Hey everyone! Here I am again with the first out of three stand-alone posts to attend our previous series. Today’s topic is a little heavy so I will understand if there are those of you who would like to skip this post in favor of waiting for next weeks. But I felt this was a topic to discuss and maybe give a little bit of advice on. So, without further ado…
Writing Difficult Topics
Books that contain difficult topics are becoming more and more common these days. This is partially because more and more people are willing to discuss their own experiences with some of these difficult topics. The other is that society is overall becoming more accepting of sharing these experiences or the fact that people deal with them and so more and more characters representing these experiences and issues are written to attract a wider audience.
However, because these are difficult and sensitive topics for some people, it’s hard to write on these topics well, even if you’re writing based on your own personal experience with one of these specifically. I want to give a few pieces of advice to help you write on some of these difficult topics in a way that might work better for a wider audience of readers who have both dealt with and haven’t dealt with these issues.
Trigger Warnings
One of the most useful things that I have seen recently in regard to writing on difficult topics well is including trigger warnings. I first saw this really emerge largely in fanfiction or online writing sites like Wattpad or AO3 and then they started to bleed their way into self-published books. And now most recently I have found more and more traditional published books that also include trigger warnings at the beginning of the book.
Trigger warnings are simply small notes that inform the reader of what kind of difficult topics might be included in the book. This could include things like warnings of graphic violence, sexual assault scenes, panic attacks, or other things that might be traumatic and that some people might wish to avoid reading or experiencing even through writing.
For me, even if I read a trigger warning I am more likely to continue and read the rest of the book anyway, but they do give me a better warning of what is contained within the book and help me to feel better prepared for the reading experience.
Educate Yourself
Educating yourself on the topic you are writing about is super important even if it’s something that you personally experience. Often times this is educating yourself on what the terms are for certain things. Maybe you want to include self-harm and you have experienced self-harm, but you aren’t sure what some of the terminology is that’s used when discussing self-harm. That’s something you should educate yourself on. But you also don’t want to overuse technical terms when writing on these topics at the risk of alienating your other readers who have also experienced it and might not know those terms.
Ask others about their experiences
Not every writer can have every experience. But most writers need to write about a wider range of experiences than their own. When faced with writing about or on a difficult topic that you have never experienced it’s important to do your own educating just as I mentioned in the previous section on some of the technical terms. But you also need to know what those experiences are like.
To know about those experiences, you need to talk to a wide variety of people who experience that for themselves. I personally have learned a lot about others’ experiences through asking them about it and has given me the confidence to write more on difficult topics that I have not personally experienced.
It isn’t impossible to write on difficult topics as a writer, but it is hard without the proper amount of preparation and work put in beforehand. I personally am very excited with the amount of representation of others that is appearing in more and more recent novels. I get excited when I open a traditional published book that contains a trigger warning and I hope that more and more books with a wider variety of characters with a wider range of experiences becomes available.
That’s it for this week’s post. I hope it was helpful. I know this can be a bit of a heavy topic for some people, but I felt with it becoming more and more common recently it was something I should probably discuss just a little bit. Next week will be the second of three stand-alone posts. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, become a blog page member, share, and follow me on social media at the link on the bottom of the page. And remember,
Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published. See you next week!
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