Once A Day Blog 37: How Do You Feel About Dark Triggering Stories? - Comments

@ This.Useless.Heart.
Your rambling is very appreciated. I enjoy comments like this. Wish I had them more often actually. I will definitely take into consideration what you've said and hopefully that doesn't ruin my chances too much of building a fan base but we'll see. If you ever do wanna check it out its called Hanru Sazuki. The first volume isn't so bad but if you do get into it, Volumes 3 and 5 are really dark and graphic. The 5th volume was actually written to be triggering on purpose to readers because it revolved around the subject of life, so I wrote dome pretty disturbing things in that volume in hopes that people would rethink how they live and cherish their own lives.

Personally, I tend to really like stories with dark subject matter or heavy topics, and even if I didn't I'd defend their right to exist totally.
In my experience and in my personal opinion, stories like this are best promoted with a degree of care and consideration. By all means, promote the heck out of your story, but you just have to remember to be upfront about the fact that the story has themes that might make some readers uncomfortable (well, you don't have to but it's certainly the most considerate thing to do!)
Just let people know when you're promoting, "hey this story has abuse/murder/sexual content/etc, so read at your own discretion!" This serves two purposes, it helps people who don't want to see that stuff know that your story is not for them and they need to avoid it, and it also gets the attention of people who actually like reading stories with that kind of intense subject matter.
And in the end, you also have to accept that stories with certain kinds of subject matter or themes are not going to do as well as stories without them. For instance, I would never expect a fic that features a rape scene to do as well as a fic that doesn't because I recognize and completely understand that a lot of people do not want to read that at all.
But anyway, that's just my two cents worth/me rambling about my own experiences.

@ blue wolf
Thank you. I know dark triggering T.V. shows like Shameless or Breaking Bad are greatly liked for their dark content, but at the same time, I know certain things can be offensive to people. I'd hate to gain then lose readers because of the content being too strong. Thank you for your comment I really appreciate it.

@ aubs
Thank you; your comment means a lot. I'll be sure to put warnings on in my summaries to be safe.

Tbh, just having trigger warnings is good enough to let people know that there's going to be dark topics/subjects and they should read at their own risk. If they ignore the warning and get angry about it then that's their fault. As for me reading dark stuff? I don't mind it at all though anything with rape might make me a bit uncomfortable.

do you think stories shouldn't be written with this kind of content
You can write about anything, including about the content that you are asking about. I've seen loads of stories on here that mention those types of stuff, so you shouldn't limit yourself on what you can write. Someone on here will be willing to read your stories, even if they include murder, prostitution or psycological scarring.

Some people like to put warnings in the summary of the stories just so people who aren't comfortable reading that sort of stuff are warned before they start reading.