You’ve completed your book manuscript, and it’s off to critique partners, editors, and beta readers to workshop. Great! You’re just a few revisions away from starting down the publishing path of your choice, but you keep seeing a term pop up: sensitivity reader.
Is this just another fancy hoop created to make authors spend more money before they can publish? Not quite. Depending on your book’s content and the specific lens through which you experience the world, sensitivity reading may be something worth considering.
What Is Sensitivity Reading?
Sensitivity reading is assessing a manuscript with a particular issue of representation in mind. For example, a book with a transgender main character written by a cis author ought to be critiqued by someone either in or familiar with the transgender community. Sensitivity readers often belong to the marginalized group the work is writing about. They look at manuscripts through their specific lens for insensitive, archaic, or inaccurate depictions of said group. These readers, according to a Slate article from 2017, are “part fact-checkers, part cultural ambassadors,” hired either by individual authors or by a publishing house to catch author blind spots and unknown, internalized biases.
Although most commonly associated with identifying race and ethnicity issues, sensitivity reading is not limited to critique of those categories. Crystal Shelley’s article at Rabbit with a Red Pen talks about the other areas that sensitivity reading typically covers: gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, disability—but keep in mind this list is not exhaustive. Sensitivity reading can span any subject matter or content that the author is unfamiliar with.
As sensitivity reading is still a relatively recent addition to the publishing world, the decision to enlist sensitivity readers often falls to the author. This is why it is so important to understand what sensitivity reading is, and if your particular manuscript could benefit from it.
Why Is It Important?
The rise of sensitivity readers reflects the ongoing shifts in our mentality, specifically in regards to representation and political correctness. These movements to change are directly reflected within publishing. In recent years the industry, particularly traditional publishing, has come under fire for practices deep-rooted in misogyny and non-inclusivity. Enter the sensitivity reader. These readers are imperative in reshaping the publishing landscape, in reforming books that are on the cusp of inauthenticity and offensiveness, and in publishing books that accurately reflect the heterogeneity of human experiences across the world.
In a cultural climate where people’s social conscience is continually on the rise and every eye seems attuned to the pitfalls and complexities of representation, sensitivity reading has carved out its niche and is here to stay for our benefit. Authors will continue to write their and others’ realities into books, which means they will continue to cross outside the boundaries of their own knowledge. That opens them up to all forms of backlash—heightened nowadays by reviews and conversations on every social media platform. For those authors, a sensitivity read is worth the investment because it can help eliminate stereotypes, harmful content, or false information. In some cases where the sensitivity reader comes into play earlier in the manuscript’s creation, they can also point out inaccuracies or problematic storylines and characters that might affect the story's core.
One of the best guides currently available to authors and editors on the subject of sensitivity reading is Karen Yin’s Conscious Style Guide, the first website built around conscious language. Conscious language “promotes equity, used skillfully in a specific context,” and involves asking yourself what your assumptions are and how the words you use might impact certain communities. Yin created her website as a singular place where authors can come to find the terms they are looking for, discuss equity-based language, answer questions about usage, and access style guides that cover inclusive language for various communities. The website has its own free newsletter, guides ranging from health equity to socioeconomic status, resources such as the The Diversity Style Guide and the Inclusive Language Guidelines from the American Psychological Association, and consistently updates with new articles and debates on conscious language.
One common misconception you will encounter is the claim by naysayers that sensitivity reading is synonymous with censorship. This is simply not the case; sensitivity readers are not looking for reasons to be offended. They only ever make suggestions or point out potentially problematic aspects and how they can be corrected for the sake of the story’s accuracy and realism. KN Literary uses the example of books that have the N–word in reference to Black people. Sensitivity readers know that this is a harmful word that, when used incorrectly, can have awful effects, but this does not mean the word should be removed every time. They would only ask the author to remove it if it was used to perpetuate an untrue Black experience. Censorship, however, would remove the word once they saw it, with little to no critical thought given to context.
Do You Need It?
The next question on your mind is most likely whether your manuscript needs a sensitivity read. Here’s your answer:
If you have written about a group, identity, or community with which you do not have personal, firsthand experience, then yes.
For example, you wrote a book around a main character with a mental illness, such as bipolar affective disorder. But neither you nor anyone in your immediate circle has this disorder or is familiar with what it is like to live with it. That’s when you, as an author portraying a character who has vastly different (and often marginalized) experiences than yours, would need to call in the support of a sensitivity reader, likely someone who has intimate knowledge of living with bipolar affective disorder. Not knowing the intricacies and details of what it is like to live with a mental illness is no slight on you—you can’t possibly know. But it would be your responsibility if you did not look for a way to gain that knowledge in order to strengthen your manuscript and ensure accuracy, sensitivity, and respect toward the communities about whom you write.
Deciding whether your manuscript needs sensitivity reading depends on the content and the lens through which the author is looking. Most historical fiction manuscripts will need some form of sensitivity reading, and so will those featuring BIPOC or LGBTQ+ characters, or manuscripts that deal largely with religious themes, characters, and institutions. But this is in no way the complete list of what books may benefit from this particular service. The biggest question any writer should ask themselves about sensitivity reading is whether their book heavily features a particular race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, disability, or culture with which they themselves are not intimately familiar.
If that answer is yes, then so is the answer to needing a sensitivity reader.
Keep in mind that, even if the subject matter or content is not prominently featured but does play a role in the book, it could be worth having a sensitive reader go over it. Those instances, however small or seemingly insignificant, can still become inflamed areas of critique or the source of uproar from readers if the content is written from a biased, harmful, or inaccurate perspective.
Where to Look for Sensitivity Readers
While sensitivity reading is still a sometimes debated topic among authors, there are many online resources for finding trusted, professional sensitivity readers.
We know the cost of editing your manuscript is high, especially if you go through each stage or a particular stage of editing numerous times. The costs rack up, and you may not want to spend more money on a sensitivity reader. You might be tempted to just go to a friend who has some experience with the content or community you are writing about, and while that may be cost-effective, it is inadvisable.
First, friends already have a bias in knowing you, and that will shape their critique—they may hold back on some of the harsher, but more necessary, feedback. Second, they are not trained to critique through a specific lens—living in a community or having experience with the subject matter does not automatically mean they will know how to call out unjust or inaccurate areas in your book. So if sensitivity reading is something your books needs, we highly recommend doing the research to procure a professional.
Writing or editing associations, such as Editors of Color, EFA, or ACES, are great places to begin your search. Each of these associations compiles databases of editorial professionals, which can then be filtered to look for sensitivity readers. You can also check out any social media platform or post a call for one—chances are, readers will flock to you. And below are a few websites that promote sensitivity reading services.
Lastly, at Artful Editor, we have a diverse team of editors who can provide sensitivity reading as part of our manuscript critique service. Just inquire!