?" Becomes, "Oh, the book is a thriller novel and the antagonist is a rapist so of course there is mention of rape or even a rape scene." Those who read the book find the content and that's that. But there isn't an immediate brandishing of a book as "bad" because look at this content in this trigger warning listing so lets automatically ban a book. So trigger warnings create a list of situations that aren't in context and certain authors can get punished heavily (aka lose their accounts and ability to write) because of these warnings. And the fact that you don't even want to mention certain words already expresses the fear we have of censorship. All you have to lose is potentially ad-revenue from ONE video and yet you have that fear. By adding trigger warnings, we authors who write dark fiction, have our entire livelihoods to lose. So this once again feels like a "Think of others" kind of thing which ends up affecting authors, just like things like OWN voices turned into the pressure to come out with everything that has happened to you in life or everything you are to defend why you're writing about "X" topic.

[c.a.newsome]

I agree 100% with your thoughts. I am a 65 YO SA survivor and have gotten along fine for decades without them. As you say, I am free to put down the book or turn off the movie if it bothers me. Also, treatment of the subject is more important than the subject itself. Harry Potter features many dark themes but does so in a way that does not terrify young audiences. Your remarks on branding and tone are dead on. I think that is more important than any trigger warning.

[marcellacassab]

I'll never forget way back when I was on Tumblr and I first saw trigger warnings for "FOOD." I suppose to warn people who are suffering from eating disorders? My heart goes out to ED victims, but c'mon! That's ridiculous! Next are we gonna need trigger warnings for mentions and depictions of "sleeping" so we don't trigger insomniacs? That's a bit much.

I feel like if I read a book with a trigger warning for, say, "death." For the whole book I would wonder whose going to die, when and how. I'll be hesitant to get too attached to any of the characters as a result.

I also fear that certain trigger warnings can give false impressions of a book. Like can you imagine if the first page of Charlottes Web was a paragraph warning you that this book contains: "attempted slaughtering of baby animal, multiple mentions of death and killing, mentions of mortality, pigs, spiders, spider eggs, rats, and death." Do you think it would have went on to be the massive children's Icon that it has? Not a chance! Parents would be too scared of disturbing their kids because when you lay that all out, it sounds like some psychological thriller. As a result, everyone would have missed out on a beautiful story with an important messages about friendship and the preciousness of life.

All and all I feel that it hinders the story, and the experience of reading it, for debatably little benefit to the reader. If any. This need to avoid all mentions of something upsetting ultimately isn't healthy. Especially when it comes to very natural topics like "death, " sooner or later you're gonna be confronted with it one way or another. People need to learn to cope with it to lead happy healthy lives.

[jinxyhelix]

The TW I have in my book is "life does not come with TWs, nor does my book. It's dark fantasy. Please research genre if dark fantasy is new to you. This is a work of fiction. Enjoy."

I speak fluent sarcasm. I also have PTSD, awful anxiety and have other issues I rather not say online. I lived 30+ years without TW. It's easy to put a book down or turn off the tv or click off a site.

[bicho]

Also I think we need to clarify the difference from trigger warning to content warning. Content warning is content that some may find offensive or uninteresting. Triggering content is content that literally triggers a person. I can't just put down a book and keep it moving when I come across a triggering scene. It will stay in my head and play on a loop for days, weeks, sometimes months and years. Though I do agree that it is my job to manage my own mental health and take care of myself, I personally really appreciate trigger warnings but I make sure to do my own research before picking up a book. I'm very grateful for these websites.

[victoriatalkswriting]

Thank you for talking about this! I use trigger warnings a lot and find them helpful. I often still read a book even if it has content that might trigger me, I just know to break it up into chunks and read a happier book at the same time. I still want to explore subjects that are difficult for me in books, but on my own terms. My main issue with trigger warnings is that they tend to be too vague. It's not helpful if you say "this content may be triggering" but not say what it depicts. I think there are sort of three factors to the representation of a difficult topic: how graphic is the depiction? How much of the book is about that particular thing? and what would a reader be led to conclude about the topic after finishing the book? The third one is probably the most blurry, but I think there is a big difference between a really graphic scene of something triggering that is never discussed again and a book about dealing with the aftermath of a traumatic event. There was a (sort of) controversy a while back on Storygraph which has user-added trigger warnings. People were putting trigger warnings for things that didn't occur in the book. They attempted to solve it by letting authors submit their trigger warning list and have that show up before the rest of the user-submitted list. This is great for the authors who do it, but I also think it's impossible for authors to know every single thing in their book that could be triggering.

I totally agree with you that kids are way better at regulating their reading than we give them credit for, but I also think there could be a way trigger warnings might help them make more informed decisions in the absence of good to help them.

I'm interested in the particular book the author of the article was writing because I am neurodivergent. I guess I don't really understand the idea of a content warning as a spoiler, I still find reading a book to be enjoyable even if I know what's going to happen. I'm a little concerned that if you think a content warning is a spoiler the "content" is only there for shock value. Autistic people (like myself) tend to find repetition comforting, so I'm glad they kept the warning in. It shows that the author cares about a neurodivergent audience, even if trigger warnings might bother someone else it shows that they are expecting neurodivergent people to read their book. It seems like a lot of authors who have autistic characters never expect autistic people will read their books which is troubling. I just see trigger warnings as an act of caring for your potential readers.

[swintonwoolfe]

Neil Gaiman wrote the definitive essay on this topic as an introduction to his book, "Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances".

"And what we learn about ourselves in those moments, where the trigger has been squeezed, is this: the past is not dead. There are things that wait for us, patiently, in the dark corridors of our lives. We think we have moved on, put them out of mind, left them to desiccate and shrivel and blow away; but we are wrong. They have been waiting there in the darkness, working out, practicing their most vicious blows, their sharp hard thoughtless punches into the gut, killing time until we came back that way.

The monsters in our cupboards and our minds are always there in the darkness, like mould beneath the floorboards and behind the wallpaper, and there is so much darkness, an inexhaustible supply of darkness. The universe is amply supplied with night.

What do we need to be warned about? We each have our little triggers. —Neil Gaiman

[manymusings]

I've made it through 50 years of life without trigger warnings on stuff I read. If I'm reading and see something I don't like, I can easily close the book. It just feels like nonsense to me and a way to force a writers hand for content.

[xmcxosb]

You took all my thoughts and ideas around the concept of trigger warnings and articulated them beautifully! Thank you for this!! My girlfriend and I were just having this discussion in bookclub and I was having a hard time expressing myself without feeling like I was either being insensitive and harsh or tiptoeing around it, so to see someone do it so eloquently— I can really appreciate it.

[underdawg]

I added a warning to my novel partly as a joke. But if people are not a fan of homosexual relationships, foul language, etc, they probably shouldn't be reading my novel in the first place. My aunt expressed interest in reading my book but stopped short after reading the warning page which I found funny. When I write, I don't censor myself.

[nahlanoelle]

My POV is simple: Trigger warnings are a form of censorship. While some genuinely want them just to make a person decision (and to them I say: Self-Regulate! as you mentioned), many people want to use the warnings to target authors. We've all seen those cancel campaigns. Books and every kind of media has existed literally since it's inception without trigger warnings. Why now some people feel the need to find and cancel content because they don't like it is beyond me.

[lounatic.]

Despite being off the cuff, your perspective was well-articulated and nuanced. Great job, Michelle!

I'm writing a horror adventure that has some fantastical, silly elements that could be perceived as "kids stuff" but it's part of a very dark narrative. When an octogenarian in a writing group I visited asked who my target age was, I said, "I remember elementary school classmates in the '80s reading Stephen King, and I know adults decades older than me now who will have nightmares for weeks if a movie is too scary. So to answer your question, I have no idea." 😄

To your point about the terminology, I wonder if people take less issue when it's referred to as a "content warning" instead. But like you and the commenter noted, whatever it's called, itemizing content might lead to reader avoidance and publishers (like movie studios) demanding cuts. I also wonder if this makes it easier for those who want books banned. 😬

Edit: Well, I should've read the comments first because others, a month ago natch, already said what I did and much better than I did. 🤦‍♂️😄 Oh well, it's nice to be in the company of like minded people!

[tropistan]

I just watched a video that contained a tweet with trigger warning for white rice. I understand this is an ED thing but food is literally everywhere you look. If ppl need a trigger warning on such a micro level, I think this indicates an even bigger problem in society that is being exacerbated by trigger warnings and avoidance. I don't know when total avoidance became the coping method du jour.

If I'm in mourning, I will only consume comedies and rom coms instead of my beloved thrillers and horror because what I consume is my personal responsibility. if a death is part of those stories then I will react and that's fine. If the death is gratuitous, then I will make a mental note of the people involved and be more careful when seeing their name attached to a project. As time goes on, I start consuming other things and I will come across media that will make me cry. That response becomes less intense as time goes on. Isn't this a normal part of human existence? Isn't how we interact with our environment a barometer as to how we are doing? Isn't this a part of healing and knowing your progress and how much help you still you need?

I'm fine with movies having broad content warnings such as violence, gore and graphic nudity etc.. but the trigger warnings in several genre books have actually made me not read the books because they felt like spoilers. And they are getting more detailed and spoilery as authors respond to some perceived demand from a vocal minority. I mean, gee, how did humans survive trauma for several aeons? We need to stop treating triggers and trauma like it's some brand new thing to be glorified when we are living in the best time to be alive. Trauma hasn't gotten worse. Our ability to cope has.

[HannahTheHorrible]

I have thoughts as a youtuber that puts content warnings on almost all of my videos. I think like you said, you can’t go pick a slasher movie and then be upset when it’s violent. When people come to my channel, it’s very obvious I’m a horror channel. BUT opening a random video of mine not knowing the case or story, i think it’s fair to warn people what they’re getting into.

That said, I don’t like the idea of TW for books and movies. It takes away from the immersive-ness and like you also said there’s websites you can go to for triggers if a person has severe ptsd.

When watching the news, yes, I appreciate it when they warn us the footage they’re going to show is distressing. If I pick up a book with a black cover and it’s called something like “murder club fun” or what have you I don’t want to be told the book is dark 😂

Thanks for talking about this Michelle!

[floragraves]

In poetry classes in college, we talked and wrote about the most devastating triggering things. Trigger warnings stopped being used in a week or two and we supported the persons instead. It ended up being a therapy session of private things we had shared to no one else. A fight club of sorts, if you will

[miramari]

I find trigger warnings helpful to some extent. If genre doesn't imply the thing in question, hell yeah I want to be aware that I need to skip certain parts of it. It probably won't make me stop reading, it just make me skip parts that I should not read. I saw creative solutions like putting trigger warning not for book itself but for specific chapter and that worked quite good.
On the other hand in visual media trigger warnings are more needed than on written media. When you read you can more easily disengage than when you watch something, even given the fact we have Netflix and stuff nowadays so we can just stop and skip but it takes time - I still want to know if I should watch with my remote in hand. Same logic here - I want to be aware if I need to be ready or not.
For argument of "we cannot find all triggers so we should not put on any" I have one food-for-thought question: There are trigger warnings for flashing lights in visual media for people who have photosensitive seizures, because it can be dangerous for 1 of 4000 individuals. There are people who have other seizure triggers than that. Should we ditch photosensitive warning because it's unfair to the people who have seizures due to other triggers?
So yeah, trigger warnings for most common triggers are necessary. And for the people who don't need or want trigger warnings why not just skip these 2-3 sentences after "TRIGGER WARNING:"?

[bedivere]

I'm someone who absolutely cannot handle pet death in media of any kind and I always check various sites or with my friends about media before consuming it. I'm lucky to have friends willing to do things for me like give me timestamps to skip in shows or page/chapter numbers to skip over. From a creator/writer standpoint, I don't mind providing a broad stroke content warning (ex., this work contains lots of violence etc) but my concern about providing a list of trigger warnings is, as you mention, the idea that this might be seen as exhaustive and authoritative exactly because it comes from an author or publisher directly. I think it's important for readers to share amongst themselves and help each other out in this regard rather than to rely on an author or publisher precisely because it's so subjective.

[therealannataylor]

I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about trigger warnings. I think that self regulation is an important tool, and being able to understand yourself and what might induce anxiety or stress is a person’s responsibility to avoid (if they so choose).

I recently finished Stephen king’s It. I say finished because i started it in October 2021. As a mother of four kids, I found that I couldn’t handle the gore that came at the expense of children and started having very visceral, graphic nightmares.

So I stopped reading. I put the book down, and didn’t read again for almost a year. But I kept thinking about the story. About the main kids who would defeat It in the end and I really wanted to see how they overcame their own issues to come out the other end successful.

So I picked it up again and practically devoured the story, knowing a little better what to expect this time around. I think the genre and it’s infamy we’re trigger warnings in itself, so I knew what to expect. Not how I would react to it.

I think that trigger warnings can be important in the selection process. For me, stories are incredibly important because they help to gain insights into situations in which I’m not typically exposed.

I think in the end that a person is 100% responsible for their own mental health. Certain things are probably a given in certain genres. Standard tropes probably don’t need trigger warnings.

But I think that other genres, romance, fantasy, or anything else that doesn’t have specific expectations for triggering content might be useful, especially since the good stories *always* have productive conversations within the story. And I mean, obviously a story about war will be graphic, to say the least.

All that to say I don’t think anything should be necessarily avoided because of a specific trigger warning, but that each person is responsible for themselves, and how would they know if something is “dangerous” to their mental and physical health if there is no warning label.

We label things for gluten, peanut, and dairy allergies. Even vegan and vegetarian 🤷🏻‍♀️ so in the end, why not?

[matty]

I appreciated your take on this. My partner has complex PTSD and it's really frustrating when people talk about being triggered but they really mean "upset" or "grossed out."

[RivkahSong]

As someone with PTSD I always appreciated the warnings as certain content can seriously affect my mental health. It's easy for people without those traumatic triggers to dismiss it but sometimes encountering certain things with no warning can cause flashbacks that re-traumatize you before you even really recognize the warning signs in yourself. The argument that if you can't warn for EVERY trigger you shouldn't warn for any is the logical fallacy of the excluded middle and completely disregards the good it does to warn for those big triggers. I don't expect people to "make the world my safe space" but a fair warning for things people KNOW can and are traumatic is helpful and appreciated.

Trigger warnings on literature arose out of the fanfiction community where it's considered a basic courtesy. As more fanfic authors become published authors it's becoming more prevalent in published stories. Fic trigger warnings involve major things like domestic abuse, sexual assault, racism, child abuse, amputation, suicidal themes, graphic violence, death of a child, depictions of war, etc. Horror stories that are especially dark and upsetting are often just slapped with a Dead Dove Do Not Eat tag meaning "this is a very dark and twisted story and may contain triggering events, you've been warned" and call it a day since the genre of horror means the reader can fairly accurately assume what kind of triggers are likely in it. Trigger warnings are also listed in an area of their own, not with the blurb, and clearly labeled as the Trigger Warning section so people can choose for themselves if they want to read those warnings or just skip past them to the story.