yuletide_coal | It's always coalest before the dawn

It's always coalest before the dawn

Posting deadline: 18th December at 9am UTC - may be the 17th in your time zone
Story reveal: 25th December
Author reveal: 1st January

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http://sevensneakyfoxes.tumblr.com/post/179258262319/yuletide-bitches

"Ehh, please don’t: REALLY hateful hate sex with no affection, using the word penis and vagina in sex scenes (not that I have a problem with it, only that it’s jarring as it reminds me grade 9 sex ed), super saccharine fluffy fic. Using the word erotic. yams. I hate yams."

Why even bother have two different lists for DNWs?? Just a big wtf with this one.

There goes all my plans to write about erotic penis yams

Wow, you weren't kidding about the different lists of DNWs. The letter's written in a way that's a progression from likes to dislikes instead of just giving likes and DNWs so it's not even clear where they draw the line at what they'd like. I mean, "no go land" and "ehh please don't" sound like DNWs but "sure why not" is ambiguous...

The whole "have separate lists for DNWs and things you 'just' don't like" thing some people do bugs the hell out of me. Use a single list, FFS. Every reasonable author will treat the things just don't like as DNWs anyway. (Though I gotta admit, I'm always hoping someone will write them a fic consisting just of those things and be all 'well, you didn't DNW them', just to teach them a lesson to use a single list for all of them in the future.)

I keep them seperate because they're not DNWs. I don't usually like them, but sometimes I do. They're not actually things that will make me immediately click out of a fic, or trigger me, or make me unable to read it. I just usually don't like them. But maybe I will this time, who knows? I have occasionally in the past. From me it's much more "please tread carefully" than "please don't include this".

I only use DNWs for things that are actually fuck no, not in a million years will I touch anything containing that.

AYRT

I totally get that there are degrees to which you dislike something. I think that's true for everyone. There's stuff that will absolutely ruin a fic for you and stuff you don't like but will read anyway, sure. My problem is: what use is this information to your author. With DNWs, the message is clear: don't, under no circumstances, write it.

But what's the point of a 'I don't usually like' list? You say it's 'please tread carefully', but unless you explicitly say how this careful treading should occur, as a writer, I have no idea what you want there. Are there any special circumstances under which you will like it (and if so, what are they), or do you just mean 'the majority of fic that contains this sucks, but if you write good fic with it, I'll be happy'?

I get why you're tempted to do this, but it really is unhelpful. If you are willing to roll the dice on those things and let an author "convince" you they can write a fic with them that you like, then just don't mention them at all. If you don't want to risk it, put them in your DNWs. But don't make a list that essentially amounts to "I'm giving you free reign to write them but if you fuck up, I'll reserve the right to say 'I told you so'".

ayrt

I get what you're saying, but conflating my actual trigger with things like my general POV preferences feels incredibly reductive and I'd really rather not, thank you. They are not at the same level of "do not want" and I refuse to act like they are.

Understandable, I just don't get the point of listing them at all unless you actually enjoy stressing out your writer. But hey, you do you.

DA I'm sure you're stressed out by this, but not all writers are? I prefer getting a short list of DNWs and "please don't" in the letter, personally.

If you're getting stressed then don't even think about it, just treat it all like a single long list of hard DNWs and move on.

That's what I do, but I still find it immensely frustrating because the DNW list is the first thing I read and I build my story from there, so to find more DNWs further into the letter is irritating.

You can phrase your POV preferences in a positive instead of a negative way. 'Likes: 3rd person POV, present tense´ is a lot clearer than 'I generally don't enjoy 1st person POV and past tense but I'm not completely opposed to it, just tread carefully´.

+100

I would find this less confusing than different lists of things to avoid.

Heh. I’m the exact opposite - I like lumping my trigger in with POV preference so because I don’t want anyone to know what triggers me.

+1

Same.

I think it'd work better if you just leave them out, or only mention them if you can think of any prompt that includes them.

eg. I DNW mundane AU, but clarified "except in this one fandom for this one prompt".

+1

I’m not going to write someone things they don’t like, and separating them out into 2 lists like I might is just annoying.

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It's always coalest before the dawn

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