You do have a point--it's not necessary to put warnings for things like character death in movies or published fic. And it would spoil things---imagine the latest Harry Potter book with a character death warning on the outside!!! Heck, I've never seen ANY professional novel with warnings on it---it's always "read at your own risk."
I guess I do it because I know my flist personally, and their likes and dislikes. When I first started writing, I don't think I put as many warnings on stories. NC-17 graphic sex or non-con was about it--and the non-con only because I had a sensitive list mod on one group who about went cuckoo at the story.
You're right, really---people get their knickers into all sorts of twists when they read fanfic without warnings, while pro novels have none. Nor do magazine articles or newspaper articles... so I guess I have no idea where this came from. I think it's an Internet thing. Perhaps it's because there are so many younger people on the Internet, we writers of the "hard stuff" fear we're corrupting young minds without warnings. Or because we hear about all the crap on the Internet, and we want to LABEL our stuff, darn it, so others don't get misled and group us all into a bowl.
Very interesting. I may post a question about his on my LJ, too.
no subject
I guess I do it because I know my flist personally, and their likes and dislikes. When I first started writing, I don't think I put as many warnings on stories. NC-17 graphic sex or non-con was about it--and the non-con only because I had a sensitive list mod on one group who about went cuckoo at the story.
You're right, really---people get their knickers into all sorts of twists when they read fanfic without warnings, while pro novels have none. Nor do magazine articles or newspaper articles... so I guess I have no idea where this came from. I think it's an Internet thing. Perhaps it's because there are so many younger people on the Internet, we writers of the "hard stuff" fear we're corrupting young minds without warnings. Or because we hear about all the crap on the Internet, and we want to LABEL our stuff, darn it, so others don't get misled and group us all into a bowl.
Very interesting. I may post a question about his on my LJ, too.
I always love chatting with you!