: Re: I am afraid some scenes in my novel are too graphic for some people (Trigger warning: Sexual Assault) Just to keep it short. One of my characters is sexually assaulted by her father. While

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In Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane, chapter 7, the MC is seven years old, and his father attempts to drown him.

'I'll apologise,' I told him. 'I'll say sorry. I didn't mean what I said. She's not a monster. She's...she's pretty.'
He didn't say anything in response. The bath was full, and he turned the cold tap off.
Then, swiftly, he picked me up. He put his huge hands under my armpits, swung me up with ease, so I felt like I weighed nothing at all.
I looked at him, at the intent expression on his face. He had taken off his jacket before he came upstairs. He was wearing a light blue shirt and a maroon paisley tie. He pulled off his watch on its expandable strap, dropped it on to the window ledge.
The I realised what he was going to do, and I kicked out, and I flailed at him, neither of which action had any effect of any kind as he plunged me down into the cold water.
I was horrified, but it was initially the horror of something happening against the established order of things. I was fully dressed. That was wrong. I had my sandals on. That was wrong. The bath water was cold, so cold and so wrong. That was what I thought, initially, as he pushed me into the water, and then he pushed further, pushing my head and shoulders beneath the chilly water, and the horror changed its nature. I thought, I'm going to die.

There is no trigger warning. In fact, the book is marketed as YA. The scene is extremely honest, it is very much in the moment, with the child's POV, and thus it is very disturbing. It turns your stomach.

Which is how I believe such scenes should be handled. You show sensitivity by treating the scene with integrity. You present it as it is: troubling, shocking, painful. People who read about sexual assault should be shaken.

In the introduction to his short stories collection Trigger Warning, Neil Gaiman discusses his opinion of the whole concept:

What we read as adults should be read, I think, with no warnings or alerts beyond, perhaps: enter at your own risk. [...] I wonder, Are fictions safe places? And then I ask myself, Should they be safe places? [...] There are still things that profoundly upset me when I encounter them, whether it's on the Web or the word or in the world. They never get easier, never stop my heart from trip-trapping, never let me escape, this time, unscathed. But they teach me things, and they open my eyes, and if they hurt, they hurt in ways that make me think and grow and change.

I strongly agree with this. Fiction should not necessarily be a safe place. Fiction should go to places that make us think, even if those places are scary. I do not respect fiction that pulls its punches.

That means, no trigger warnings. Write it the way it is.

Just make sure it is marketed appropriately: for mature audiences.

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