Writing Sensitive Topics in Fiction
how to write taboo and sensitive topics that require content warnings.
There is so much controversy around dark topics, taboo things, and sensitive content. Most of the time it is tied to religious opinion or underlying misogyny, of course that is depending on the topic. However, there are a few pieces of criticism that stand out because the works in which are being criticized were not executed with care and the criticism is entirely warranted. People often loudly condemn things that don’t align with their perfect world view (the bubble). We all have opinions, you can love or hate certain topics, but my issues comes when groups try to eliminate them from the media all together.
As a fan of taboo topics in books and real life conversations, this is focusing on the topics that aren’t very cushy but can still apply to taboo things that aren’t harmful and don’t require trigger warnings.
There will always be someone that doesn’t like your work. And there will always be someone who doesn’t like certain taboo topics, my note to them, is ignore it and move on—not everything is for everyone. More importantly, I do think most people make these arguments out of good faith but don’t want to understand the other sides point of view.
The steps to writing taboo and sensitive topics:
Write with respect
Research
Don’t skip sensitivity reads
Avoid romanticizing - this doesn’t mean you have to make the topic a total negative in the eyes of your narrator or character. Often the easiest way to do this is adding conflicting thoughts and/or emotions.
What is the lesson?
I know, the dreaded teaching moment. But it doesn’t have to be some grand messaging littered throughout the story. You just need to figure out what the key takeaway is and determine how the sensitive events fit into that messaging.
Don’t over detail sensitive things - Graphic detail is not necessary for every single thing in a piece of writing. You can still have detail without causing harm.
A huge problem I have been seeing pop up is that people are describing scenes in great detail that readers do not benefit from being vividly painted. An effective example is sexual assault. A story often does not need the entire event in full detail. The character can describe how they feel, impressions left on them, and lingering thoughts. Some authors choose to describe the lead up to or very end of the assault, which works well depending on what the story is about… the story messaging is important to help evaluate in these instances.
There has been a book circulating where the main character is abused at a young age and then as an adult forms a romantic relationship with their abuser. This in itself is not entirely an issue. The problem occurs from how the author writes it and what point they are making that determines if a majority of readers will take issue with the book as a whole. In this case the book actually described the abuse the child went through in full and graphic detail and did not even portray this as a negative thing. Another story collecting criticism has an unconscious female main character and a weird work around to paint the interactions between the FMC and her doctor taking place as consensual-non-consent. Both of these books had been classified and marketed as dark romance and that is simple not a fitting category for the contents inside.
Genres like dark romance, splatter punk, or any of the smaller sub-genres are being scrutinized because some authors are not properly categorizing their books. These genres are also getting backlash because some stories are not meant to be published but maybe should be used for the writer to do some inner flection. In my opinion, the most important thing that writers may be forgetting is to consider their audience and doing some research on how sensitive content should be written.