Could you tell the difference if no name was mentioned. In other words can we tell the difference between a woman's writer from a man's? I personally would like to think I can. You?
Sometimes you can tell even when a misleading pseudonym is given. Sometimes you couldn't if you tried. It really depends on the writer. To be honest, though, I haven't really personally cared about an author's gender since I was in grade school, and after that only when it was a part of course work.
I think the variations between individual authors overwhelms whatever difference might be rooted in gender. I've never put a lot of thought into it, because frankly, finding a well-written book is such a rare treat these days, I don't really care who or what the author is.
I think so. Especially in fantasy and science fiction. The whole approach to the story seems . . . different somehow. Even the themes seem a tad different. You don't see many women doing military Science fiction, for example. I bet just about every guy into sci-fi has tried it at least once, or day-dreamed about it. This is not to say that a woman couldn't purposely hide her gender via writing for a single book if she tried, but I can't imagine her doing that for her entire career. I would think that would be a pretty unsatisfying job for her in the end. Nor do I think I'd find her larger body of work particularly interesting. I like the idea that women bring something to the table that I could not.
Nope. Not my thing. Not for reading, and definitely not for writing. If there are battles they're off screen unless I have a character in the fight, and then it's almost always strictly POV. No alien bug smashing, laser rifle weilding, Jarhead 6: In Space! for me.
Sometimes yes for both women and men; sometimes no for both women and men. I can typically (not always) tell when M/M erotica is not written by a man. The male protagonists are often either a) idealized into a more female-centric "men as we wish they were" mode of engaging one another, or conversely, b) they are lampooned/fetishized into a parody of all the things that culture currently takes issue with men as a whole gender. The M/M erotica protagonists who faff around coyly for 150K words before ever shutting the bedroom door are not gay men I have ever met, ever, not once in my nearly 50 years. These stories are referred to as "slow burn", but I call them "NO burn" because life is too fucking short for that. Likewise, the hugely muscled "Super Soldiers" and "Conan the Barbarian" types that litter M/M spec-fic erotica are equally fantastical. Beating the fuck out of one another before the boning commences is not "hot", it's a crime. Literally. A little research evinces that such M/M erotica stories are not often written by actual gay men.
Interesting perspectives: https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/articles/12-female-writers-who-wrote-under-male-pseudonyms/ https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/31/male-writers-hide-gender-sell-more-books https://www.theguardian.com/books/shortcuts/2017/jul/18/riley-sager-and-other-male-authors-benefiting-from-a-gender-neutral-pen-name Some surprising names on these lists, including Dean Koontz! Who occasionally writes as Deanna Dwyer. It must be said that the women from the previous couple of centuries often chose male names so they would be taken seriously as writers. However, nowadays that's not quite such a necessity. Gender swapping today is usually done either to hide the real identity of a famous writer who wants to try something new, or it's done to appeal to a certain kind of reader. Do the readers figure this out or not? Can they 'tell?' Haven't a clue.
This will reflect my age, but: Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey - the first book is the best of the series IMO. Norstrillia by Cordwainer Smith
Interesting that the thread is not titled, "Female vs Male Writing" or " Women's vs Men's Writing." Although there are gender stereotypes that include gender-related writing styles, I'm not sold on the idea that men and women write differently. Of course, every individual writer will have characteristics of his or her style, but unless the writer is pandering to a gender stereotype for the intended readership. I don't believe in gender-locked styles.
I definitely can. It has to do with sensitivity that some men just can't put into their characters. How like they say there is this pitch that only teenagers can hear but adults can't. I've been reading books or watching tv and the female's role is not quite right and then I look at the credits and say, "oh, a man wrote it". Remember the tv show Seventh Heaven? I knew that was created by and mainly written by females. A man would have messed that up.
I've heard people claim that they can tell female-written erotica from male-written erotica; it has to do with an emphasis on relationships over orgasms. But that's probably a stereotype, and anyway, I don't have the acquaintance with that genre to verify that. In mainstream literature, I've seen men write stuff that's just as insightful about relationships as anything a woman has written. OTOH, I doubt that there are many women writing soldier-of-fortune or Jack Reacher type fiction. That seems to be a male thing.
It is important to retain a vigorous market in the military non-fiction, and politics & political biography for example, bedside. And women too have their own 'books' for crying over with their feelings and kissing/ and reading about babies. Same as for the teenagers as @poster said.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-03-clues-brain-differences-males-females.html Scientists have accepted for years that males and females have innate biology-based differences in typical social interaction. They recently discovered one reason why: A key contributor to the differences in play behavior between males and females is a sex-based difference in the number of newborn cells in the part of the brain called the amygdala, which controls emotions and social behaviors. The research showed that males have fewer of these newborn cells, because they are actively eliminated by immune cells. -- https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-03-clues-brain-differences-males-females.html Sex-based differences in cognition and behavior have been linked to the amygdala: One study found evidence that on average, women tend to retain stronger memories for emotional events than men. -- Wikipedia, "Amygdala" That said, a tendency for differences in behavior between the sexes doesn't dictate the character of any particular person; we are more than our genes, and the range of deviation in behavior within each sex generally exceeds the differences between the sexes.
Wouldn't be the first time research was put forth to reinforce biases. A World War II study concluded that Japanese could not be effective pilots because the epicantic fold limited their vision. That was before Pearl Harbor, of course. And that's just one example out of very many. So take any research supporting stereotypes and biases with a very large grain of salt.
Meh, I don't really care about the author, other than to remember their name if I like or don't like the story. If the author trys to promote a personal agenda, I've already tossed the book. The only exception is erotic stories. I want to be there. I want to feel the urge take over during the kissing and undressing and caressing I want to see and touch nipples and clitorisses, and see and feel all the slippery fleshy bits. I want to feel tension building. I want to hear the squishy sounds of sex, the female orgasm, and bask in the glorious aftermath. No quick grope and bang. I want total satisfaction. If a man can't bring a woman's passion into my experience, or a woman can't acknowledge the pure urge that drives my desire, the book is already in the recycle bin. All of it better be a good story, or I'll not bother getting to the juicy bits - it goes on to become paper towels in a gas station.
Never, ever read Paprika by Yasutaka Tsutsui. Among its many sins is the scene when the heroine is literally beaten bloody by her stalker, only to coyly tell him*: After she's raped, she takes a nice bath and thinks about how much she'd like to have sex with someone else. Vile, foul, childish, misogynistic piece of shit book that represents perfectly everything that's wrong with otaku** culture. *I think I burned my copy of the book, I found the quote in a review on Strange Horizons. It is how I remember it. **Pretty much the incels of Japan, only with less social skills.
What the entire fuck? Does that story have any relationship to the anime of the same title? I don't remember anything like that in the film.
Oh, never mind. Wikipedia says yes. Paprika (Japanese: パプリカ Hepburn: Papurika) is a 2006 Japanese science-fiction psychological thriller anime film co-written and directed by Satoshi Kon, based on Yasutaka Tsutsui's 1993 novel of the same name, about a research psychologist who uses a device that permits therapists to help patients by entering their dreams. It is Kon's fourth and final feature film before his death in 2010. The film stars the voices of Megumi Hayashibara, Tōru Emori, Katsunosuke Hori, Tōru Furuya, Akio Ōtsuka, Kōichi Yamadera, and Hideyuki Tanaka.
In my book, I switch between different characters' POVs and I've been finding it difficult to write from a male's POV. So yea, I'd say you can usually tell, especially in fiction/fantasy. Like, as a girl reading books by male authors, I've often found myself thinking, "A girl would never say/do that..." So I'm hoping to learn how to write my male characters in a believable way.
