Safety Tools for Writers Groups

There has been a movement over the past few years in the table top roleplaying game community (games like Dungeons & Dragons or Call of Cthulhu) to introduce safety tools for the health and comfort of the community. This is because roleplaying can lead to interesting, emotional, and sometimes scary places and that’s wonderful, as long as everyone is down for the ride. 

And I’ve been thinking that the other space I participate in where we face similar challenges is writer's groups. Writers too delve into dire situations, reach emotional peaks and valleys, and put ourselves out there when we read our work for others for the first time. 

The goal of this article is to help you make a welcoming space where people are confident to share their work. Reading your work can be intimidating at any time, but especially so if the work is deeply personal. Conversely, not everyone is comfortable listening to works on every topic, a scene that describes a giant spider, an intense sex scene, graphic horror or one that describes childhood trauma might not be for every person and every group. 

Talking with your group can make expectations clear, and prevent hurt feelings, or damage to friendships in the future. Not all of these tools will be useful to every writers group, but implementing the ones that are useful for yours will help things run smoother, make your group more welcoming to newbies, and prevent misunderstandings that could lead to your group breaking up.

Getting Started

Session Zeros & “Business” Meetings

A session zero takes place before you begin your group and is a meeting where expectations are set and the group discusses procedures and any other topics that the group wants to set a policy on. You might decide on your group’s meeting times and places, set community guidelines, and discuss what kinds of safety tools you want to put in place. I write more about starting your group here.

A “business” meeting is a regularly scheduled group check-in to see if procedures need to be updated or changed. I’d suggest scheduling one at least once a year, and they can usually be a quick extra 30-min at the start or end of your regular meeting. Regular check-ins let you explicitly ask what is working and not working for the group, and allows people to make suggestions. If it's all working great, then no worries. But a deliberate check-in is always helpful to catch and fix problems that might creep in over time.

Opt-in Tools

Posted Community Guidelines

Whatever guidelines you decide on in your session zero, write them down and put them somewhere everyone can reference them. A dropbox or docs folder is a great place, or they might be in a pinned comment on your main channel of a discord. Wherever you put them, they should be readily accessible, and agreed to by each new member of the group. That way you have them to point to if topics come up in the future, and as new people join they are on the same page as everyone else. 

“Movie-style” ratings

It is quick and easy to say "Hey everyone, just a reminder that today’s table has a “PG-13” rating because Melissa’s son will be joining us." Movie ratings are a simple, familiar and fairly fast way to set the tone for a group. They are a good shorthand for reminding folks what is and is-not acceptable at your table. Still, they don’t cover specific topics and everyone’s understanding of the levels might be a bit different. Understandings of ratings have also shifted over the years. My friends and I recently rewatched Smokey and the Bandit, which was rated PG when it came out and would probably be an R today. So these are a great place to start, but shouldn’t be the entirety of your conversation. 

Consent Checklist

A consent checklist is a pre-event tool used for games groups that you can adapt to your writer’s group table. It is a confidential survey of topics people would like to avoid or are ok with. There are several versions you can adapt to your needs including one from the TTRPG safety toolkit and this one from Monte Cook Games. A checklist allows people to affirmatively consent that they are ok hearing about certain topics, rather than just blanket banning all topics. Rememebr that once a survey is completed, you will need to make the results of the survey clear to the group in some manner and preferably keep them in your community guidelines.

Safe Harbor Statement/Closed Door Meetings

Another tool you may want to implement is a Safe Harbor statement for your writers group. For our table this is something like “We are all aware that this material is in progress and unfinished and may not represent your best work. We agree not to discuss or share any materials provided outside this group.” We state this at the start of almost every meeting for our writers group, and especially when there are new folks joining us. This is especially useful for new writers joining an established group, or any group where people try to preface their work with a long explanation that it was just written or that it is only a first draft. 

In the business world, a “Closed Door” meeting is one where everyone agrees that nothing discussed in the meeting will be shared with anyone who was not present at the meeting. In a writers group that might include statements about not discussing another writer’s work or sharing their documents with people outside the writers group. This is especially important for groups where documents are shared around prior to the meeting. 

Olivia Hill Rule

An Olivia Hill Rule or No Facists Rule is a rule that forbids fascists from using certain content. It is included in rules for games or in community guidelines not because it is entirely enforceable but because it makes the creator or the group's stance on fascists clear from the start. The original text is as follows:

If you're a fascist, you're not welcome to play this game. It's against the rules. If you're reading this and thinking, "You just call everyone you disagree with a fascist," then you're probably a fascist, or incapable of drawing inferences from context and acknowledging a dangerous political climate that causes the oppressed to be hyperbolic. Don't play this game. Heal yourself. Grow. Learn. Watch some Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood or something.

I personally prefer the version in Charlie Stross's moderation policy for his website (see point 3.), which has additional breadth than the original. A policy on this is essential if your group is held primarily in online spaces to avoid becoming a nazi bar. (If you don't know that story, here is a link to an article by Ben Werdmuller which reproduces Michael B Tager’s Nazi bar story which was originally posted on Twitter and is now lost. Scroll to the bottom for the story.) Unfortunately today it is just as essential for offline spaces.

Opt-out tools

Lines and Veils 

Lines and Veils can be taken straight from the TTRPG safety toolkit. Lines are things that should not be brought up at the table, and should be skipped over if they do come up. Veils are things that people do not want directly discussed, but may be ok with a reference to them. Lines and veils are a discussion to have in your session zero, but also may come up organically so it's important to discuss the concept regularly if you plan to use them with your group.

X Card

Also from the TTRPG safety toolkit, an X card stops the game, or the reading, and skips to the next scene. Critically, the person using the X card does not need to explain themselves. Everyone agrees to move on if the X card is tapped or moved. An X Card can be a literal card with an X on it, an X gesture made with the hands, or an X typed in a chatbox. Whatever you choose it should be simple and unambiguous. More about X-cards here. 

Open Door/Table/Step-out Policy

An open door policy is simple, if someone needs to get up and leave the table, they can. Whether that’s to use the restroom, take a breather outside, move and stretch, or leave for the day. No disrespect implied or discussion required. Simply stand up and move if you need to, and try not to be disruptive about it. This can be jarring for some folks, especially those used to academic cultures where you need permission to leave the room. But it is a very simple way to create a welcoming table and accommodate the needs of everyone at the table. You will find it much easier to keep folks participating if they can leave in the middle of a session, or arrive a few minutes late if they need to. People have lives and writers groups readings or critiques can take a long time. Be flexible and kind and you'll be more likely to see a group that lasts for years to come.

Do you have other safety tools your writers group uses? I would love to hear about them and add them to this list if you’d like to share them. I’d also love to hear your thoughts about using these tools with your group either in the comments below or on bluesky. 

This list was heavily influenced by the resources available on the TTRPG Safety Toolkit. The TTRPG Safety Toolkit, co-curated by Kienna Shaw and Lauren Bryant-Monk, is a compilation of safety tools that have been designed by members of the tabletop roleplaying games community for use by players and GMs at the table. You can find it at ttrpgsafetytoolkit.com.

Picture Credit: Cropped image. Chas. H. Yale & Sidney R. Ellis present the German dialect comedian and golden voiced singer, Al. H. Wilson in a new romantic German dialect comedy, The watch on the Rhine by Sidney R. Ellis. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA  https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2014636714/