About My Disclaimers

A fellow author recently wrote a blog post about the disclaimers included in my book. You can find his post here: Monday Blogs: Why I Would Never Write YA.  I believe he makes some valid points, but I am somewhat distressed that my personal decision to include certain disclaimers and notices should be used by anyone as a reason not to write Young Adult stories. I'm writing this post not as a counterargument, but rather an explanation for Hans and my readers.

The first disclaimer concerns cover models.  In my book I state:

Model photographs are used for illustration purposes only. The author does not know the models or their sexual orientations.

Hans asks if such a disclaimer would ever be found in a straight romance novel (at least that's the genre that seemed to be represented in his illustration,) and I am fairly confident the answer to the question is "no." However, the answer would be exactly the same if asked about LGBT romance novels, as I personally have not seen that disclaimer used in the many novels I've read in that genre. Why, then, did I elect to use it?

The disclaimer actually originated with gay romance stories I wrote for adult audiences under a different pen name. For the covers of those stories, I tried to avoid very limited LGBT cover photos available on stock photo sites. Instead, I digitally manipulated stock images that were not originally in LGBT themes to make them fit my LGBT storylines, creating implications and situations that were never intended when the photos were originally taken.

Hans made a point in his blog that these models are paid, and therefore their images are fair game for any use. I agree with  him to a point, which is why I used them  the way I did. However, although I know we all wished it was not so, we live in a world where revealing an LGBT orientation or even being perceived as having that orientation can have negative consequences personally, professionally and, in the worst cases, can even place a person in physical danger. I don't feel that all stock cover models signed up for those kinds of consequences in return for whatever sum of money they received for posing for the photographs, and I especially feel this is not the case for any teen models. Therefore, I choose to make it very clear that the cover illustrations are only that and nothing more. I feel bad if anyone misinterprets this concern for the models' privacy as a judgment about sexual orientation, which it definitely isn't, but I still believe my reasons for including the disclaimer are valid.

Will I use the same disclaimer if I ever publish a non-LGBT novel? Probably not. The privacy concerns in that context are different because in our imperfect world being perceived as "straight" does not carry the same potential consequences that being perceived as LGBT does. Moreover, the number of stock photographs that depict straight couples and can be used in their original form are so plentiful, that I doubt I would have to engage in much manipulation in order to prepare a non-LGBT cover. But if I manipulated pictures to suggest a relationship unlike the one in the original photographs (if, for example, I took a picture of a male model posing lovingly with another man and placed him on a cover with a photo of a woman,) then I most likely would include the disclaimer as well. That answer may not be popular, but it is honest.

The second disclaimer Hans mentioned in his post is the following.

Please note that this is a coming of age book about a gay teen. It’s not a story about supernatural beings or a Christian text. Also, while romance figures in the plot, the book is not a romance. This book contains themes that may trigger negative responses in readers, such as attempted suicide, discussion of death of background character, physical and verbal bullying, discussions of sexual practices, including safe sex, and potentially offensive language. Some themes in this book may not be appropriate for readers under fifteen years of age.

Hans questions whether every book that has the word "angel" in the title must be disclaimed as non-Christian, and the answer to that is, of course, a resounding no. I, however, faced a unique problem with my novel in that there is another book with a very similar title of "Beneath Angels' Wings," which does seem to be more of a Christian, or at least more religious, text. I chose to include this very specific notice to save readers any confusion.

With regard to the trigger notices, I think whether or not such notices are included in a description of a YA novel, and for that matter how the subjects are handled within a YA novel, should be left entirely to the author. Most authors choose not to include such notices, and that's fine. I was probably over-inclusive with my notices, and in the future I may change that, but whether I do or do not will be my choice and not a dictate of the YA classification.

Mostly, having just finished Hans' latest book, I very much want to encourage him to write Young Adult literature if he has a story idea for that readership, without worry about disclaimers and notices and without censoring how he handles any subjects. And just to reassure Hans that not everyone in YA plays it "safe," I'm including a link to an article about an award winning LGBT YA book that's stirring up controversy in Canada. The book is When Everything Feels like the Movies  by Raziel Reid and it sounds like a great read!

I want to thank Hans for blogging about this subject, because it's always good to hear different perspectives. I hope this post will be helpful in explaining my position and I'd love to continue the conversation in the comments. Please do let me know what you think!