Author telling you they have trauma / an experience they're projecting, versus showing through their writing and accuracy to said trauma / experience?
I've noticed something interesting over my many, many years of writing and reading on AO3.
A very large chunk of people like to tell their audience they have traumas or bad experiences and they're projecting. Usually it'll be stated in the tags, sometimes the end notes, and very rarely I've noticed it in actual summaries.
I wonder why people do this?
Because I've found that it's actually a turn-off and makes me scroll away from their writing when they do this. It takes me out of their writing. I know the author is trying to probably tell me "I get this trauma" but it instead forces me to think,
"This isn't the character experiencing XYZ, but instead is the author experiencing and reliving / projecting it on the first warm body they think it'll fit with."
On top of that, I find they're very ...one-sided about the trauma or experience. Rather than reactions due to the experience canonically lining up with a character's personality, how the character acts usually feels out of place. As if the writer is projecting too hard and thus throwing the canonical personality to the wayside in favor of them reacting how the author did / wanted to.
Apologies if that sounds rude, it's just genuinely what I think.
Whereas I've seen an incredible contrast on the works that don't need to say anything. They don't need to tell their audience in tags that they're projecting traumas or pains. Instead, they show it because their writing is so goddamn raw and accurate. It's accurate to the character, it feels canonical, it feels embodied. And they didn't need to tell audiences a single thing; it translates that they have experience with this trauma or something similar, and they can mold it into something believable and accurate to a completely separate personality.
Again, this is purely my own opinion and am in no way saying that those of you who have tagged your works with saying you're projecting, or you've also experienced XYZ trauma, are somehow wrong. Nor do I think y'all are bad writers or anything. The above is simply a pattern a noticed and I've seen said pattern broken before...
Anyways, has anyone else noticed this? Any commentary on this?
Posted Jul 2, 2025, 3:22 PM UTC