Without Guardrails and Warning Labels
Changing How I Share My Works; Meeting in the Middle
Posting written materials or any other form of art sharing comes with risks. Many times, what is shared is received with a few claps and smiles while other times can disappointing to both the producer and the audience. Though, as W. Churchill once said, “Criticisms may not be agreeable but it is necessary…”
Disappointing results can be caused by the producer taking the work being shared out of the oven a little too early (or even a lot too early). And yet, in other cases, it has little to do with timing and more to do with the artistic tastes of the general audience being shared with.
Before we continue, let us pause here to expand on what an audience is in relation to the context it is being applied in this article.
An audience is a term plainly used but for a very complicated subject. An audience can be a single person or a group numbering two or more. However, as with anything human-related, audience members have unique tastes for what they may or may not like to receive. These preferences (tastes) can be dependent upon circumstances such as their upbringing (nurture) and/or conditional upon their personal design (nature).
Before we end our little definition exploration of the word audience, it is important to add a little more complexity to this simple word with many layers. Beyond long-term establishments of preferences (nature and nurture), there are other things that influence an audience preference in the short term such as social environments. Stressors, group influence, and even just how they felt when they woke up can be factors that influence the preference of each audience member at the time of receiving.
Now with our deep dive into the word audience being fully fleshed out, I feel it is time that we move to the real focus of this article: the why.
Here on Medium and other sites, I have become more and more regularly aware of a need being asked of me by the publishers I am submitting to. This is usually because the works I prepare to share have substantive emotional experiences intertwined into each piece; likely crossing topics that could have heavy emotional reactions from their regular audience members.
This ask is for me to assign a trigger warning between two asterisks at the end of the subject title to a piece before publishing approval. Here is an example: Generic Poem Name *Trigger Warning: Something Emotional*.
While I respect each publisher’s requests and edits, since they likely understand and know their audience better than I do, I am personally bothered by assigning a pre-assumption for an audience member before they are able to make their own independent judgment on the piece. Additionally, I respect that my works may come as rather emotionally frazzling for some but that is life and life has ups, downs, messes on the floor, and opportunities to clean up and also make better again.
Though, considering both my need for genuine experiences without filters and the publisher’s need to meet the preferences of their audience, I have come to a personal agreement with myself so to find common ground for each party involved.
This solution is quite simple and evenly balanced. When submitting a piece of work to a publisher who later asks for me to apply a trigger warning for their audience, I will politely thank them for their time and dedication to their role but then ask that this piece be released from their publication review so that I may offer it to another publisher who’s audience might be better suited for that piece.
While this solution might come to many as simple and easy enough, I will be honest that it has taken me a few months of meditation to really find comfort in it. Personally, I value audience experiences without expectations already assigned. However, this is a personal view and to assume that my personal view should be standard for all people and organizations is selfish and shortsighted.
Though it might sound like an exaggeration on how long it took me to settle on this solution, I assure you I am being genuine. In that time of consideration and evaluation, I have not published or nearly worked on any of my regular pieces. Though I find comfort in creating, this requirement asked of me was consuming much of my emotional capacity and distracting me each time I attempted to write anything.
But now, I have a simple solution and I am optimistic about it and my future. I am back to writing, I look forward to publishing some works soon, and I am eager to test out this solution. For me, writing is therapeutic and heavenly. So for those few months where I was unable to write without finding a solution, it was hellish. I felt lost, depressed, and lonely. But, now reengaging back into this creative work I am feeling light and happy once again.
To conclude, I wish to be clear that I am thankful for the publishers who will or will not publish my works. I am thankful to the charitable editors here on Medium and other places that dedicate to us writers their most precious possession — their time. And I am thankful most of all to have the ability to continue writing, sharing my thoughts an feelings, and art with any and all audiences across the world.
Be well, my friends.
— MT
— Extras —
