What is Accuracy Reading?
If you need someone to make sure the experiences you’re writing are authentic and readable by a wide audience, that’s what I do.
I look for things such as:
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Outdated terminology
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Potentially harmful stereotypes
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Inaccurate portrayal of symptoms
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Inaccurate portrayal of life with a disability
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Assistance with wording difficult subjects
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Themes that may be perceived as problematic
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Tokenistic representation
This includes comments on individual words, phrases, whole scenes, or overarching themes of your manuscript. Some notes may be specific to single word choices, or broader looks at the way you approach a topic.
This service is best engaged during the Beta stages of book editing.
Above: Advanced Reviewer Copy (ARC) of Who Could Love You, Astor Price? by Amy Jane Lehan, which I did an Accuracy Read of early 2023
Is your manuscript ready for an accuracy reader?
I take manuscripts which have been through several rounds of self-edits and are well and truly in the Beta stages, either before or after developmental edits (although after might save you time and money).
What does this mean in practice? Well, the first stages are known as Alpha edits, where you have yet to share your work with anyone, or only a few close and trusted people have laid eyes over it for basic advice. It may include notes interspersed throughout for yourself or research notes to flesh out later on. After the manuscript is completely written and no notes-to-self remain, you can continue to do a few rounds of edits yourself to make sure you're comfortable sharing it.
Once you believe the manuscript is polished enough to be showing clear character personalities, motivations, movements, etc., that’s when it moves into Beta stages and is ready to be sent out to outside eyes with a little more experience. This is the stage where I come in.
In short, this saves us both time due to the fact that wording and plot points are ever-shifting during the Alpha stages, and more stagnant towards the end where most changes become grammatical, punctuational, and structural, ready to be formatted. If the manuscript I review is seen too early, all my work is likely to be erased in the natural progression of edits.
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If you think your manuscript is ready, check out the Important Information page for my process and price guide to understand how I can work with you to help make sure your novel is one you can be proud to send out into the world!
Ever wondered how other authors write authentically outside of their scope of expertise or experience? The answer is much research, followed by what’s called an Accuracy Reader (or Sensitivity Reader, although we’re trying to move away from that terminology due to inaccurate “snowflake” type mentalities).
This type of editing ensures the terminology within your novel’s manuscript is accurate, and character experiences are portrayed without prejudice or unconscious, internal biases which may pit readers against you and your work as an author.