TAKING RESPONSIBILITY; A quick “how to” write up by yours truly
So hey guys, this is going to be a pretty huge, heavy write up, but it’s what you guys wanted so bear with me.
I woke up to a lot of questions this morning afternoon and a vast majority of them were things like “but kenzie!! how do we take responsibility for things that we’ve written that are about sensitive subject material or other things that are often glossed over in roleplay?” or, and my personal favorite “BUT KENZIE!!! RESPONSIBILITY IS SO MUCH WORK!!!!” well…. yeah, no duh it can be a lot of work, it’s called a responsibility for a reason. It is a bit of work but it’s not too much and I think knowing how to be responsible with your writing will help that responsibility not feel like it’s TOO MUCH. It really isn’t, trust me, it just seems like a lot and I think it goes without saying that a lot of us really have some gross feelings about the word “RESPONSIBILITY” thanks @ parental figures and guardians for forever ruining the term for the rest of our lives.
Responsibility and taking responsibility for things that are considered sensitive subject material can sound like a daunting thing, but it’s not that scary, and honestly the sooner you take responsibility and actively treat sensitive material tactfully, the sooner you can feel better about your writing.
I know, that sounds gimmicky, but seriously. I’ve been there.
Unfortunately, and I do admit it with a little bit of shame, I used to be one of those writers who unapologetically wrote sensitive material without taking responsibility and I learned fairly quickly that this hurt a lot of people and spread a lot of false information. Honestly though, the second I took responsibility and started actively doing things to be responsible with my writing in roleplay, I found I– and my roleplay partners– were a lot happier and a lot smarter about those sensitive subjects.
I’ve also been on the opposite end of irresponsible writing and let me tell you, it is not fun. Sixteen year old me writing on tumblr for fun coming across a statement in a roleplay saying that their character could die from a panic attack was literally one of the most terrifying things that ever happened to me. I wasn’t that educated about mental illness at the time. I knew I had anxiety and panic attacks but I really didn’t know much about it so understandably, I nearly shit my pants reading that and was legitimately scared for my life anytime I started to have a panic attack, it actually really hurt me and hindered my health all because of misinformation in a roleplay.
That’s just one example of irresponsible writing having real world impacts. And I’m here to discredit that by saying NO, you absolutely cannot die from a panic attack.
But do you see what I’m getting at?
Irresponsible writing does have actual consequences and that is exactly why it is so important to write responsibly.
You know those beer commercials that are like “always drink responsibly”? We all know why we need to drink responsibly and we know what the consequences of drinking irresponsibly are. Well, I’m the beer commercial and I’m tellin’ ya, always write responsibly.
Here’s how you can be more responsible with your writing:
Do not excuse your character’s actions and understand that excusing is not the same thing as understanding. You don’t have to belligerently defend your character and their actions to display your understanding. True understanding is when you know what your characters motivations and reasons are, understanding is explaining, but understanding is not excusing. Be careful when you defend, defending can sometimes be excusing.
RESEARCH. I cannot stress this enough. Google is your friend. Google the illnesses, disorders, sciences, psychologies, ALL OF IT, Google the things about your character that you do not understand or are not qualified to speak on and stick to what the research says. It’s okay to branch out and use multiple sources for what you’re looking into, but always do your research. You can Google things, you can talk to people who have experienced what you need information on ( so long as they are willing and consent to being asked about those things ), find scholarly articles, look up the impacts of trauma. I know everyone responds to trauma differently but if you’re portraying something like that it’s good to get a basic idea of some cohesive things that happen in a majority of those cases.
Talk about things out of character, engage in conversation and bring up things that you have researched and how that plays a role in your character and who they are. If you character is doing / has done things that are unforgiveable, even if you understand their motivations and reasons make sure you ALWAYS express that you do not condone or excuse that behavior. Say that you understand their reasoning, but know that will never make it okay.
When portraying these things in prose, tread carefully. Read over it and use good judgement. Ask yourself questions like: does this gloss over the issue? am I romanticizing / sexualizing / fetishizing this issue? is there anything important I am addressing inappropriately? is all of the information here correct? am I playing into unhealthy or incorrect ideologies?
Be open to criticism. If someone comes to you and points something out that they feel isn’t right, don’t immediately vilify them and discredit it. Look into what they are saying, be open minded, take that criticism and engage in discussion about it. It’s okay if you dissent what they’re saying, just make sure you put in research into it and have the backing to say why you dissent it. It’s okay to ask for second opinions.
Be open to corrections. If you mess something up, that’s okay. We all mess things up and if someone corrects you that is not a personal attack it is just you being human and needing to correct a mistake. When you step on someone’s toes, you don’t yell and blame them, you acknowledge it and apologize. Take someone’s correction and make it public knowledge that you understand you were wrong and will not be making that mistake again. Make a post or respond to their message saying something to the effect of “thank you for letting me know, it will not happen again” and integrate that correction into the bank of knowledge you already have on the topic. Acknowledge your mistake, apologize, and correct it. That’s all it takes.
ASK QUESTIONS. If you don’t understand something and all else fails, you can’t find anything via the world wide web, ASK QUESTIONS. Make a post asking if anyone can help you out or give opinions, use your judgement on which opinions or thoughts are more informed, if you know someone who’s informed on those issues maybe ask them. You can be polite, precede it with something along the lines of “Hey, I hope you don’t mind me asking, I know you are knowledgeable on these kinds of things and I can’t find any information on this elsewhere, but do you know [insert question / thing here]?” And there you go! If they can’t give you an answer, it’s okay to continue doing research and continuing asking questions until you get one.
Use trigger warnings!!! I cannot stress this one enough. If you don’t want to use trigger warnings PUT IT ON YOUR BLOG– in your rules, in your description, in your info pages– THAT YOU WILL NOT BE TAGGING CERTAIN SUBJECTS AND SAY WHAT SUBJECTS YOU WILL NOT BE TAGGING. Otherwise, USE. TRIGGER. WARNINGS. It takes barely a second to tag the material. I know triggers are controversial on tumblr and there are a lot of dissenting ideas about them but trust me, it does far more harm than good when these things go untagged and unaddressed. If something isn’t a trigger, tag it as a content warning. Example: blood tw is a trigger warning, blood cw is a content warning. Contents are things that aren’t necessarily a trigger that has to do with a traumatic event, but still applies to things that make people uncomfortable, deal with phobias, or cause general panic and not-god-ness. Contents are just as important as triggers. Keep in mind, as well, that triggers can be anything. Anything can bring up a traumatic event and trigger someone. They aren’t bound to just visuals, sometimes just words alone can bring up a traumatic event and have consequences. You can keep a list of triggers to tag on your blog in a separate page, it doesn’t have to be public, just for your own reference. If someone asks you to tag a trigger ( and this is of course assuming that you do actively tag triggers ), I do not care if they are polite, I do not care if they are rude, I absolutely do not care if it seems dumb to you and you don’t even have to respond to the message, just be polite and tag it. Bottom line.
Make it known that you are open to corrections. Say in your rules, in a post, somewhere that if you mess something up you are open to and encourage people to come to you and let you know.
If you are not what you are writing– example, you are writing a character who is Roma and you are not Roma– and someone who is what you are writing comes to you and says you’re doing something wrong, you are doing something wrong. Under no circumstances should you shut them down or say “but I researched and found out this!!!” take what they are saying and know that it is valid. Sometimes sources of research are not written by people who are what they are writing about, that makes those things open to being incorrect and if someone who is what you are writing about tells you you’ve made a mistake, chances are very very VERY likely you are making a mistake. That’s okay, just do like I said above and acknowledge your mistake, apologize, and correct it.
Do not self-deprecate if you are called out on a mistake. Saying things like “oh I’m so stupid” “oh I’m such a horrible person”, etc. are extremely uncomfortable for people who may be correcting you. It makes it seem like you care more about your self-image than you care about what they are addressing. I know it can be hard not to degrade yourself, some people deal with that, but it’s okay to let go of that and simple say “yes, I messed up, I’m sorry for that mistake, it will not happen again”. Self-deprecation over these topics draws attention away from what is important and what important changes you intend to make and puts the focus on you. It’s uncomfortable and helps validate negative ideologies about making mistakes and… just generally makes people making corrections feel bad. And if you make a mistake in the future, they may be less likely to correct you under the premise they don’t want you to feel bad.
I know this seems like a lot, and you might make mistakes and slip up and forget, but that’s okay. Once you start doing this, it’s not that much in practice, it becomes second nature and it makes things a whole lot easier and promotes a healthier, safer environment on your blog. It seems like a lot, but believe me it isn’t and all of these things are not hard to do. You have a computer and access to the internet, it only takes a few minutes to Google things and do research and it doesn’t take too long to ingrain these things into your behavior.
These are just the greatest things you can do when writing about sensitive material or material that is potentially controversial in nature.
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