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Mar 28

I've being reading on tapas for a few years and also writing novels.
But I'm still confused on makes a chapter M rated. Like some won't tag a chapter though is very gory but others would tag with a single drop of blood. Others I've seen is swear words and how some can use some.
Plus, what's the guidelines about mental health such as I want to write a characters who has a eating disorder and struggles with depression. Is that allowed or do I need to warn the viewers.
Moreover, I know if its nsfw I should tag it has mature but should I say why? Like in the beginning of the chapter?
I've read the guidelines but it very vague. I want to keep make sure when I'm posting my novels I'm doing it correctly. So does anyone know when you should tag a chapter as mature?

Thank you for reading.

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    Mar 27
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    Mar 28
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I’m no expert In this subject, but from what i’ve seen Its very subjective to the individual creator. My personal thoughts on it are that you should feel it out, Try to think if the representation of something could trigger or bother someone, if not, i dont feel a need to tag it. But again, some creators like to play it safe. So In the end Its really up to you.

Generally sex, blood and various topics about mental health (such as suicide or severe depression)

There are some general guidelines (ie. drugs, blood, violence, nudity), but a lot of people avoid tagging because mature chapters never get as many views. It can kind of feel like Tapas penalizes you for correctly tagging your stuff, lol. Be smart with it, and consider including in-text content warnings at the beginning of potentially uncomfortable chapters.

Authors choose to tag or not tag their stories, though they are technically supposed to tag them according to a list of guidelines at the bottom of the upload page. I would suggest if you tag something mature you say why, because many people will want to avoid something sexual, but not inherently mental health, and vice versa.

That said, you kind of have to judge for yourself what crosses the threshold of things worth marking down.
I contacted the company myself because my novel "Damsel in the Red Dress" has some mention of things like substance abuse, injuries that are pretty intense (car accidents, so), and mental health struggles, but these things are still written in a fairly PG-13 way. I didn't want to use the mature tag for fear of giving people the wrong idea, and I was told they primarily want you to tag any sexual content as mature, other things they are more lenient about.

The only time Tapas and app stores require a tag is if the episode contains explicit sexual acts (or explicit censored nudity/acts for comics) or graphic realistic violence.

Any other time is up to the creator to decide if they want to warn their readers or not with a tag. Some are very cautious and will tag profanities, others are more lax and will only tag things that might trigger some audiences like self-harm or drug use.

My novels are rather explicit, so I make sure to tag them as M and mention it in my posts. There are only a few times where I mark it for profanity but that's for really bad words. Other things, like violent, mental health, etc, I have to do a little extra thinking on. Talks of suicide, trauma, PTSD, etc, that usually gets the M.

But yes, I agree with everyone else that it's at the creator's discretion. It seems Tapas is pretty lenient so long as it's marked correctly.

I think when your chapter or story contains an exceeding amount of blood and gore. Also if the story contain explicit "seggs" scenes.

You could go by what is considered M-rated for literature in the US. According to Fiction Ratings it is "Not suitable for children or teens below the age of 16 with non-explicit suggestive adult themes, references to some violence, or coarse language.

Fiction M can contain adult language, themes and suggestions. Detailed descriptions of physical interaction of sexual or violent nature is considered Fiction MA."

Personally I would consider graphic depictions of ED as mature given kids are impressionable, and if one on the verge of having an ED (Or already has one.) reads that part of your story it can encourage them, just like how depicting suicidality can encourage a kid who is suicidal. Although how you tag it depends on your story, if it's all mature you could either tag the whole thing, or put up a general age warning and only tag the sensitive or graphic bits. If the story is generally kid friendly with small bits of mature content, I would suggest tagging and putting up a warning for the mature sections.
Overall the nice thing about novels is you can get away with waaay more than comics given it's not a visual medium, so you can be a little more lax with tags if you want the visibility. Like, my comic is totally banned from the app (Desktop only) because is has nudity, profanity, blood and sensitive depictions of abuse and mental illness. The story itself is meant for a 17+/18+ audience, but for visibility I use content warnings for the whole thing, and only tag the super uncomfy stuff. I don't worry too much about a ton of kids seeing it since they don't really use the desktop site, and the warnings at least cover my ass if someone tries to get me in trouble.
Although actually seeing it can be worse than imagining it, at least in certain cases. Mentally visualizing a nude character is less out there than literally having their junk in your face, or imagining a violent scene can be less traumatic that visually experiencing it. At least imo, although triggers are subjective.

Do what you feel works best for your story and readers.