Authenticity reads: what they are for and what they are not

An authenticity read, sometimes called a sensitivity read, is a specialist review of how a manuscript portrays a particular experience, identity, culture, condition or community. The reader has relevant lived experience or deep expertise and reports where the portrayal seems inaccurate, flattened or unintentionally harmful.

The practice attracts strong opinions. Much of the argument comes from confusion about what the read is meant to do. It helps to be precise.

What an authenticity read is for

At its most useful, an authenticity read is a form of fact-checking for things that are hard to research from outside. Books and articles can tell you the rules of a religious observance. They are less good at telling you how a family actually behaves around it, what is said and what is left unsaid, which details would make an insider wince.

Say a novel has a secondary character who uses a wheelchair. The author has researched the medical condition carefully. A reader who uses a wheelchair may notice that the character is never shown dealing with an inaccessible building, or that other characters constantly remark on the chair in a way that rarely happens in life. None of this is a moral failing. It is simply a gap in knowledge, and gaps in knowledge weaken fiction.

A good read also flags patterns the author may not see: a group whose members only appear as victims, or whose only role is to help the protagonist grow. Readers who share that identity often recognise such patterns quickly because they have met them before, in many books.

What it is not for

An authenticity read is not permission. No single reader speaks for a whole group, and their report is not a certificate that a book is acceptable. It is one informed opinion from one person.

Nor is it a veto. The author and editor remain responsible for the book. A reader's notes should be weighed like any editorial feedback: some will be clearly right, some will be matters of judgement, and some the author may reasonably decline, provided they understand what they are declining.

It is also not a substitute for the author's own work. A read is most useful near the end of the process, on a manuscript the author has already researched thoroughly. Sent too early, it becomes an expensive way to find problems a library could have found.

Getting a useful read

Be specific about what you want checked. Tell the reader which characters or settings concern you, what you already know, and what you have deliberately changed. A brief like this produces focused notes rather than a general impression.

Choose the reader for relevant experience, not for a broad label. A community is rarely uniform. A reader from one region, generation or denomination may not know another's customs, and a good reader will say where their knowledge stops.

Ask for explanations as well as flags. A note that says a scene is wrong is less useful than one that says why, and what might be true instead. You can only make a good decision about a note you understand.

Weighing the notes

When the report arrives, read it the way you would read any editorial letter: once for its overall view, then again for the detail. Separate factual corrections from interpretive ones. Talk it through with your editor.

The aim throughout is a better book, one in which readers who know the territory can trust the writer. That is a craft goal, not a compliance exercise.