Content warnings for a memoir workshop

[fandomnumbergenerator]

I manage a memoir workshopping group, and a new member wants a more formal content warning policy (not because of specific triggers she wants to be warned for, but because she was an instructor at small liberal arts college for a semester and felt they were very useful). A long standing member of the group who has been a professor for decades is opposed to requiring trigger warnings (she has more of a 70s liberal take on most social issues, and also has seen trigger warnings used as a way to manipulate the administration into censuring adjunct professors).

The current policy is:

Writing presented in the group may contain references to or descriptions of death, illness, abuse, unhealthy family and relationship dynamics, sexual assault, racism, sexism, or homophobia, as well as explicit sex or drug use. We do not generally use trigger or content warnings, though specific warning requests will be taken seriously.

Elsewhere in the guidelines, it says that people need to briefly introduce their work before they start reading, so there should never be a situation where a potentially triggering topic is a total surprise. But the way the topics are addressed might be more graphic in one section than another.

I am working on a project about my boyfriend's death when I was 24, and the piece I brought to the group last week included a description of a dead body, and so I warned people in an email. Everyone appreciated the warning, but none of the people who actually attended the in-person meeting wanted to change the policy (the new member who wanted the change the policy wasn't there).

We are looking for new members and I am trying to craft policies that will work for people we don't already have a good working relationship with.

None of the workshopping classes I took included content warning requirements, so I feel like I don't really know where to start.

I also feel like triggers are incredibly personal. I usually use "Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings" on AO3 because almost every story I write has some fleeting reference to the character having sex when they were under 18 or some past traumatic experience.

And in my memoir writing, I'm still grappling with what to call things. Like what level of creepiness on my father's part requires a trigger warning? When I am still trying to come up with a stable way to frame my experiences for myself.

Comments

[kara_mckay]

I like the current policy with brief introduction. As you say, triggers are very personal. I used to know someone for whom country music was a very real trigger. It's not my story to tell, but I can say that it was no joke. Hearing country music was very bad news for this person. Thing is, the world's sharp edges can only be bubble wrapped to a certain point. This person had to deal with the fact that she might hear country music coming from someone's vehicle or through the open door of a bar, and she had to plan how to avoid those things to the best of her abilities. And, sometimes she couldn't, and it was bad for her when that happened. Sometimes the reality of something and its seriousness, and the degree to which the world around a person can be responsible for managing it for that person just don't match up.

To my mind, a writing workshop is, at the get-go, a potential red flag environment. A person knows going into it that they might encounter things that are distressing, and if they have a serious, devastating trigger on the level of this woman's country music trigger, they'd probably be better off staying out of it. Giving people a general heads up about the possibility of encountering the most typical triggers feels like a good plan, and asking people to introduce their individual works feels like an extra layer of safety. Beyond that, it just seems like extra layers of bubble wrapping that will be stressful for some people and still won't insure that no one will ever bump up against something distressing.

[shy_magpie]

it sounds like you are already doing a functional trigger warning, a summary and a "no surprise rape/gore/violence" is actually more useful than a checklist until you hit a scale like AO3 where being able to remove hundreds of items from your list at once is possible. You are already asking for specific warning requests, aside from offering to make the requests anonymous so people don't feel like they are disclosing to the whole class I am not sure what more you can do. There always seems to be one jerk who thinks that their work's "impact" will be eliminated if you know ahead of time that they are going to have "shocking" violence/sexual assault/hard drug use but the summary policy should be enough for you to call them out on it. As to your ending question, I would say definitely warn for touching or indisputably sexual comments, but a good faith summary of what you are presenting and maybe a single "hey my father did some creepy stuff so maybe brace yourself when reading my stuff with him in it"(either at a time when you get a bunch of new members or in a referable spot?).

[lou2]

Hoo boy, i do not envy you that complication. Balancing the fairness to the writer with the triggers of the audience is such a catch 22. Though i have confidence in your decision. You always seem so in tune and thoughtful