Whereas in most men's fiction the propulsion of the plots tend to be action and event, and the change between beginning and end is what you might very loosely call political: the situation and allegiaces of the protagonists change, but their actual characters don't much.

This may be true of certain kinds of 'men's fiction' - do you mean by that term all fiction written by men, or a particular genre of fiction written by men? - but I don't accept it as a general proposition.

A very basic theme of male fiction is that of the young man who starts out with a lot of wrongheaded idealism, gets into a mess because of it & eventually learns to reconcile his aims with the demands of life & society. See e.g. representative works by Fielding, Orwell, Maugham, Tolstoy, Dickens etc - practically every significant male author throughout the ages has written this kind of book & they are absolutely about the changes in character & attitude effected as a result of experience.

That said, I do think there are some key differences in general - although there are of course always exceptions - between the approaches taken by male and female authors. However, I'm too tired just now to go into it.

Heavens, no, I meant 'men's fiction' in the same terms as the booktrade uses 'women's fiction', not at all 'fiction by male authors'. I'm a female author but I don't write women's fiction. What's the 'male' equivalent of the range that runs from - I dunno - Joanna Trollope and Kate Long via Penny Vincenzi to Marian Keyes and Sophie Kinsella, say?

Emma

I do think that in children's fiction, there can be a lot of pressure to make your protagonists 'nice' and easily identifiable with. In some books, I think that is important - when the child needs to be able to identify quickly with the hero of a fantasy, for example, so they can go straight out on the adventure. And in romance, perhaps, it's the same thing. Some books do need to offer more opportunity for the reader to identify with the protagonist, than others. (This is not a value judgement). But then many of the children's books I find most interesting have 'difficult' protagonists - The Devil's Toenail by Sally Prue, springs to mind. The interest in the book is in finding out about these people, how they tick, the secrets they hide, what drives them. If a character is all Pollyanna, never jealous, never bitter, never unkind and guilty afterwards, it's very hard for one to feel strongly about them.

I suppose the thing is that in really good books 'easily identifiable with' manages to happen even if 'nice' isn't obvious. Jacqueline Wilson manages it, and what about Mary in The Secret Garden. And in good children's writers the desire not to be blandly 'nice' is always in tension with the covert pressure, as far as I can see, to make sure that 'the good end happily and the bad unhappily,' to quote Miss Prism...

Emma

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I think Katy in What Katy Did is another good Pollyanna-date example of someone who isn't 'good' quite a lot of the time...

having now read the article...

William Gass is practically unreadable, in my experience. He strikes me as the kind of writer who feels demeaned and irritated by having to do anything as crude as write a book.

The feeble reader does exist! Sometimes the reader is just not good enough for the book, and we should remember this when sending out submissions

think that novels tend to fail not when the characters are not vivid or "deep" enough, but when the novel in question has failed to teach us how to adapt to its conventions, has failed to manage a specific hunger for its own characters, its own reality level.

This strikes me as very true. I also do agree that most writers, even and especially excellent writers, do come back and back to the same basic characters. There are many great writers, who I enjoy, but I have the sneaking suspicion that all their books are the same book.

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p.s. I usually don't know what my main characters look like either - what does it matter?? I know roughly what they look like, but how well could you honestly describe your mother's face, or your best friend's? Sometimes when you know someone deep inside, you look 'through' their face, and details like whether they have a mole here or there become far, far less important than the way you can sense what mood they are in, just by standing next to them.

p.p.s. what's the big deal about using photos - nothing wrong with that, IMO.

I had just copied that same quote to post, Leila! And I think it's very true, as well.

Strangely, I'd just been thinking about how one sees one's characters (i.e. story) today, before coming across this thread.

I don't really see any of my characters in any detail. I seem to "see" my stories more in words. In fact, I often don't have a clue about my characters at all until I start writing the story. For example, I'm working on a children's book at the moment and, despite knowing exactly what was going to happen in the story from beginning to end, I didn't know any of the characters at all in any way until I started writing it. Now I've begun, they're springing off the page all over the place, and taking the story in all sorts of directions (although still, inexorably, to the planned conclusion, fortunately!). However, I still couldn't tell you what any of them look like, even though their characters are now so well-defined - to me, at least!

Does anyone else see their stories as words rather than pictures? I tend to think in words, as if I'm writing a story, all the time!

Joanna

Heavens, no, I meant 'men's fiction' in the same terms as the booktrade uses 'women's fiction', not at all 'fiction by male authors'.

OK, understood. I'm clearly not familiar enough with the various labels. In that case, I agree.

I skimmed the article by Mr. Woods.
In particular, I didn't like his dismissal of the 'reader-reviewers' on Amazon.com. Some of those people actually know what they are talking about. They can criticise a book to good effect.

I don't agree with Mr. Woods either, when he compares characters with real people, i.e. us.

Characters in fiction must grow and they must have a moment of realisation that changes their life. This is borne out by the fact that a storyline has a premise (whether intended or not). For the premise to have meaning and for the novel to illustrate a point the author is trying to make, characters have to develop.

Mr. Woods is misled and misleading by assuming characters are like us; like 'real people' I think he means.

In truth, characters are not like us. They don't talk like us and they do things we don't. Were that the case, then being like some 'real people', these characters would be pretty boring. Especially if they were like me.

It's often said that 'People don't change'. On the whole, I believe that to be true. Few of us actually change our views, habits, mannerisms, and personalities merely because we experience some all-revealing 'life-moment'. I won't say it's impossible, but I know it has never happened to me. I still feel the sane way about most things. (Although, over the years, I have grown more tolerant of human sexuality.) Generally though, I still hold the same views and occasionally behave in an ill-considered, thoughtless way. No matter how many times I realise I shouldn't. Why? because I am human.

Characters are only caricatures aren't they? An author uses them to get across an idea, or some passionately held belief. If this isn't true and we have nothing to 'say', then why bother to write fiction at all?

On the other hand, I could be entirely wrong!
Happy Writing
John


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I skimmed the article by Mr. Woods.
In particular, I didn't like his dismissal of the 'reader-reviewers' on Amazon.com. Some of those people actually know what they are talking about. They can criticise a book to good effect.

I don't agree with Mr. Woods either, when he compares characters with real people, i.e. us.

Characters in fiction must grow and they must have a moment of realisation that changes their life. This is borne out by the fact that a storyline has a premise (whether intended or not). For the premise to have meaning and for the novel to illustrate a point the author is trying to make, characters have to develop.

Mr. Woods is misled and misleading by assuming characters are like us; like 'real people' I think he means.

In truth, characters are not like us. They don't talk like us and they do things we don't. Were that not the case, then being like some 'real people', these characters would be pretty boring. Especially if they were like me.

It's often said that 'People don't change'. On the whole, I believe that to be true. Few of us actually change our views, habits, mannerisms, and personalities merely because we experience some all-revealing 'life-moment'. I won't say it's impossible, but I know it has never happened to me. I still feel the sane way about most things. (Although, over the years, I have grown more tolerant of human sexuality.) Generally though, I still hold the same views and occasionally behave in an ill-considered, thoughtless way. No matter how many times I realise I shouldn't. Why? because I am human.

Characters are only caricatures aren't they? An author uses them to get across an idea, or some passionately held belief. If this isn't true and we have nothing to 'say', then why bother to write fiction at all?

On the other hand, I could be entirely wrong!
Happy Writing
John

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I don't know how this edit works!
I wanted to change 'were that the case' to 'were that NOT the case! Sorry if I wasted space.
John

You can't edit or delete anything on WW, (except your own uploaded work), but you can add corrections underneath your original post.

If you you've posted something personal/embarrassing which you'd like removed, then you can send a WWmail to David Bruce requesting it's deletion.


- NaomiM