Editing is a wondrous thing. When writing, it’s almost impossible to see your own typos, your mismatched verb tenses, your truly horrible choice of words and your sentences that die a brutal and painful death. Someone else will immediately see the problems and, poof, they’re fixed. It’s a miracle.
But those are technical problems. Book publishers have an entirely different problem these days, and it’s not just with Huck Finn.
Before a book is published and released to the public, it’s passed through the hands (and eyes) of many people: an author’s friends and family, an agent and, of course, an editor.
These days, though, a book may get an additional check from an unusual source: a sensitivity reader, a person who, for a nominal fee, will scan the book for racist, sexist or otherwise offensive content. These readers give feedback based on self-ascribed areas of expertise such as “dealing with terminal illness,” “racial dynamics in Muslim communities within families” or “transgender issues.”
This isn’t about typos anymore. Indeed, it may well be about changing pronouns from what proper English norms would demand to what the sensitive would demand. If the singular person uses the plural pronoun, that’s no longer necessarily a screw up.
Worse still, this isn’t merely a matter of the select crowd of college students who are peculiarly sensitive to slights behind every page, but to the indoctrination of children as they first read about Dick and Jane.
“The industry recognizes this is a real concern,” said Cheryl Klein, a children’s and young adult book editor and author of “The Magic Words: Writing Great Books for Children and Young Adults.” Klein, who works at the publisher Lee & Low, said that she has seen the casual use of specialized readers for many years but that the process has become more standardized and more of a priority, especially in books for young readers.
What drove this need to rewrite books so that no one should ever feel the slightest hint of not being the center of the universe?
Sensitivity readers have emerged in a climate – fueled in part by social media – in which writers are under increased scrutiny for their portrayals of people from marginalized groups, especially when the author is not a part of that group.
Of course, that concern about the author not being part of the “marginalized” group raises collateral questions. If, for example, a white author fails to adequately reflect the feelings of Hispanic characters in a book, perhaps it would be a better idea to read a book written by a Hispanic writer rather than rewrite the white author’s work to be less white privileged.
But that wouldn’t actually fix the problem, as authors are now afraid that they will be castigated as racist, sexist, homophobic or xenophobic if any word slips through that doesn’t comport with whatever is in social justice vogue for the day.
This potential for offense has some writers scared. Young-adult author Susan Dennard recently hired a fan to review her portrayal of a transgender character in her “Truthwitch” series.
“I was nervous to write a character like this to begin with, because what if I get it wrong? I could do some major damage,” Dennard said. But, she added, she felt the voice of the character was an important one that wasn’t often portrayed, so she hired a fan, who is a transgender man, just to be sure she did it right.
Was it not sufficient that the author included a transgender character in her book? As was recently made painfully clear, the landmines are everywhere, and constantly moving, making it almost impossible to escape criticism.
In 1999, ”Boys Don’t Cry” became the first film to represent transgender masculinity in a believable way. However, at a recent Reed College screening that point was lost on a group of transgender students who showed up to protest it. Visiting filmmaker Kimberly Peirce was greeted with signs declaring “Fuck Your Transphobia,” “You Don’t Fucking Get It,” and “Fuck This Cis White Bitch.”
Rather than appreciate the accomplishment of the film, students ripped the maker to shreds as “transphobic,” of all things. Why?
While this may be a misguided attack on a respected queer filmmaker and vital piece of independent film history, it would be irresponsible to dismiss the complaints outright.
Over the 15 years since the film’s release, Peirce has faced criticism for casting cisgender actress Hilary Swank as Brandon Teena, a transgender male. She’s also been criticized for directing the film as a cisgender lesbian, and for erasing from the film’s narrative the murder of Philip Devine, an African-American man who died by the same hands as Brandon Teena.
At the time, this film was about as radical as it got. Fifteen years later, there is a laundry list of “serious” social justice problems. The problem isn’t in what the film showed, but in her casting of a “cisgender,” a word that didn’t exist at the time as far as the popular lexicon was concerned, actress. In the old days, actors were cast because they were good actors. So horrifying.
But then there is another, even deeper criticism, that the filmmaker directed the film as a “cisgender lesbian.” Or to put it otherwise, she wasn’t transgender, so she violated a rule that wouldn’t exist for more than a decade that prohibited her from making an otherwise great movie.
But what about good faith, even the most sensitive author, the most well-meaning book, the deepest and most passionate of social justice purposes? Too bad.
“Even if authors mean well, even if the intention is good, it doesn’t change the impact,” Ireland said. “It’s nice to be that line of defense before it gets to readers, especially since the bulk of people who come to me write for children.” Fees for a sensitivity readers generally start at $250 per manuscript.
At least sensitivity readers come cheap. Then again, they are probably overpaid given that whatever they edit, it will prove inadequate a month later when the rules of marginalized feelz change again. At the very least, sensitivity readers should carry malpractice insurance, as no one will escape culpability for the crimes against feelings.
Finally a non coffee related career for all those fill-in-the-blank Studies majors.
But they shouldn’t give up their day job just yet. Would you like fries with that?
On a serious note, it’s ironic that in an era when the traditional barriers to publishing no longer exist, writers are willing to subject themselves to this form of self imposed censorship.
They all want to be J.K. Rowling and enjoy the wealth and universal admiration that comes with it. Plus, they can’t do math.
All the more reason to leverage Amazon and other technologies to self publish. I never thought “samizdat” would become a word commonly used in the US, but I think we’re heading in that direction.
Thanks to self-publishing, every idiot is now a published author. What they plan to do with the other four copies of their book remains a problem.
95% of everything used to be shit. Now its gone up to 99.9%. The problem of sifting has only gotten marginally harder.
They use the copies as doorstops and to fix the wobbly table of course. Might even be a whole market for books written to spec to be the right thickness.
National Geographic used to fit the bill pretty well. And nobody (except my grandfather) read them anyway.
That’s what e-books are for – no carrying inventory.
In the new days of electronic publishing, four copies could be considered a large run.
When I received a copy of Bastiat’s “The Law” from Amazon, the back page showed that it had been printed the day after I ordered it…
They should be able to automate this, where actual content is concerned. Just run searches for words and phrases that are unacceptable per the AP Style Manual, and delete them, ala ABA Journal. They could even include the cover and dust jacket, so as to edit the author’s bio as necessary.
Meh.
Funny you should mention it, but I just got a call from your German sensitivity reader. Zhe says there was something offensive in yesterday’s posts.
Only something? I’m doing it wrong. Tell zher to zuck bratz.
Soon, your readers my have to start calling the two of you the bratz bros.
Well, maybe you can get a little musical assist from the refined souls at the U.S. Tennis Association.
I think you’re missing a silver lining here. Lawyers could get the right to review pre-publication books and articles dealing with the law. Articles and passages that offended you by being ignorant, stupid, or just plain ridiculous could be blocked before publication. After all, those are clearly offensive to the delicate sensibilities of experienced lawyers.
And lord knows we’re marginalized.
Do I have to change my ‘nym?
“In my younger and more [omitted for triggering content] years my [parental figure] gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ [xe] told me, ‘just remember [to check your privilege].'”
SHG,
Knowing far too much about the real events of the killings and unable ethically to discuss them, I am free to say that in my opinion the casting of Hilary Swank as Brandon Teena was brilliant, and Ms. Swank’s portrayal of the character magnificent.
The protesting students at Reed College would not know art or history if it bit them in their real or imagined transgender butts. The failure to realize that time and context are important, and inextricably interwoven with a serious examination of art, is particularly disheartening.
All the best.
RGK
Time and context are victims of presentism, the notion that all of history exists only through the lens of the moment. I’m pretty sure they offer a doctorate in this at Reed College, as well as other places of higher education.
“When writing, it’s almost impossible to see your own typos, your mismatched verb tenses, your truly horrible choice of words and your sentences that die a brutal and painful death.”
I’d like to know the neurological process by which such things suddenly become glaringly obvious to you the second after you click ‘send,’ ‘publish,’ ‘sign,’ etc.
Yeah. Why is that?
Two theories:
1. Typos are in fact sentient beings that hide until they can mock you from a safe distance.
2. Changing the visual format (e.g., Word to PDF) makes a difference. As does switching from thinking about “what you want to say” to the much less complex task of reading “what you said.”
Your first theory makes perfect sense. Your second, not so much. Those may be your issues, but not mine.
“Was it not sufficient that the author included a transgender character in her book?”
Not for the writer, and isn’t that enough? But let’s move away from politics for a moment. What if she was writing a science fiction novel? Shouldn’t she consult a physicist? Larry Niven, the noted hard-science-fiction writer, was roundly criticized for his novel “Ringworld”, because the structure as written was unstable. One of the main reasons he wrote a sequel at all (so he claims in its foreword) was to address the engineering problems.
In short, as long as the process is driven by writers rather than publishers, there ought be no problems with it.
If authors were doing it for the sake of authenticity, that’s fine. But that’s not what appears to have happened here. The authors are afraid of being attacked for being socially insensitive. Your comparison to a technical writer being technically inaccurate is inapt. This isn’t science. This is fear of attack for not being politically correct enough.
I suppose that’s the question, isn’t it? The Tribune is the one that said she was scared, but all the author said was “I was nervous” – not exactly the same thing – and “I could do some major damage” – which isn’t exactly a fear of attack either.
I dug a bit deeper and found her blog, though. While I didn’t find anything about fear of being politically incorrect, I did find a few gems:
“Trust me: it’s better to be uncomfortable (I hate asking people for help; it’s way outside of my comfort zone) than to have a mistake in your story.” -under “Researching Your Novel”, 14 April 2014.
“I’ve said this before, and I’ll keep saying it until I die: having a critique partner is hands down the most effective way to become a better writer.” -under “First Readers and Critique Partners”, 5 May 2014.
Is it conclusive? No, but it’s not exactly unheard of for a newspaper to misappropriate a quote, either.
This wasn’t about one writer, even if you chose to obsess on one to the exclusion of the bigger picture.
That is true, and I guess I am.