A Man Writes, A Woman Writes

As I often do, I’m reading more than one book at the same time. Typically, I’ll read one book of fiction, one history, one subject of inquiry (an anthology of British literature, or an investigation of the cosmos, for example), and maybe a book on gardening or Shakespeare’s London

I’m reading two works of fiction right now, one written about 10 years ago by a male author, and one written within the last two by a female. Lately, per requests, I’ve read quite a few contemporary works of fiction by women.

I’ll start by acknowledging the obvious as regards these two books: the male writer’s subject is speculative fiction/horror, and the female’s is a blend of historical and contemporary romance. So, there are obvious differences in subject matter right from the start.

But since I’m reading roughly 2 chapters per book per day of each of these books, and usually back-to-back, I began to focus on some of the differences in style, word choice, POV, and plot movement – and couldn’t help wondering about the somewhat obvious differences.

That got me thinking about male vs. female fiction writers, what they write about, long-lasting characters created by each, and even stylistic trends.

First, it’s important to note that both men and women have been writing works of fiction for a long, long time. While novels really came into their own in the 19th and 20th centuries, you can travel back to ancient Greece for mythic tales from Homer and Aesop, and look to the early 1700’s at Miguel de Cervantes and “Don Quixote” for an early typical novel structure. While many credit Cervantes with being the first “modern” novelist, I’ve also heard Dumas, Flaubert, and Richardson with “Pamela.”

And it is also true that while women found it difficult to get published as women in the early days of The Novel (and the Bronte sisters, Anne, Charlotte and Emily famously published as Acton, Currer, and Ellis Bell) women have been writing, and being widely read, since at least the Renaissance. Laura Cereta (1469-1499) and Cassandra Fedele (1465-1558) are just two names that have lived on.

Modern “fiction” however, is largely the result of the advance in printing and wider availability of books, and the wider literacy rates, allowing the average person to consume books as entertainment as well as information. Thus, by the 1800s the idea of reading just “for fun” became popular – especially among young women who consumed romances and Gothic novels as avidly as today’s reader will enjoy historical or speculative fiction.

For a time, especially when magazines were popular, the short story also enjoyed its day in the sun – though the “short story” goes all the way back to pre-literate days when bards would recite epic poems, fairy tales, and quasi-historic tales of adventure like the Vedas or the Norse sagas. Early modern literature was full of short story or “novella” writers, like Poe, Hawthorne, Melville and Washington Irving, and by the 20th century, having a short story as part of weekly and monthly magazines was expected – and of course, there were the “pulps,” or story anthologies, often richly illustrated, and full of tales often of a dedicated genre, like cowboy stories, mysteries, or Sci-fi.

While I can’t say enough about 18th and 19th century male writers – the Poes, Dickens, Twains, Faulkners and Fitzgeralds of the literary fiction canon (and for simplicity’s sake I’m ignoring the wider WORLD of stories, because there were brilliant works from early history on forward from all over the globe), I was equally delighted to discover the Brontes, Jane Austen, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Mary Shelley as novelists of the 18th century, continuing on to Agatha Christie, Ayn Rand, and Harper Lee.

My inquiry into male vs. female in the world of modern literature certainly didn’t come about as a result of having read ONLY men, or ONLY women. It wasn’t because there weren’t plenty of both in both fiction and non-fiction – and plenty of excellent and acclaimed writers, both male and female, to read. My curiosity was provoked mainly by reading, side by side and simultaneously, modern “pulp” (which is to say not necessarily prize-winning) fiction by a male writer, and a female writer. And this on the heels of having done so for the past few months.

Fiction, we’re told by our literature classes, is comprised of four main characteristics: character, plot, setting, and theme. Who’s in it, what happens to them, where does it take place, and what are the underlying themes (is it a love story, is there a Big Point, is it a war story, etc.). And to that I would add “voice.” Who’s talking, and importantly, HOW are they talking.

And here’s where I found the biggest difference, and why I say – guardedly – that I find most of the ordinary fiction I read that is written by men to be less (and here I am searching for the right word) intrusive? Breathy? Wordy?

There is a trend in newer fiction for the multi-POV book. While the “I” voice is common, it’s become quite popular to devote a chapter to one character (who might live centuries divided from the next), and one character speaking first person, followed by another character who is observed third person by a semi-omniscient narrator, and possibly even a third voice which is just a news story or report that somehow plays into the narrative. And as it happens, both the female writer and male writer in my current set of books are following this pattern and spinning their yards through multiple voices and setting these characters in differing times and/or places.

Subject matter, oddly, isn’t what draws the biggest comparison between my male writers and female writers. Horror, sci-fi, literary fiction, historic, romance or adventure might easily come from either the men or the women. There is a marked tendency for women to write by or for women, and vice versa, though it’s not universal, especially when writing in the third person (“he” did this and that, rather than “I” did).

No, the two biggest differences, and they really stood out, were how many words it took to get to the point, and how “feelings” vs. “action” were emphasized.

In one book, the character “glances her eyes upward to the sky,” and “folding my arms, I glanced down and studied the river.” My internal editor drew a red mark through “her eyes” and “upward,” then wondered why a glance needed folded arms and a “study,” and immediately wanted my 5 seconds back for having to read those un-necessary words, and was even more pestered that neither glances resulted in anything that moved the plot. Six chapters in, and two things have happened: a woman has left her husband and a man has been poisoned (in different times historically, so they aren’t directly connected – yet). There is a great deal of suffering, and much interior mental musing. There is very little conversation or action, a lot of clutching of cool sheets and warm mugs of tea.

In the other, a character jumps from a cliff, abandons his team, breaks a bone, and hides in a disgusting hut in a single paragraph, and of the four characters involved in various ways in this sci-fi world deep under the Earth’s crust, each one tells us repeatedly that all the many things they are doing and places they are venturing are dedicated to rescuing The Children. So we understand that their fell purpose, and violent deed, are noble. But trying to keep track of who is where and get a fix on quickly shifting purpose and means involves a bit of work, as things move rapidly forward. We are occasionally treated to a character’s interior musing, but usually it’s conveyed by the hard set of the mouth or intent stare, or a sudden movement. The plot tends to be relentlessly rapid.

Some of this is simply the result of the speed with which novels now go from pen (or computer) to print, often with little editorial input, and often attempting to conform to reader preferences and expectations. After Diana Gabaldon premiered her “Outlander” series, it wasn’t six months before another time traveling heroine encountered a lusty historic Scot who chased her through time and peril. Spot a trend, and writers will be happy to oblige with more of what we seem to want. The “Harry Potter” series kicked off many a “magical children” set of adventures, and going back some, Jean Auel’s “Clan of the Cave Bear” books even made pre-history habitable by a wide array of characters.

But as to my observation of the male versus the female writers, at least in my own recent adventures in books, where the women will tell us the color and fabric of the clothing the heroine wears, whether her eyes feel gritty or full of tears and where they are focused, in the same situation, the men will have ripped the non-descript clothing jumping into a river to save the boat that has slipped its mooring and he’ll be blinded by the blood dripping down his face as he has wrestled his way onto the boat and is now confronted with how to control it. All in the same number of words.

Nancy Roberts