October 2009
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7/22/06 12:42 pm
During my time away from the Internet, the fic warnings discussion came around again, and I'm not sure I ever addressed this, not even when I was meta'ing like a mad woman back in ye olde days of 2001-2003 (obviously, I need to go back to school, because nothing makes me meta like avoiding homework).
I used to warn way back in my wee days of fanficcing when I routinely killed off characters, made them angst like there was no tomorrow, and veered them off into AU territory because I was desperately and completely unhappy with canon and I wanted schmoopy, happy endings, damn it. If I had to warn all over again on those fics, I'd probably point out the excessive kissy-face, the way, way AU characterization, bad canon, and haphazard and inconsistent grammar.
Newer fics, I don't really warn. I figure the pairing information is in the summary, so the reader can choose for herself if she wants to read a slash or het or gen fic. On the rare instance I write something higher than PG-13, I'll slap either an R or NC-17 on it and if it's *really* a hot topic issue like rape, I might add "Some content might be disturbing to some readers" and leave it at that. I'm probably not going to warn for killing off a character because, well, I don't do it that often), and if I do, I want it to be surprise. I'll warn for spoilers, and note where the story takes place in canon because I'd like that same courtesy back.
Other than that, I never think about slapping warnings on my fic because a) I write mostly canonical, het, PG-13 fics and b)I don't expect them from other authors. I figure I get enough of a warning from the summary, the pairing info, the first three paragraphs of a fic, and the formatting. If something happens that I don't like in a fic -- and heck, it doesn't even have to be something controversial like a character death as the stuff that drives me crazy isn't the type of stuff people warn for -- then that's what the back button is for. I want to be surprised by a fic, and if a warning more heavy-handed than "This fic contains content that may be disturbing to some readers" will spoil that surprise, then I'm all for leaving it off.
2006-07-22 06:37 pm (UTC)
Ha! If we could only force people to warn for OOC behavior, bad canon, excessive heartburn-inducing kissy-face, terrible characterization, horrible grammar, etc., *then* I'd be happy!
(And yes, this would mean that I'd have to go back to my early stories and mark for the above. Well, my grammar wasn't too bad, but the rest of it, yeah.)
2006-07-22 06:46 pm (UTC)
Ha! If we could only force people to warn for OOC behavior, bad canon, excessive heartburn-inducing kissy-face, terrible characterization, horrible grammar, etc., *then* I'd be happy!
Exactly! Why don't people warn for the fact that otherwise grown adults are suddenly going to turn into mallrats who listen to boybands while smacking bubble gum loudly? Or how about warning for going all Romeo and Juliet with the characters? Or fic sprinkled heavily with cliches, both in phrase and plot? Or writing quirks like bookisms (please, no more ejaculations!) or repetive descriptives like 'the redhead' that once or twice won't bother you, but by the 10 millionth iteration, will drive you nuts?
Apparently, I feel more strongly on this subject than I thought...
2006-07-22 08:09 pm (UTC)
Oh lord, said bookisms get on my nerves and I *cannot* read stories where in every paragraph, the same character is referred to with a different description. ::winces::
2006-07-23 03:08 am (UTC)
Or for that matter, the same useless descriptor over and over again. I mean, "the blonde" or "the redhead" gets really, really redundant and boring after a while. Especially when you have "the blonde" and "the redhead" hanging out in the same paragraph baking cookies and ejaculating.
2006-07-23 02:14 am (UTC)
The whole thing of the debate has left me very amused because it seems like in a lot of ways people are mixing up header information with warnings. I find I don't warn a lot because usually anything that people would warn for can be handled more benignly in the header information. Warnings, I think, should be reserved for the big deals. *G*
2006-07-23 03:06 am (UTC)
I totally agree -- the header information provides almost everything you need to know about a story. i mean, if you can't figure out Kirk/Spock is slash, then is it really the author's responsibility to warn for slash? I think not. And really, if you check out a book in a library, you're not going to get all the warnings people seem to require of fic and chances are, if you don't like a book, you stop reading it and return it. So very simple. So I'm not sure where the angst is coming from.
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