OPINION - The rise of sensitivity readers is just evidence of a bigger need to diversify the publishing industry
“Be brave. Screw the lot of them,” said Ian McEwan this week.
He was speaking on the subject of authors fearing causing offence, and of his bafflement at the rise of the sensitivity reader in fiction publishing. What they do is complex and varied, but to grossly simplify it, it is often the practice of asking a person from a community from which the author does not hail to check over a work which references or depicts that community in some way, so as to avoid cocking it up and causing a furore.
It’s not the scourge of publishing that the fuss around it would have you believe, but it is growing, due to the ridiculously recent realisation that the percentage of characters of colour, of disabled characters, of LGBTQ+ characters, is still extremely small compared to white, non-disabled and straight characters across the board in books being published (this was noted originally in the YA space, which is where sensitivity readers do most, often very useful, work).
What McEwan, who added. “You’ve got to write what you feel. You must tell the truth,” seems to be objecting to is reportedly panicking publishers strong-arming authors into making alterations such as changing the gender, or ethnicity, or sexuality, let’s say, of their characters. Thereby arbitrarily altering the author’s original artistic intention and giving rise to a wholly predictable backlash to boot, from people whose experience and insight and personal stories had hitherto apparently not been deemed marketable enough to publish books about, but now seemed to be being co-opted and marketed to within an inch of their life.
This feels like a klaxon for a wider industry problem. Firstly, it seems bizarre that the first course of action isn’t: “Let’s find more [for example] black/south-east Asian/disabled/LGBTQ+ authors because that might be a good fix for this problem, also they’ll be very marketable in the current climate”. You only have to look at the proliferation of LGBTQ+ bookshops across the UK in the last couple of years, or the success of the #merky books imprint, set up by Stormzy and Penguin Random House specifically to publish work by authors “from underrepresented communities”, to realise this is a sound move. I mean, having a superstar rapper attached obviously helps, but the point is the market is there. It is ‘people who like books’.
Secondly, it suggests that it might be prudent, in a very real future-proofing sense, to take a more urgent look at the diversity of the industry. Publishing in the UK is still overwhelmingly white, and middle class. It needs investment, sure, and it’s hardly the last bastion of the problem, but it’s got to be efficient in the long run to actively develop the talents of, as well as writers, editors and marketers of all backgrounds, so that there’s less chance of wasting time and resources on poorly researched work or hastily bastardising existing manuscripts.
(Incidentally as far as I can gather, sensitivity readers have rarely been engaged for adult male authors writing female characters – it has been known, but considering the number of women still making their way merrily through a male narrative tit-first, I think we can assume it hasn’t hugely caught on).
Sensitivity readers do absolutely have a role to play. Irvine Welsh warmly acknowledged the improvement made by his reader to his novel The Long Knives, which features a trans character. And they can be extremely helpful when it comes to language. In a world of instant, globalised communication, any writer risks causing genuinely unintended offence through blissful ignorance of the implications of a word in another part of the world – generally, in the case of the English-speaking world, America.
Until I reckon a couple of years ago, I thought the word “uppity” meant snobby and snooty, a bit of a Hyacinth Bucket. That was always my understanding, conceivably I had it wrong even then. I then discovered that in the US, it has historically been used to describe people of colour with ideas “above their station”, to brand them presumptuous or impertinent.
Had I employed it, that’s not in a million years what I would ever have meant, nor is it what I think a lot of white British people of my generation have the first idea that it could mean. I passed on this useful knowledge to a friend a couple of months ago, she was aghast. So I’m very glad to know it now, and I won’t use it in future. Too much chance of being misunderstood, and that’s OK. The English language – the only one in which I am fluent, to my eternal regret – is incredibly rich and there is always an alternative. And that is my actual job, so.
For a writer, a light-touch sensitivity reader can identify a potentially problematic usage like this, inspiring a change which almost certainly will not alter the thrust, feel, or artistic integrity of the finished work, especially if it is left up to the writer to find the alternative. Again that’s their job. As an editor, I always prefer to ask a writer to come up with their own rephrasing of a confusing or potentially problematic sentence. It means you don’t lose their voice, misrepresent their opinion or dilute their argument, but you do improve clarity.
But we can’t just rely on those readers to be a sticking plaster for a bigger problem. The demand for them highlights an inequality in publishing that needs addressing at the root. And let’s hold ALL writers, especially those of us who have historically found it easier to get a foot in the door, to the same high standards.
I am strongly of the opinion that a writer of fiction should have no constraints on their imagination and be able to write what and who they want, but standards have to be met. Essentially, if you’re telling what amounts to someone else’s story, you’d better be doing a really bloody good job.
