Labels & warnings

[thuviaptarth]

cathexys recently posted a response to abyssinia4077's Thoughts on shipping vs. gen, and many people posted many clever further responses. My favorite is elz's, because it captures perfectly my desires as a reader.

As a writer, I must admit, I am somewhat more cranky or confused or cranky because confused. When or before I'm writing, I don't tend to think in terms of het, f/f, m/f, or gen; I tend to think in terms of genre or form. In my head, "Truly and Forever" gets categorized primarily as a horror story; although, once I get out of my head, I am forced to admit that anyone who categorizes a story whose sole physical action is girl-on-girl cunnilingus as f/f is not exactly being unreasonable. Likewise, I may think of m/f, f/f, m/m as primarily categorizations for romance, failed romance, and/or porn, but a moment's reflection indicates fandom doesn't use the terms that way, and honestly, when I'm being lazy and shorthanding other people's stories, neither do I. "Wild Dogs" I think of as "hardboiled noir," but the recipient asked for an m/m relationship, and I did my best to include one; I suppose I think of it as "noir" in some contexts and "m/m" in others, though of course they are hardly mutually exclusive.

[eta: Counter-examples from the country of my head: "Subaqueous" is het because it's a romance. "Spider Bites On All Your Lovers" is het because it's porn. "Rewritten on the Body" is m/m slash because it's a romance and "Leave a kiss but i' the cup" is m/m slash because it's a failed romance. But I'm not sure about "No Oceans Left," which strikes me primarily as a character study despite being structured to lead up to the m/f sex scene, or "Another Girl's Paradise," which is the same except f/f, or "The body's sinking bones," the same except m/m and they don't manage to have sex (but the failed sex scene is the climax of the story anyway). In conclusion: No conclusion! I confuse myself. And apparently re-use the same story structure over and over again without realizing it.]

I used to be opposed to warnings and pairing labels. Now -- eh. I am pickier about pairings myself; I figure I might as well include them, if I remember. Warnings, well, I just posted my first story to include a warning. I'm still not clear on how to do them, exactly; so many times the "ANGST!!!!!!" and "DARK!!!!!!!!!" just make me roll my eyes, or don't seem warranted, although maybe that's just because the writers raised my fears (or expectations) too high. I also don't know how well my definitions for "angst" or "dark" accord with other people's; people often seem so much more affected by the sorrow or pain of stories (not just mine) than I expect. I don't know whether that's fannish exaggeration--a kind of social courtesy--or that I just have a different baseline for misery. I'm inclined to warn for sex or violence (or combinations of the two) and let the emotional fallout take care of itself.

Hmm. I thought this was meta, but it's looking more like meandering.

And I didn't even mention my deep confusion about ratings.

eta: Never mind! cofax7 said it better.

Comments

[cofax7]

I should just have shut my mouth and waited for you to post. *g*

[vee-fic.livejournal.com]

Hey, you are me. Except for the part where I remain relatively hardline about marking pairings and other labels. I kind of like the idea of labelling for genre (as we used to do! In XF of old! Sob!!), as long as "angst" is not a genre.

In re warnings, I was at work and completely ignored your stated warning in "Spider Bites", skipped right on past it, went blind for the NC-17 rating, and failed to click on the Author Note, and that was a Mistake. (It was eagerness, you know, to read your writing. I went back at home and read the rest.) So I don't know what would draw appropriate attention without grabbing readers by the shirt-collars and asking, "ARE YOU SURE??" I do tend to agree that the fandom at large demonstrates a considerably more -- explicit? theatrical? finely-tuned? -- sense of what is angsty and/or dark than I do, so your Author Note might have been more effective on people who read more carefully than I do.

You're confused about ratings, like PG, PG-13, R, NC-17 ratings? (As you know, Bob, I am one who has rated a story NC-17 solely due to violence. I would like to think other people have done that, but I've never seen it.)

[inamac.livejournal.com]

This discussion seems to be all over Metafandom!

I am beginning to think that the best way of sorting the whole labelling thing is for each writer to put their personal definitions in a post on the lj and link to it at the head of the story. (Which is pretty much how fanzines worked in the 70s).

[ravenclaw-devi.livejournal.com]

(via metafandom)

You know, on some days, I just want to write, "Warning: Content may evoke emotions."