To promote mutual respect for ourselves and our writing, it is important that we can trust each other. Here are guidelines for submissions and behavior within the group.

The Spectrum of Sensitivity and the Concept of a Safe Space

The group is designed to be a safe space of community trust where all sorts of concepts, ideas and experiments can be explored (even if they are occasionally controversial or problematic), and hopefully everyone feels comfortable bringing things up for discussion. However, think about how the definition of safe space applies to the individual — safe for whom? A safe space is not a free pass to write whatever you want at the expense of others. The bottom line is that while no one is going to be censored, you need to be ready to hear honest critique about the writing you choose to submit. Dismissal of people’s concerns will not be tolerated. If something someone has written has offended, the resulting discourse needs to be respectful.

Language is a Choice

Think about who taught you what you know and who established the narrative conventions. You can choose to pay homage to certain iconic authors and/or set a certain atmospheric stage without perpetrating problematic aspects of the era/genre/popular narrative.

Things to ask yourself before submitting

  • Will someone in the group be hurt by something you’ve chosen to put on the page?
  • Do potentially provocative or offensive details in your story contribute to the plot and serve the narrative, or are they just distracting and causing small damage?
  • Which characters in your story are the ones experiencing pain? For example, do the white men move through the story free from consequences while damage is done to women and/or marginalized characters?
  • If you have deliberately written an offensive character, have you taken the necessary steps to separate the actions of the character from your personal beliefs as an author?

Warnings on Your Submissions

Group members are required to include content and trigger warnings on submissions when necessary. These warnings are simple notices about sensitive content or imagery that may have a negative impact. They take only a few seconds to add but do a lot of good. They put the choice to continue reading in the hands of the reader, allowing sensitive readers and those with trauma to decide when and how to engage with content that might be upsetting to them.

The terms content warnings and trigger warning are sometimes used interchangeably, but here is a distinction:

  • Content warnings should be used to describe something that might upset readers (ex. blood, nudity).
  • Trigger warnings should be used to prevent exposing someone with past trauma to something that might incite a physical and/or mental reaction (ex. sexual violence, suicide).

You are not prohibited from writing about upsetting things. But you must provide warnings so that group members can decide whether or not they choose to engage with those things. More on warnings.

Unacceptable Behaviors (both in conversation and in written work)

  • Dismissive or hateful language towards another group member
  • Sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, fatphobic, ableist, ageist or otherwise discriminatory jokes and language

We have women, queer people and people of color in our group. Treating them as less than human in person or on the page will not be tolerated.

Note: People have very different ideas of what is challenging material. If you’re unsure about whether or not something needs a warning, ask the group admin or another group member if they can take a look.

In addition, be careful with:

  • sex and violence. Graphic content is ok to submit, but not without content/trigger warnings and not at the expense of another group member.
  • insults in your fiction, particularly those related to gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or disability.

No Generative AI

Use of genAI writing aids like ChatGPT is actively discouraged and unwelcome in the SciFi/Fantasy Writing group. In addition to ethical, environmental, and copyright concerns, it’s also disrespectful to ask group members to spend their time and energy offering constructive critique on writing that is not your own. Any art submitted alongside writing should also be human output and not generated by AI.

The group’s stance on genAI echoes this great quote from the submission guidelines of Weird Horror magazine: “Any creative artistic work arises out of real human expressions of living — pain, love suffering, happiness, grief, etc. Out of an authentic lived experience. There’s nothing authentic about AI. It’s a sad, soulless mimic. A corrupt copy. Good writing is the exact opposite. It’s original and uniquely individual. If you need AI to generate ideas, prompts, text — that’s not writing.”

Note the difference between generative AI and assistive AI. GenAI is creating content for you. Assistive AI is checking your spelling. This Writer’s Weekly article has a more detailed explanation and also looks at some fine print about copyright and disclosure specifics.

If you feel that someone has breached this code, but don’t feel comfortable bringing the matter to their attention directly or during the meeting, please reach out to the group admin.