Trigger Warning for The Epoch Rite of Passage

Posted on by Megan

I’ve been thinking about whether or not to include a trigger warning for The Epoch Rite of Passage. My kneejerk reaction to trigger warnings is that I don’t like them. I don’t like spoilers for a book I’m about to read.

For the first book I did that I thought probably needed a trigger warning, I put a link in the front of the book for anyone serious about needing to read it. It seemed to work fine. No one complained.

But if you keep the content warning really high-level with absolutely no details, are you really spoiling anything? Or are you actually just giving a little extra hook, maybe even convincing someone on the fence to read the story?

I’m liking this idea, this idea of using the trigger warning as a hook into the story. In fiction, the general rule is that you’re never supposed to “tell” (because you’re supposed to “show”). But in a trigger warning—you get to tell. You get to say, look at all this interesting stuff that happens in the book!

Last night I felt the urge to draft something of a hookish trigger warning to include in the first book of The Epoch Rite of Passage trilogy.

Here’s what I came up with:

The Epoch Rite of Passage trilogy is a subversive dystopian political satire set in the increasingly techno-fascist world of the High States and includes scenes of authorized and state-sanctioned violence, fearmongering, gaslighting, spying, graphic language, theft, kidnapping, child endangerment, breaking and entering, blackmail, sexual assault, murder… you know, the usual stuff you see on the nightly news, up to and including a bloviating talking-head attempting to normalize it all. Mind your mental health and, if you need to, save this trilogy for another time. Otherwise, welcome to the High States—some say the greatest country in the world!
But don’t get too comfortable. It won’t exist like this for long…

What do you think?

[some time later…]

I just saw it in my email, after posting it, and I had some thoughts:

The Epoch Rite of Passage trilogy is a subversive dystopian political satire set in the increasingly techno-fascist High States, a world with authorized and state-sanctioned violence, fearmongering, gaslighting, spying, graphic language, theft, kidnapping, child endangerment, breaking and entering, blackmail, sexual assault, murder… you know, the usual stuff you see on the nightly news, up to and including a bloviating talking-head attempting to normalize it all. Mind your mental health and, if you need to, save this outing for another time. Still here? Then welcome to the High States—some say it’s the greatest country in the world. Watch your Ps and Qs and don’t get too comfortable. It won’t exist as-is for long…

A Map of the Journey to Human Sovereignty

Posted on by Megan

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about the state of the world and the massive transition we all seem to be navigating. It’s what inspired my latest project, The Epoch Rite of Passage trilogy. If you’ve been feeling like the old world is dissolving, I wanted to share a resource I built to help map the path forward.

This year it became absolutely clear to me that we are living through a massive, collective Rite of Passage.

If you feel like the world you loved has vanished, leaving you to navigate a landscape that no longer makes sense—you are not alone. You are not crazy. You are simply in the middle of a transition. We all are. But…

Why is this happening?
How do we get through it?
How will it end?

I felt compelled to explore these questions, and the result is The Epoch Rite of Passage trilogy. (The first two books are available for preorder now, and I’m hard at work on the conclusion.) It seemed to me that people felt powerless in part because they couldn’t imagine change–both what it might look like when it was done or how to get there. So I put some characters into our world and propelled them toward a cliff to find out what will happen if we don’t change—and what’s possible if we do.

The characters aren’t just trying to survive a financial and societal collapse. That’s the first step, sure, but not the only one. The next steps are even harder: How do they reclaim their sovereignty in a world that has convinced them they don’t have any? And then how do they maintain their sovereignty and their humanity when its time to rebuild and the old “poisoned bricks” of control are the only tools they’ve ever known?

When I first started writing the trilogy, I broke this journey down into three stages—the stages of a rite of passage—to help me guide the characters:

  • Stage 1: Separation — The terrifying moment of realizing the system isn’t “broken”—it’s functioning exactly as it was designed, and to survive it you have to detach.
  • Stage 2: Liminality — The space between worlds, where you are free from the old system consciously but your body still has to live with in it and your subconscious is still reacting to its fearmongering and its “official” truths.
  • Stage 3: Incorporation — The act of co-creating a new order based on love, freedom, and individual sovereignty, rather than by fear, violence, and control.

I came at the story organically, but on a foundation of lots and lots of reading. I curated a PDF list of 9 books that speak to these three stages of a rite of passage into a resource I’m calling The Sovereignty Library.

This isn’t just a reading list. It’s a roadmap for anyone who is done waiting for the old world to fix itself and is ready—or wants to be ready—to start building something else entirely.

[Click here to get your copy of The Sovereignty Library]

When you download the PDF, you’ll get the list, plus my personal notes on how each book speaks to the stages in a rite of passage. By grabbing the library, you’ll also join my free monthly newsletter, where I share updates on my writing projects, book recommendations, and deeper dives into the themes of questioning reality in all its guises. You’ll also get a handful of other “goodies,” including a novella. Make sure you check your spam for the welcome email. That’s where the goodies are.

Get The Sovereignty Library