Literary success

Overnight we had snow for New Year's

Eve. I'm feeding the hungry birds, who desperately need sustenance to see them through the long cold nights, and hope the snow doesn't last long. There's ice under the new layer, which makes walking pretty treacherous.

Thinking back to yesterday's post about rave reviews favouring male writers, I suppose it is silly to deny an interest difference between men and women's reading habits. Would we not look askance at men who read nothing but chick lit? Or women who read only war stories and long, gory battle scenes ? Answer truthfully now, leaving all prejudice aside!

Authors are told to know their target audience. Therefore, it seems natural that women tend to write for women, and men for men, but somewhere among the multitude of books published every year there are novels aimed at a sort of androgynous middle ground - and they often do very well.

I'd put Wolf Hall in that band, and many of the books about which reviewers write glowing reviews. The Book Thief, and Robert Goddard's novels. (Once I've got my hands on Wolf Hall, I may have to revise that opinion, but from what I've heard so far....) It occurs to me that Pride and Prejudice sits there, too, for it is almost as much Darcy and Bingley's story as that of the Bennet sisters. Would anyone agree on that?

So perhaps the trick is not to write purely from the perspective of either gender, but to be fair and even-handed with the characters and their different gender viewpoints. In doing so, the book might then appeal to both sexes.

Happily it occurs to me that I am attempting exactly this in my latest wip, so I'll let you know what happens!

Writing and Gender

The Turks Head in Barnard Castle - a typical market town pub. People in the States/Europe will no doubt think it very odd looking!

Today I've read a post in the Washington Post (sent as a link by a writer friend) in which the words of wisdom are these: if you write, then write under your initials and write about men, as that gains much more kudos than writing about women and their interests. click

There is an article in the British press on a similar vein here, though it does not go so far as to advise pretending to be male. It does bemoan the fact that insightful books on women's interests are deemed trivial - the very name "chick lit" being a giveaway, whereas men, if they write about similar interests from a male point of view, are reviewed, discussed and toasted as literary successes.

So for 2010, perhaps we ladies should try hiding our identities behind our initials, and see if it makes a difference!