Friday, May 16, 2008

Playing with the Boys

Over at Poe's Deadly Daughters yesterday, there was a post on 'boy books' vs 'girl books'. Which got me thinking about what I write.

According to the post, boy books would have the loner PI and girl books would focus more on connections and relationships. I don't disagree with this-- men usually want to work out problems and women usually want to make connections. If we go with generalizations, of course.

I don't think labeling what guys and girls prefer to be sexist, per se, but don't tell me what, as a girl, I want. I'm not the typical girl-- maybe because I grew up with all brothers or something else. I can change a tire, change my oil, build a computer, troubleshoot a network, and write a fictional dame that quite a few men-folk seem to enjoy. And for the love of all things Star Wars, I don't want to talk about my feelings or about 'men.'

Would Bo's Novel, "Sex and Violence" be a boy book or a girl book? It's got the loner PI, though she does make a new friend in her new town. It's got sex and violence and crude language. It's got Bo being both bully and seductress. Being the non-typical girl, I don't know if I can make a good classification. My inclination is towards it being a more of a boy book than a girl one.

But I always have tended to play with the boys than the girls.

I don't have anything against girls. Well, except the whole man-bashing thing-- if I wanted to bash a man, I'd use a tire iron.

As for changing my name, or using initials, to get more guy readers-- with a title like "Sex and Violence" and, hopefully, a sexy woman on the cover, I don't know if my name would even be an issue.

Besides, Clair (without an e) is the masculine spelling any how.

  • Novel progress: 68k words
  • Current Song: Everything Zen by Bush

4 comments:

pattinase (abbott) said...

Me either. I usually write from a male POV, which men hated when I was taking writing workshops. I tried to change but usually that's the voice in my head if not the organ between my legs.

Josephine Damian said...

Jut saw your other blog. Four jobs? That sucks.

But hey, at 68K words your WIP is about 67,500 words ahead of mine.

When do you finish grad school? Master's or PhD?

Clair D. said...

Josephine-- I'm actually cheating a little and getting a graduate certificate (in educational media and technology) rather than the full masters. Right now, I'm only going because I have to in order to keep my teaching certificate. The certificate is about 9 credits less than the Master's.

pattinase (abbott) said...

You've been tagged for another meme. Sorry.
see http://pattinase@blogspot.com/