Male
vs. Female
Mind
you I’m not a book scholar or publisher, so this post is conjecture and
personal preference. Men tend to gravitate toward certain genres such as
thrillers, so I’ve read, and may not read novels written by women or so they
think. A lot of popular female authors of thrillers, mysteries, and horror
write under male pen names to escape reader prejudice.
J.
K. Rowling writes a private investigator series as Robert Galbraith. It’s not a
spoiler alert. They’ve slapped a big sticker on the front cover to advertise
the fact. Brings up an interesting question—a national bestseller (England) but
not yet a New York Times bestseller. Would knowing Harry Potter’s creator wrote
the book drum up more sales here but not in England? Or maybe the new book has
become popular enough that no one cares who wrote it.
Anyway,
not usually a fan of these genres, I’m one who picked up The Cuckoo’s Calling because of J. K. Rowling’s name. Didn’t love
the book but I did believe the main character as a man. I had a hard time
caring about Harlan Coben’s main character, Kat, in Missing You. Something about her didn’t ring true to me as a
female.
Gender
Bias
I
don’t think prejudice that a man wrote it played a part. It didn’t in the TV
series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Joss
Whedon and company wrote wonderful scripts, though to be fair, having a living
female play the part gave him a leg up so to speak. Robin Cook in Death Benefit wrote the female main
character as emotionally stunted and believable.
Didn’t
believe Donna Tartt’s main character in The
Gold Finch was male or a teenager. True, the story was told from the
perspective of the character in his late twenties. Still, he remained a
teenager for more than half of over 700 words, hardly a flashback.
Memorable
Characters
Many
characters who will never leave the readers’ consciousness were created by the
opposite gender—Rhett Butler, Atticus Finch, Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter—I’m sure fans could come up with
hundreds of examples.
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