Need Help: Do I need a warning(s) for the reader?

[drunkwombat]

I'm asking because I'm too close to the story and I don't have a good sense of what people might find difficult to read. (I want to err on the side of caution of course).

Toward the end of the story two characters, who are friends, have spontaneous sex after they both lose the loves of their lives. They do it to mask their pain, in one case punish themself and the other to vicariously strike back at the lost love. The sex is not described but their thoughts and feelings in the moment are. Both immediately regret what they've done deeply. To me it's a very strong emotional scene but like I said I'm too close.

Any advice is appreciated and I'm more than happy to send a copy of the story.

Thanks!

 

[PennyThompson]

You'll get all kinds of different advice about this, here!

Some people will say that authors shouldn't "coddle" their readers, just write what you want to write, emotions and trauma and kinks and fetishes, and the reader can decide how they feel about it after they've read it. Use the story tags to label content, and don't worry about upsetting people. (This isn't the opinion that I hold, so I might not be defending the position as well as I could )

My personal opinion is that we should write what we want, within legal boundaries and within the content policies of the site. Tell the story you want to tell, do what feels right for the characters and the plot, and do it fearlessly!

But it doesn't cause me or my stories any harm to let potential readers know what they're getting into, in a spoiler-free way. If I was a baker, I wouldn't hide allergens in my cookies and not tell people, it would be unethical (and in some situations maybe illegal).

"Surprise, there's walnuts in the last bite of this bread! Oh, you're allergic? Tough luck! I'm not going to compromise my baking integrity because of your weakness, I don't owe you a thing!"

So, I put an "ingredients list" at the top of my stories. I try to avoid too many spoilers in the ingredients, but I do try to label the primary kinks, orientations involved, and if there are any potentially tricky emotional components.

It doesn't mean I'm going to avoid those things, I'm still going to write what I want to write! Erotica is for enjoyment and pleasure, fantasy and exploration, and maybe a little bit of boundary pushing. But I don't want to hurt someone else if it's easy for me to avoid it

 

[drunkwombat]

Wow, good answer. And thank you for replying so quickly, I appreciate the advice. I think I'm going to go with the "there are strong emotions" approach I planned to use originally.

 

[Nynah]

Toward the end of the story two characters, who are friends, have spontaneous sex after they both lose the loves of their lives.

Penny's suggestions and advice are excellent! The only thing I can add is perhaps a specific content/trigger warning about loved one death since that can be a very traumatic thing to encounter in the course of a story.

I wish there was a way to have text we can hover over to reveal in our Lit stories, it would make a world of difference in allowing us to alert readers to any potential triggers.

 

[PennyThompson]

I wish there was a way to have text we can hover over to reveal in our Lit stories, it would make a world of difference in allowing us to alert readers to any potential triggers.

Yesss absolutely. The forum has a "spoiler" tag, I would LOVE to have the same thing as an option on the story side!

Ingredients list (minor spoilers):
[SPOILER]
Thigh-high socks
Indentations in thigh flesh
Stolen boyfriend hoodie
[/SPOILER]

Edit: Hmmm... does the spoiler tag here on the forum not actually work correctly?

 

[drunkwombat]

Penny's suggestions and advice are excellent! The only thing I can add is perhaps a specific content/trigger warning about loved one death since that can be a very traumatic thing to encounter in the course of a story.

I wish there was a way to have text we can hover over to reveal in our Lit stories, it would make a world of difference in allowing us to alert readers to any potential triggers.

To clarify, lost in this case does not mean death but rather contact with them being severed permanently.

 

[calmlikeabomb]

Probably for the best. Some may not like it, but it's always better to let the consumer know what they are in for. I suppose it's better to treat your disclaimers as less warning labels and more of a way to ease people into the themes of the story.

For instance:

This story deals with an upper caste Brahmin housewife who is sexually frustrated, and her desire to rim her dark skinned, lower caste servant. The differences in ages, skin colours, and the debauched nature of the consensual acts excited first her, and then her husband as well. The story also contains a sharp critique of caste system prevalent in India even today, as well as a 5000 word dialogue about the failures of capitalism to empower the socially disadvantages.

Tells you immediately what the key themes are, and if any caste supremacist or capitalism apologist stumbles upon it, they know going in how the story is anathema to their world view. Then they can choose to engage with the story and maybe learn something new, or they may choose not to and masturbate to something else.