Fanfic Writers' Virtual Water Cooler

[Whytewytch]

Personally, the thing that bothers me most in fic, the thing I just can't forgive an author for, is poorly written story (bad or unbelievable plot, bad grammar, bad spelling, bad characterization). I'll get behind this whole warning thing if authors will have to start warning for being bad at being authors...

And now we're back to the "this is my first fic, be kind" thing. Wouldn't it be funny to see warnings like, "I woodent no a spelling eror if it bit mee" or "Grammer? What's my mom's mom gotta do with this?" (All misspellings intentional ).

Wouldn't it be great if we could write summaries of a back-cover-blurb variety and have cover art? That would so totally rock!

(I'm not getting the messages about this thread, either, amara.)

[Falcon Horus]

Wouldn't it be great if we could write summaries of a back-cover-blurb variety and have cover art? That would so totally rock!

You're being sarcastic...

Stories can have lengthy summaries and covers, and do have them.

[Amara D'Angeli]

And yes, to be clear here... whether it's in the exterior summary on a fic site or in an Author's Note that heads up the very first page/chapter of the fic, placing a warning of some sort about certain elements of the story in there counts in my mind as a 'warning'. I appreciate them being there, because then I can decide whether or not to spend my time reading a story based on some idea of how likely I am to enjoy it.

I'm a HUGE fan of Author's Notes, as anyone who's read my own fanfic can attest.

I tend towards a mix of both. I'll warn outright for sex, simply because I'm concious of some states having legality issues with minors reading smut. (Then again, mine did and it never stopped me...) Sometimes I'll mention why a story gets its rating. I don't warn for smoking, drug use (necessarily), drinking, or other things I consider minor issues (even though I've seen people loose their stuffing over things like that not being warned for). Again, the biggest issue, for me, isn't the warnings themselves but people who demand them and the idea that there's a generalization out there about what someone may be too sensitive to see.

[Gatefan1976]

I must be a "book-ho", I'll read pretty much anything and the devil take the hindmost.
There are VERY few books I have just given up on reading, in fact, the only one that instantly springs to mind is Twilight. I did almost give up on The hunger games as well, but I slogged through that one, needless to say, I shall not be reading the rest of that series.

[Gatefan1976]

And now we're back to the "this is my first fic, be kind" thing. Wouldn't it be funny to see warnings like, "I woodent no a spelling eror if it bit mee" or "Grammer? What's my mom's mom gotta do with this?" (All misspellings intentional ).

GET OUT OF MY MIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(I however wouldn't ask people to be kind )

[Amara D'Angeli]

And now we're back to the "this is my first fic, be kind" thing. Wouldn't it be funny to see warnings like, "I woodent no a spelling eror if it bit mee" or "Grammer? What's my mom's mom gotta do with this?" (All misspellings intentional ).

Wouldn't it be great if we could write summaries of a back-cover-blurb variety and have cover art? That would so totally rock!

(I'm not getting the messages about this thread, either, amara.)

Exactly, it would, and I'm glad to know it's not just me!

[SF_and_Coffee]

Precisely my point: if a story is summarized properly, readers will know what they're getting into without needing specific warnings.

But I consider the mention of these things, or reference to them, in the summary to be the very warnings I'm talking about. A warning doesn't need to include the word "warning" or be in a separate place. However, in an archive like Fanfiction.net where you only get two or three sentences worth of verbiage to describe the story, those elements do need to be mentioned so that they can function as warnings. Alternatively, put an Author's Note at the very beginning and make sure you include in there that the story contains this or that possibly disturbing element.

Part of it, that just occured to me, might be that I'm bothered by the instant gratification of warnings. If a reader can read a two paragraph (or two sentence, depending on the story, I suppose) description of my work and then decide for themselves whether or not it sounds like something they'd like to read, I can respect that a lot more than just warning that my story contains _________ "trigger". For instance: if someone warned of animal death simply because that was a typical warning, I'd pass up a story. But suppose in the story the animal dies of old age or has to be put down for a good reason? I could handle that and might have missed a great story simply because I took the "animal death" warning as the hard line. My hardline is senseless or violent animal death. I might have missed a great story for a generalized warning. Chances are a good summary would have told me what kind of animal death I'd see.

I'll put it this way: I want to know up front if the story contains graphic violence or torture, animal abuse, child abuse, rape, graphic sex, or major emotional abuse. If the author can make that clear in the summary or author's note without specifically wording it as a warning, great. I mean, I can read between the lines as well as the next person. But what I don't want is to be blithely reading along in a story and suddenly be hit in the face with something like that. Characters, especially OCs, getting killed? It happens, and I can live with it. Coarse language? My father was a former Navy man, so I had a full demonstration of the meaning of "swears like a sailor" by the time I was ten. I can handle it.

Rape, torture, etc.? Those I would like to have some inkling of beforehand if possible.

[SF_and_Coffee]

Wouldn't it be great if we could write summaries of a back-cover-blurb variety and have cover art? That would so totally rock!

Uh, did you know that AO3 has all that?

[fems]

Uh, did you know that AO3 has all that?

It has cover art? I haven't seen it yet. FFnet has tiny covers (they do get uglified by the image manager) now though and they recently upgraded their max chars of a summary from 255 to 384.

[Raelis]

Part of it, that just occured to me, might be that I'm bothered by the instant gratification of warnings. If a reader can read a two paragraph (or two sentence, depending on the story, I suppose) description of my work and then decide for themselves whether or not it sounds like something they'd like to read, I can respect that a lot more than just warning that my story contains _________ "trigger".

I don't know.I see nothing wrong in the idea of "instant gratification". It's fandom. It's something I do for fun. I don't want to waste my time (and I don't have a lot of spare time) reading several chapters of a story only to find out in the middle that it's the story I should have avoided in the first place. I prefer to be 'instantly gratified' and know for sure if this story is something I should not be bothering with,no matter how well-written it may be. And I'm not going to feel gulity for not giving the story a chance. After all, this is my spare time, and I choose to spend it on stories that I know have less chance of evoking negative feelings in me.

Anyway, I'm not a Warning Nazi, far from it. But there are some things that are considered genuinely traumatic by the majority people (violence, torture, rape, sexual abuse of children) - I don't think it's much of a hardship for a writer to warn for them.

[SF_and_Coffee]

It has cover art? I haven't seen it yet. FFnet has tiny covers (they do get uglified by the image manager) now though and they recently upgraded their max chars of a summary from 255 to 384.

Yep. Here's an example, using the summary page of my own first fic over there. I could probably use a different dimension of artwork, but I have the same piece I use as my sigline here, only in higher quality and a larger size. Scroll down just below the summary and there it is.

[Raelis]

It has cover art? I haven't seen it yet. FFnet has tiny covers (they do get uglified by the image manager) now though and they recently upgraded their max chars of a summary from 255 to 384.

Yes, it does, and it has just fan art too (not accompanied by fic). AO3 is awesome.

[fems]

I tend towards a mix of both. I'll warn outright for sex, simply because I'm concious of some states having legality issues with minors reading smut. (Then again, mine did and it never stopped me...) Sometimes I'll mention why a story gets its rating. I don't warn for smoking, drug use (necessarily), drinking, or other things I consider minor issues (even though I've seen people loose their stuffing over things like that not being warned for). Again, the biggest issue, for me, isn't the warnings themselves but people who demand them and the idea that there's a generalization out there about what someone may be too sensitive to see.

If I'm honest I would have never thought about adding animal abuse to my warnings. The only things I warn for are those that make the rating, like (graphic) sex, language (although I would never rate a fic T or M merely for bad language), rape, non-con/reluctance, major character death. Smoking isn't something I would have thought of either and I don't think it should be added as a warning. Same for drugs. Heck, I've had minor original characters die (one via euthanasia) but never warned for it.

Yep. Here's an example, using the summary page of my own first fic over there. I could probably use a different dimension of artwork, but I have the same piece I use as my sigline here, only in higher quality and a larger size. Scroll down just below the summary and there it is.

Oh, like that. Yes, I've used that option in mine as well. It's not really cover art though. I imagined a real cover, you know, book sized or something and separate from the notes.

ETA:
I haven't had any problems with notifications from this (or other) threads.

[SF_and_Coffee]

Well, it's really cover art in the sense that it's art that relates specifically to that story, and I have it at the front of the story, or at least as close as I can get it. Like I said, if I take the time to design a new piece of art with the same dimensional ratio as a book cover, I'll probably put it up there, but I haven't taken the time for that yet.

[Amara D'Angeli]

Compelling arguments, all. I'm starting to reassess my irritation on the subject. The more I hear the arguments for the more I find myself relaxing on the subject. I think most of my irritation on the subject to begin with had more to do with the people who yelled and screamed about warnings and I'd just categorically assigned it as an irritation with warnings in general.