What is Sensitivity Reading? When Do I Need Sensitivity Reading?

This is the basic definition of a sensitivity read: a holistic examination of a manuscript that makes recommendations about how certain experiences – like those of race, gender, sexuality, disability, and/or class – are rendered. We tend to see sensitivity reads most for fiction manuscripts, but they can also be useful for non-fiction.

The best way to explain what a sensitivity read can do is to tell you a story. I’m a Black disabled woman version of Sophia Petrillo.

Picture this.

One of my favorite mystery authors released a new novel and I was thrilled to read it. The characters were generally well-drawn, multi-dimensional white upper-middle class folks. In fact, the reason why I like this author (and still do, to be clear) is because they tend to make their characters well-rounded and allow them to demonstrate emotions, even if they are archetypal. The plots tend to roll along at a nice pace and then the last few chapters tend to be rollercoasters.

However, this last novel’s rollercoaster had a loop-de-loop that I truly despised. The turn was that villain was driven to kill because of a traumatic brain injury. I heaved a deep sigh from the underside of my mobility device.

As a disabled reader, I was disappointed that disability was used as the excuse or catalyst for violence. This is such a tired trope. Disabled people are generally represented as violent. What’s more, the storylines tend to blame disability for said violence. It felt like another way to say “disability is so terrible that people are driven to harm themselves and others.”

As a scholar of disability, I was disappointed at this representation for different reasons. To be fair, TBI can cause aggression. It is a common symptom. Nonetheless, TBI can be treated and resources provided for patients and their families. I won’t go so far as to say that a person with TBI could never be murderous. Yet, as a literary critic, I think authors can be more creative in representing disability as not wedded to villainy.

As an editor, I would have offered the following advice. Perhaps, try another motivation that isn’t wedded to disability. You could avoid the ableist trope. Perhaps, represent TBI as part of the story rather than the plot twist. It cheapens disability and makes it only useful in service of the ostensible able-bodied reader. Perhaps, include characters with disabilities throughout the text who live their lives without being extraordinary evil or good, just regular folk. That does not counterbalance a disabled villain, but it does better represent the world these characters inhabit.

I bring four sets of expertise to a manuscript – embodied experience, award-winning scholarship, a decade of teaching, and editorial skills – to help improve it. I ask writers questions that get them thinking about how their manuscript might enact the work of equity. (Hence the “inquiry” in Inquiry Editing, LLC!) I also teach people about the ideas that underlie my concerns, so that they are aware of the conversations into which they’ve wandered or seek participation.

I hope this helps!