My rant earlier this week brought about this thoughtful post by Chris LaTray. Http://chrislatray.com/2011/11/04/reading-women/
And this post by Robin Agnew really made me stop and think about some of the stories I've written over the years. She also made me wonder if it's really that easy to recognize the sex of the writer. http://heydeadguy.typepad.com/heydeadguy/2011/11/do-men-and-women-write-differently.html
4 comments:
I think it is only easy to recognize the sex with certain kinds of mysteries. Not the kind of stories we write so much. But certainly the books she mentioned.
I had to laugh when she was talking about women thinking ahead, about buying groceries and stuff. I always feel the need to prepare my characters for what's coming next. I also discovered that I tend to cook a lot in my stories, which most male writers tend to skip over. Maybe I'll have to start skipping breakfast in my stories :)
By contrast, something I notice in fiction about male characters is their frequent lack of concern about income, career, making the mortgage payments, supporting a family, etc. The presence of all these factors made C. J. Box's OPEN SEASON an unusual read.
Maybe that's their fantasy life, Ron :) I think in fiction we try to skip over the dull boring "real" life, but sometimes you just need to put that dash of reality in to make the story believable.
Rick Mofina's "Vengeance Road" worked in a lot of real life, he was dealing with a story that could make or break his career and he ended up wondering if that was really what he wanted. He was also fired from his job and worried about making ends meet, wondering if he could make back enough money from the story to pay the rent. Not something you see a lot of in a thriller. It made the character feel real to me.
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