Content and trigger warnings are required on submissions when necessary

As explained in the Code of Conduct, warnings allow the reader to decide when and how to engage with content that might be upsetting to them. Here is a quick reference list of the types of things that deserve a warning:

  • Racism, including racial slurs, prejudice, promotion of racial superiority, slavery, orientalism and Islamophobia, antisemitism, colorism, genocide
  • Discrimination, including sexism, homophobia, transphobia, slut-shaming, body shaming, fatphobia, ageism, ableism, negative queer coding
  • Death, including suicide, murder, animal death, infant or child death, execution
  • Violence, including abuse (physical, mental, emotional, verbal, sexual), rape/sexual assault, self-harm, police brutality, graphic or extreme violence, gore, torture, mutilation, cruelty and oppression, kidnapping
  • Mental health, mental illness, disease and disability, including depression, speech impediments, addiction, seizures, magical curing of disabilities, self-harm, romanticizing mental illness, trivializing mental illness, PTSD, emotional abuse, trauma, dysphoria
  • Sex, including explicit sex, masturbation, pedophilia, predation, incest, description of pornography
  • Body/medical, including miscarriage, abortion, childbirth, major illness, dysmorphia, physical distress, eating disorders
  • Religion, including dogma, doctrine, imposition of religious beliefs or practices upon others, religious-based judgement (ex. purity culture) and faith-based crime and/or consequences.

These are general triggers. It is impossible to anticipate every trauma or trigger, but please be sensitive to things that people might not want to see. At the most basic level, think of the warnings requirement like giving your piece a rating, similar to a movie or show. If your submission is rated R, simply list the reasons why (language, nudity, violence) — these are content warnings. Then take another pass and be a little more specific (torture, sexual abuse) — these are trigger warnings. Many will want to read your R-rated piece! But some need to mentally prepare for what they’re about to experience, and some may choose to opt out for personal reasons. We need to respect that.

How you can be more sensitive in your writing

Sensitivity reader Renee Harleston of Writing Diversely occasionally offers free workshops, and you should attend one if you can! Some key takeaways from these workshops are as follows:

  • Consider impact and intention. The reader only knows what you put on the page — they are usually unaware of your intentions. Once you put your writing out into the world, it belongs to the reader, and you will likely not get to have any dialogue with them about it. The only thing they know for certain is how your writing impacts them. So consider what you’re communicating, how you’re communicating, and who will be receiving your message.
  • You are not writing for dead people. You’re writing for living people and living communities. Modern readers need to want to and be able to read your writing, regardless of historical accuracy. Many writers defend problematic and offensive language choices by pointing out that slurs, sexism, and/or hate speech would be acceptable for the time period they’re recreating (a common trap), but challenge yourself to work a little harder. For example, there are many ways to show that a character is racist without defaulting to a verbal slur. Returning to impact and intention, think about the living people and communities that your work touches and consider how your treatment of people like them on the page, even in historical or futuristic settings, will feel to them as a reader.