Welcome (back) to the Scarlet Quill Society!

This year at YeahWrite our free workshop focuses on everything BUT the writing, with an editorial series that’ll take the words right out of your mouth and put them on the page. Of course, we’re also including some tips on writing so that the eventual edits to your story won’t be the heartbreaking kind where you have to remove an entire character or plot arc and re-evaluate every interaction in your 300,000 word novel.

Check out the bottom of this post (and every post) for a roadmap to the year. We’ll be updating it with links each month as the posts go live, so that you can navigate through easily. And speaking of navigation, don’t worry: our Navigating Prompts workshop from last year hasn’t gone anywhere. You still have a handy tool to refer to when you’re stumped by a prompt or need help on how to approach it or what judges might be thinking as they read your story.

The biggest bonus of the Scarlet Quill Society is that there are actual club meetings. That’s right! Once a month (usually on the Second Sunday) we’ll get together with you and talk about that month’s subject, answer questions, and record the chat for posterity. So if you have an easier time taking in information that way, or if you’re left with lingering questions after a monthly topical post, you’ve got a chance to get the full picture! Check out the full description at the main Scarlet Quill Society page.

You’re Too Sensitive!

Have you ever heard that? Caught yourself saying it? What if it applied to your writing? Are you sure that the answer is “your readers are too sensitive” and not “you’re writing something harmful”? It’s entirely possible to finish a piece of work with the best of intentions, pass it to an editor, polish it up… and publish something that’s pretty racist (or antisemitic, homophobic, ableist, you name it), because nobody spotted it. And why didn’t they see it? Well, chances are, you and your editor (or the writer and you) aren’t members of the relevant community, so you don’t have any experience noticing the thing you put in, or you replicated a common but harmful trope without thinking about where it came from. For an easy example, have you ever watched a sci fi show where humans have “solved racism” but spend the entire time interacting with aliens that are clearly coded with characteristics white people think of as “other, but specific to a racial group” and often fighting those aliens based on those differences (looking at you, Original Trek)? (And speaking of Original Trek, consider some of the more recent iterations of Trek, where the writers are more clearly making an attempt to be antiracist but haven’t decoupled from things like “Klingons are dark-skinned and violent.” See how the original racist thing will propagate if you don’t examine it and actively push back?)

The only thing that readers know about you is what you choose to put in your work. So if you put harmful tropes in your work, they’re completely justified in assuming that you personally hold those beliefs. And then, in the words of one of this month’s panelists, “the internet falls on your head.” And that doesn’t feel great. But you would have earned it. Fortunately, there’s an entire group of people willing to share their knowledge and experience to help keep that from happening, and make the work you put out richer and more exciting for a greater variety of people.

They’re called sensitivity readers.

Whether as a writer or an editor, there are going to be things that you just aren’t positioned to catch in a story or essay (or book, or memoir, but for the purposes of this post we’re going to call them all “stories”). What you do to spot those things – and what happens next – is up to you. When you plan to write characters from different backgrounds, with different experiences from you, a sensitivity reader is the person who makes sure those characters are as good and as real as you want them to be, so that more people can see themselves in your work.

For July’s Scarlet Quill Society meeting, we’re lucky enough to have convinced three experienced sensitivity readers to join us for a panel discussion. If you haven’t registered for this month’s meeting and you’re not a member of the SQS, hop over to our Kofi page and snag a one-time ticket that entitles you to see them live and submit questions to have answered. Because of the nature of the panel and the experiences we’ll be discussing, only our moderator will ask questions directly, but they’ll have an eye on your chat and work in as many as they can.

To prepare for this panel discussion, and so that you can get the most out of this article, we interviewed our panelists beforehand about what they think it’s most important for you to know when working with a sensitivity reader. Our international slate of panelists comes from a wide variety of backgrounds but they have one thing in common: each belongs to at least one marginalized community. They’ve experienced marginalization based on race, gender, and the bodies they live in. They’ve parented, and partnered, and experienced poverty. Between them they have a wealth of knowledge and experience that can only come from living. They’re also professional writers and editors. And they’re willing to share their experience with us – and by extension, with you. We’re thrilled that they agreed.

And, first things first, yes, they’re getting paid. YeahWrite is compensating these folks for their willingness to share their expertise. This is, after all, their job. And it’s not an easy job. As an editor you might get frustrated with a writer, you might wish they had better grammar, or that this plot hole wasn’t here, or that things made more sense. But you’re not being asked to reach into your own traumatic experiences and then explain why the writer is replicating those hurts not only to you but to other people. Sensitivity readers essentially position themselves to be the first line of defense for their communities, to protect those communities from harm by exposing themselves to it—so yeah, we think they deserve to get paid for that.

We asked them what you might expect to pay to work with a sensitivity reader (ok, fine, I’ve typed that enough, let’s go with SR from here on, ok?), and as you might expect, the answer was “it varies.” One panelist noted “Being a SR is a specialist skill and should be paid accordingly at an hourly rate that reflects that. Many national authors/editors associations and unions have suggested rates for sensitivity readers that you can easily [look up].” And of course they all noted that the more work a SR has to do, the more it will cost. More work in this case might mean a longer story, or it might mean a story that’s more problematic, with more things to fix, or just one that has a wider variety of characters in it. Many SR’s will work on a sliding scale, or give you an estimate early on. And as one panelist reminded us, “You’re going to pay *somehow* whether it’s in internet strife or invoice.” That is, you can lay out some money up front, or risk losing your entire book deal later. Which makes more sense? (Yes, you should feel free to point this out to authors you’re editing when they ask why you want to bring in a separate reader when they’re already paying you to edit!)

So what does an SR do?

One of the most frequent accusations we hear around using SR’s is that they’re out to make sure nobody gets to write anything challenging or deep or exploratory ever again. That when you hire a SR you’re asking someone to smooth all the sharp edges off your writing and make it the same as everyone else’s. Once our panelists stopped laughing about that, we got some real talk about what SRs are about.

“Most SRs get into the field out of frustration or a love for the genre they are doing SR for,” one panelist explained. “[They’re] people who really would like the genre to be less about Yet Another Incident [where a writer has perpetuated harm and then doubled down and insisted they were right to do it] and more about making work that has less terrible depictions.” Ultimately, SRs are there to help you push the limits, not to pull you back. “The purpose of a SR isn’t to stifle creativity, it’s to raise awareness about unconscious biases or erroneous/out of date historical assumptions you may be carrying, and also to give you an idea of how your work will be received,” another panelist noted.

That’s right, SRs are there to encourage you to broaden your writing and reach. Living in an age where writers are held accountable for what they put on the page isn’t a bad thing. As one of our panelists says, “You can write anything you please. You also must be prepared to be held responsible when you get it wrong. If you aren’t ready for the accountability, I wouldn’t write it.”

Your SR is there to help you be accountable early on, and privately. Most of our panelists suggest you involve an SR as early as possible, even if it’s just sitting down for coffee and running your idea past them. Involve them before you get too much on the page and get too attached to it. One panelist suggested you “remember that you’re asking them only for a reading on the way you’ve portrayed a community, you’re not asking them to edit your work generally.” With that in mind, another panelist suggests that you “work how you work”—that is, involve a SR any time you’re unsure, and if you are sure, get one at latest when your first draft is done. If you have little knowledge of the community you’re writing about, and your work is centered on that community, you should be talking to your SR as early as the planning stages. If you have more familiarity, consider waiting until later in the process, as you’re less likely to make big-picture mistakes, but probably still going to make smaller ones in how your characters talk, what they eat, and how they interact (always remember that you, personally, have probably never seen an in-community interaction that wasn’t somehow shaped by or for your gaze). And if you have no knowledge, more than one panelist pointed out that you might want to sit down for a minute and ask “why [am I] writing characters or contexts involving that community?”

What you shouldn’t do, all our panelists agree, is present a sensitivity reader with an essentially completed work, well past any reasonable date for making major changes, and expect them to rubber stamp your work. Expect that there will be changes – sometimes significant ones – and give your reader and yourself enough time to identify and make them. And if you decide not to make changes that your SR says are necessary? Don’t use “I had an SR” as a shield. And definitely don’t use their name in that case. They told you not to do it, and the decision to leave that in, as well as the consequences for that decision, are yours. Not theirs.

So I need an SR. Now what?

The first step, of course, is finding a sensitivity reader. It’s a slightly different process from finding an editor! You need to start by identifying your needs: what communities or marginalizations does the work touch on that are outside your lived experience? (A side note: because no one person is a monolith, you might consider asking a similarly marginalized person to check your work over even if you are a member of a community.)

You can search professional organizations for sensitivity readers, or you can ask friends who are members of the relevant community if they know anyone. (As one panelist reminds us, if you don’t know anyone from the relevant community, you’re probably not the best person to tell a story including them. Maybe you’re ok if they’re not your main character and the story doesn’t revolve around them, but think about why you’re including that character and why it’s important to you to have them in your story.) You can ask your editor, who probably has relevant industry experience and contacts and can help you ask around. You can also use your social media connections: some platforms even have communities that have compiled lists of SRs.

Remember that each sensitivity reader is only qualified to read for their relevant experience. So if you have a wide variety of characters, you’re going to need more than one sensitivity reader: ideally you’ll have someone who’s qualified to read for each affected character. (If this seems insurmountable from a time, effort, or cost basis, you may be writing further from your areas of competence than is reasonable – consider dialing it back a little.)

Once you’ve found a person, it’s good to make sure you’re on the same, er, page. Make sure they’re aware of what you need them to read for, and that they have relevant experience. You might also ask them to do a general issue-spot to identify places you might need a different SR to check. In any case, it’s reasonable and expected for you to ask your SR for confidentiality. They shouldn’t discuss their work for you in identifiable particulars unless it’s absolutely necessary to defend themself if, say, there’s an accusation that your work contains a harmful trope and you say “it can’t, I had Rowan do a SR!” In that case, Rowan would be entitled to say “yes, I did that, and I recommended that they change that character. It doesn’t appear that they made the changes I recommended.”

Give some thought to how you like receiving feedback. Do you want comments in a document? Would you prefer a general overview? Do you like raw notes or polished paragraphs? Do you want to meet and talk through the list of issues? If you really want a meeting, consider that your SR has, over the course of their life, probably been a target of emotional and even physical violence coming from people in your community. Make sure they feel safe, and always offer alternatives to a face to face meeting. Make sure your SR knows how you want to get feedback.

The relationship between an SR and the author or inviting editor (as an editor you can provide an emotional shield between an SR and a fragile author, but remember that your job in that case is to shield the SR from the author’s reaction, not to soften or change the SR’s feedback to make it “more acceptable” to the author) is one of give and take. You have responsibilities to your SR as much as they do to you. “[I]f your SR and you have wildly different energies, and understandings of the outcome of your work, you’re going to have a fraught relationship,” a panelist pointed out. So of course we asked about that so you don’t have to.

First of all, and most important, DON’T BE FRAGILE. Yeah, that’s verbatim from one of our panelists. The others say when you’re hiring an SR, “ask yourself if you’re ready for honest answers that likely will hurt your feelings. Your responsibility as the creator is not to argue with the SR or try to get them to agree with your viewpoint. Your responsibility is to take in the information and decide how you will proceed.” In exchange, “SRs have an obligation to check your work for unconscious biases, for historically out of date/incorrect portrayals, for erroneous stereotypes, offensive/culturally insensitive portrayals or language, and misrepresentations of marginalized communities.” As the first panelist put it, “You have a responsibility as the creator to seek out a sensitivity reader who is going to prioritize your story rather than your feelings, and to honor [their] sensitivity rather than override it.” That means that at the end of the day you have the best story you can write, informed by input from experienced people with a deep understanding of what you’ve implicated and how to help you explore that in a nuanced way.

That sounds more important than your feelings, right?

We know. As an author, or even as an editor who’s been working closely on a project, you feel protective of it. After all, it’s the best you could make it. But that’s the point: it’s the best you could make it, but not necessarily the best it could be. Sensitivity readers aren’t removing challenging ideas and flattening your story. They’re adding nuance and depth to the story you were trying to write, and making it a more immersive experience for the reader. A more challenging story to read, but a more exciting one.

We want to reiterate: sensitivity reading takes a toll on the reader. Honor that. Be clear about your expectations, prompt with your payment, and don’t push back on your feedback. SRs see the same tired, harmful tropes a thousand times. And honestly, they don’t care if you’re (for example) racist or not. They care if there’s racism in your work. So keep it about the work, and not about defending yourself personally. Your SR is there to make sure that people read the story you were trying to write, if you’d had the relevant knowledge to begin with. And they’re there to make sure people aren’t reading something pointlessly harmful or offensive that they’ll think less of you for writing. Or if you don’t want to take our word for it, listen to a panelist: “Don’t feel overwhelmed or beleaguered by getting a SR. They don’t want your work out in the world looking foolish or unpolished, or worse (especially if their name’s attached to the work).”

How can I make my SR’s life a little easier?

Besides the tips we just gave you (no, really, this is a great time to put your fragility aside and focus on how awesome your story can be) there are a few things you can do to make your SR’s work faster. Try spotting them and eliminating them before you get a SR, so your SR doesn’t have to deconstruct your whole story.

• No, really, they’re tired of tropes. Not every gay person has a traumatic coming out story. Black women aren’t just “sassy best friends.” Nor are they “welfare queens.” And the arranged marriage trope has reached its expiration date.
• Don’t use stereotypes to signal a character’s “otherness.”
• “Making a character purple doesn’t mean a free pass for writing problematic tropes about othered people.”

Are you sensing a theme yet?

• “Remember that each community is a whole, 3D community with depth and nuance.”
• Don’t just copy characters or races from mythology (or even just older uncopyrighted works). You may not understand the character with important relevant nuance, or you could import harmful stereotypes along with the character that you haven’t examined.
• Ask yourself “what’s [my] goal in writing this character” – that is, are you including the character as a checkbox, or are they important to the story? Do they get to be a fully realized person?
• Are all your characters fully realized people or are some of them cardboard cutouts cobbled together from a few things you’ve seen on TV?

And now: the worst case scenario

Yes, all of this post has been leading up to this moment: It’s possible that your sensitivity reader will tell you that a fundamental element of your story is so problematic that they strongly advise you to remove it, and that removing it will kill the story as written. What do you do?

First off: don’t be fragile. Remember? This is why you hired your SR. You clearly weren’t able to spot and prevent this issue. And it’s not the SR’s fault that you put the problematic thing in the story. You promised yourself and your SR that you were ready for honest feedback that came at a cost to the SR. Take a deep breath and thank your SR for their feedback. Then examine your options.

First, you could just ignore your SR. All they can do is advise you. At the end of the day you do have the ability to write (and submit for publication) whatever you want. If you choose to do this, make sure your SR’s name isn’t associated with the work. The only time you should mention them is when you’re getting called out and you say, “Yes, my SR told me not to but I chose to do it anyway. I’m so sorry.”

Second, you could try to rebuild a story from the remnants of what’s there after you take the problematic thing out. Yes, you can ask your SR’s help with this, because it’s probably infected the rest of the story somehow. This is a great time to get your SR involved at the planning stage. On the other hand, it’s possible that it was just the whole story and your SR is going to tell you that there’s nothing that can be salvaged.

Third, you could sigh, put the story aside, and (gasp) write something else. You’re a writer. You can do it. And you have more knowledge now than you started with. Remember, no matter how great the story is, there’s a chance that you’re not the best person to tell it. And that’s ok. This is your big fish story, the one that got away. There I was, with the greatest idea, you’ll explain. I was going to have my MC land on a planet entirely inhabited by…. And then you explain why that was problematic, and laugh ruefully at yourself. There, see? Now you have small talk for your next gathering. The story about your story is sometimes better than your original story.

In conclusion…

Nobody’s here to cancel you. But everyone wants to read good, challenging stories without stumbling over something that’s just an exhausting replication of whatever they’re dealing with in daily life. If they wanted that, the newspaper is right there. At the end of the day, one or more good SRs will make your story thrilling, challenging, and more immersive for anyone who picks it up, not just a narrow band of people who don’t notice or are prepared to grit their teeth and ignore parts of your work. That means more readers, and readers who are thrilled to wholeheartedly recommend your work to friends. And isn’t that what we all want? Tons of readers?

Start with one reader: the sensitivity reader.

Your turn!

Got questions? Let’s continue this conversation in the Coffeehouse on Facebook or Discord. And keep an eye out for the next face-to-face (face-to-Zoom?) meeting of the Scarlet Quill Society. We’re still pinning down a time in the week of July 11 that works for our last panelist, but we’ll let you know as soon as we do.

Join the Scarlet Quill Society!

Live Scarlet Quill Society meetings take place on the (usually; we’ll warn you!) second Sunday of every month at 2:00 pm U.S. Eastern Time. This is us warning you: NOT THIS MONTH!

The July meeting will take place at 6:00 pm US Pacific time on Monday, July 11. 

Each month, paid Society members will receive an email with a link to the Zoom meeting. If not every topic interests you, you can also purchase one-time access passes to each month’s meeting via Ko-Fi. If you can’t make it to the meeting, or you don’t like to speak on camera, you are welcome to submit questions before the meeting that our editors will answer in the meeting.

• $5 one-time access to this month’s Zoom session
• $5 monthly subscription: Access to all the live meetings and recordings as soon as they’re uploaded, as well as a private Discord channel where your topical questions will be answered by YeahWrite editors!
• $3 monthly subscription: Access to the meeting recordings as soon as they’re uploaded, as well as a private Discord channel where your topical questions will be answered by YeahWrite editors!

A week after the meeting, recordings will become available to all at no cost, but if you find them useful we encourage you to leave a tip in our tip jar—it helps keep the lights on over here and allows us to keep bringing you the high-quality workshop content you’ve come to expect from us, as well as acquire some exciting guest panelists.

Rules of Order. Order of Rules. Something like that.

Wondering what the next meeting of the Scarlet Quill Society will be about? Here's our club agenda for the year.

September:

• Read: Editing nonfiction: how much is enough?
• Watch: September meeting

October:

• Read: Line- and copyediting: getting picky
• Watch: October meeting

November:

• Read: Finishing touches and final checklists: more than just spellcheck!
• Watch: November meeting

December:

• Read: DIWhy? what you can (and can't) do yourself
• Watch: December meeting

About the author:

Rowan submitted exactly one piece of microfiction to YeahWrite before being consumed by the editorial darkside. She spent some time working hard as our Submissions Editor before becoming YeahWrite’s Managing Editor in 2016. She was a BlogHer Voice of the Year in 2017 for her work on intersectional feminism, but she suggests you find and follow WOC instead. In real life she’s been at various times an attorney, aerialist, professional knitter, artist, graphic designer (yes, they’re different things), editor, secretary, tailor, and martial artist. It bothers her vaguely that the preceding list isn’t alphabetized, but the Oxford comma makes up for it. She lives in Portlandia with a menagerie which includes at least one other human. She tells lies at textwall and uncomfortable truths at CrossKnit.

rowan@yeahwrite.me

About the author:

About the author:

Rowan submitted exactly one piece of microfiction to YeahWrite before being consumed by the editorial darkside. She spent some time working hard as our Submissions Editor before becoming YeahWrite’s Managing Editor in 2016. She was a BlogHer Voice of the Year in 2017 for her work on intersectional feminism, but she suggests you find and follow WOC instead. In real life she’s been at various times an attorney, aerialist, professional knitter, artist, graphic designer (yes, they’re different things), editor, secretary, tailor, and martial artist. It bothers her vaguely that the preceding list isn’t alphabetized, but the Oxford comma makes up for it. She lives in Portlandia with a menagerie which includes at least one other human. She tells lies at textwall and uncomfortable truths at CrossKnit.

rowan@yeahwrite.me

About the author: