Last year, Bran L. Ayres shared a fantastic guest post here about trigger warnings and dug into whether we should include them in our story. Their post included great insights into why we all like making informed decisions. Yes, that holds true even if we think trigger warnings are “stupid.” *grin*

The topic came up again this past week in a conversation on Twitter (that ranged far too broadly to give proper credit or links), as authors wondered how to pass on warnings about book content to potential readers. As a result of that conversation, I learned of several resources that I wanted to share.

As Bran mentioned in their guest post, we all understand the purpose of the NSFW (not safe for work) tag or “flame” ratings for the sexual content level of romance stories. Those aren’t meant to be censoring or a judgment of value. They just help people know what they’re getting into or find the types of stories they want.

Content warnings are the same way. So let’s explore our options for how (or where) to include content warnings, how much information to include, and what elements need warnings.