An Author’s Responsibility

As the TikTok era appeared to be approaching an end, I foolishly let myself get tangled up in a conversation that can be traced back to the kallmekris video shaming the dark romance novels sweeping across BookTok. Thankfully, enough people were too happy to have the app back and Lady Gaga rediscovered pop music, so I have avoided further conversation. However, someone tried to argue with me that it is the author’s responsibility to consider sensitive audiences. That still hasn’t sat well with me, so I decided to share my thoughts here.  

My stance is that the only audience that an author must consider is their target audience, mainly because it simply makes no sense to consider an audience that wouldn’t read your story based on the genre alone. The book is not for them. A further argument is that an author is not obligated to write for anyone, but let’s stay with the general rule of thumb that writers consider their audience when writing. 

The person I was in conversation with said that the author has the responsibility to recognize that their book can get in anyone’s hands, so they have to be mindful of what they write about and how they write it. They were essentially saying that, even though children aren’t the audience of adult novels, these books can still end up in their hands, so the author has to make sure they don’t write about sensitive topics in a way that can romanticize bad behaviour. 

From public forums to university sites, the bottom line is that an author should consider their audience to help guide their writing. In writing, there are no hard and fast rules. Like how movies and television have ratings, books have more specific genres. Instead of being rated M for Mature, books are fit into age-specific genres such as Children’s, Teen, New Adult, Young Adult, and Adult. These erotic novels or romance novels in question are not rated E for Everyone, they are Adult Romance or some iteration of that. The genre specification is the only “responsibility” authors have to let browsers know what to expect from their book.

Let’s say the book is appropriately categorized in the correct genre, but things happen and the book is now in the hands of an underaged individual or someone otherwise not expecting a book with violent, sexually graphic, or otherwise explicit content. Maybe it is simply someone’s first time dipping into the genre with an idea of the type of things they may be reading. Whatever the case, someone who isn’t familiar with Adult Romance or Dark Romance ends up reading a book that depicts morally wrong people and behaviors. 

This is where the word “romanticization” comes into play and people have an issue with portraying a relationship built on criminal behavior such as stalking, rape, murder, torture, etc. in any way that does not lead to the victim’s freedom and the perpetrator’s punishment. To get rather unprofessional to state my opinion here, this is simply ridiculous and ignorant to the reality of relationships that exist in real life. 

It is nothing less than censorship to want authors to draw clear and distinct lines between good and bad by strictly writing healthy relationships or clearly defining the characters’ acknowledgement of the wrongfulness of their relationship so that it eventually ends. Not every relationship is healthy, not everybody wants to get out of abusive ones, not everyone realizes when they’re in a bad relationship, and sometimes bad people end up with bad people and like it that way. 

Those who want to censor authors do not want to take responsibility for themselves. They want to make it the author’s responsibility to not portray these relationships so that they do not have to make the distinction between fiction and reality for themselves. They assume people reading these books will see it as a guide or advice book instead of recognizing that to think any of the morally wrong actions and behaviors in these books are okay requires an evaluation of the self, not blame on the author. 

I dislike historical fiction, so I do not often read historical fiction, but you don’t see me telling authors not to write about a slave-owning family in case the wrong audience reads it and thinks slavery is acceptable. We know slavery is bad, so we do not reach that conclusion when reading books that involve it. If we do not know that rape and sexual assault are bad enough to not commit those crimes after a character in a book does, then there is a much larger issue that has nothing to do with the books being written and more to do with how we raise and educate our youth and treat each other. 

Any author writing dark romance or adult romance with crime and assault makes it aware to the reader that their novel contains those themes beforehand because people who want to read those types of stories are the people the author wants to pick up their book. 

SOURCES

Author and Audience: 

“Adapting to Your Audience.” Current Guide - The WAC Clearinghouse, wac.colostate.edu/repository/writing/guides/guide/index.cfm?guideid=19. Accessed 13 Feb. 2025. 

“How to Figure out Your Target Audience for Authors.” Ariele Sieling, Ariele Sieling, 18 Nov. 2024, arielesieling.com/blog/2020/how-to-figure-out-your-target-audience-for-authors. Accessed 13 Feb. 2025

“Considering Audience.” Considering Audience | UAGC Writing Center, writingcenter.uagc.edu/considering-audience. Accessed 13 Feb. 

Greenleaf Book Group. “Writing for Your Audience.” Greenleaf Book Group, 12 Feb. 2025, greenleafbookgroup.com/learning-center/book-creation/writing-for-your-audience. Accessed 13 Feb. 2025

Marion. “How Much to Consider Your Audience When Writing.” Memoir Coach and Author Marion Roach, 31 Aug. 2018, marionroach.com/2014/02/writing-for-an-audience/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2025

R/Writing on Reddit: To What Extent Do You Consider Your Audience?, www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/15gh8pu/to_what_extent_do_you_consider_your_audience/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2025.

“Writing for an Audience.” University of Maryland Global Campus, www.umgc.edu/current-students/learning-resources/writing-center/writing-resources/prewriting/writing-for-an-audience. Accessed 13 Feb. 2025. 

R/Writing on Reddit: Do Published Authors Have an Obligation to Make Sure Their Novels Promote Healthy Relationships?, www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/14aw5sa/do_published_authors_have_an_obligation_to_make/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2025.

Romanticization:

Eesley, Megan. “Opinion: Romanticizing Abuse Does Not Make a Novel Romantic.” The Seahawk, theseahawk.org/35713/opinion-columns/opinion-romanticizing-abuse-does-not-make-a-novel-romantic/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2025.

Gelman, Sisel. “The Dangers of Romanticization.” Medium, Medium, 27 July 2019, medium.com/@siselgelman/the-dangers-of-romanticization-33510c12a95e. Accessed 13 Feb. 2025

Hershenson, Shanti, and Shanti Henderson. “Why Ya Romance Needs to Stop Romanticizing Toxic Relationships.” The Mustang, 17 May 2023, www.sdamustang.com/opinions/2023/05/17/why-ya-romance-needs-to-stop-romanticizing-toxic-relationships/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2025

“Thoughts and Habits Not Conducive to the Work.” Fantasy Author’s Handbook, 1 Nov. 2024, fantasyhandbook.wordpress.com/2024/10/01/thoughts-and-habits-not-conducive-to-the-work/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2025

“What Is the Author’s Social Responsibility While Writing His/Her Books, Especially When It Comes to Character Creation and Development?” Quora, www.quora.com/What-is-the-authors-social-responsibility-while-writing-his-her-books-especially-when-it-comes-to-character-creation-and-development. Accessed 13 Feb. 2025.

“Why Are Authors so Obsessed with Romanticizing Toxic Relationships?” Her Campus, 3 Apr. 2024, www.hercampus.com/school/casper-libero/why-are-authors-so-obsessed-with-romanticizing-toxic-relationships-2/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2025