Here is a very interesting post by CS Friedman, over at Fantasy Book Cafe.
I do wonder sometimes whether anything would be different if I’d gone with initials instead of my name. CS Friedman’s experience is very interesting, and I like what she says about how to write believable male characters:
Overall, the split was about 50/50, with slightly more readers guessing I was female, and slightly more marketing people guessing I was male. Since I am indeed a woman, I was most interested in the male side of that statistic. What was there about my writing that revealed my true masculine nature?
I asked.
I expected to hear traditional reasons — such as my use of bloody combat scenes and themes of power and conquest–but the answer I got was quite different…and very interesting.
Many readers thought I was male because I understood how men thought.
As a kid, I think I defaulted to thinking that initials meant male. I can’t remember whether I knew that Friedman was a woman when I first read a book by her. But I’m pretty sure I never thought a woman couldn’t write a male character — or a man couldn’t write a female character. Anyway, interesting post!
Please Feel Free to Share:
I started assuming that initials implies female for SF writers pretty early on: I think it was extrapolation from C.L. Moore (golden age) and C.J. Cherryh (more recent).
I don’t think I ever believed women couldn’t write men, or men couldn’t write women, though I would listen politely to an argument that certain types of characterization errors are more likely to show up in such cases.