John David's Blog: Life--Observed and Reported - Posts Tagged "gender-differences"

Writing Between the Sexes by Leigh Michaels

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


First of all, the mandatory disclosure:

I am the narrator of the audiobook version of this work. I took on the project because, as a writer, it was intriguing, and as a reader, I knew instinctively that much of what Leigh Michaels had to say was spot-on.

Back in ye olde college days, I did a small research project on gender differences, and it has always been a subject of interest to me.

Plus I just plain love women, and have been on a never-ending quest to understand and communicate with them. Hopeless, I know, but still . . . one must try.

With all that said, Writing Between the Sexes is a short, very easy to read, understand, and use resource for anyone and everyone who reads or writes for a living, either directly or indirectly.

Much of the material and the examples given (by necessity) involve very wide generalizations, but this is to be expected when tackling a topic as broad as gender differences in language.

Of her many real-world examples, two stood out for me recently. The first involved a crime drama show that I was watching the other day, where the malefactor was publicly detailing his contrition for his wrongdoing.

Like a politician, he went on and on, blah blah, "If anyone was hurt, certainly that was no one's intention, blah blah." Then he finished his statement by saying, "I apologize." At that moment, I was applauding the writing, because as Leigh demonstrates in her book, men are much more likely to use the phrase "I apologize" than they are to say "I'm sorry," and the character's use of the gender "correct" phrase made the whole scene ring true. As a viewer, my emotions were played just so, (and just as the writer intended) as I was left thinking "That scumbag wasn't 'sorry' for anything, except perhaps getting caught."

Another example I found in reading an excerpt that was recommended to me by an author, it was a space-opera featuring a female protagonist/heroine. As I read the excerpt, supposedly in the first-person voice of our heroine, of course she was in the shower, and as she left and toweled off, she just had to mentally summarize her stunning good lucks and taut body for us, the reader.

How many guesses do you need to determine the gender of the author? Keep in mind, this was before I had read Writing Between the Sexes, but I was immediately "turned-off" by this obviously gender-irrelevant prose, and I could not bring myself to read further.

Of course some female writers are guilty of the same offenses when describing actions by their male characters. They use dialogue and situations that are simply "incredible" and unrealistic to most male readers.

After reading this book, I revisited my own WIP, (my first attempt at fiction, BTW) and wrote a scene where my female character looked at herself in the mirror:

As Stephanie drove home, she thought about what Rob had said. She checked her face in the mirror, and wondered how she could look five years older now than she did only a few hours ago. Between the stress lines, worry lines, crow’s feet, and just plain wrinkles, there was hardly any face left.

My God, I’m a hundred years old. I don’t know what Rob sees in me. We couldn’t be more different. He sees life in ways I can’t imagine, and he’s clueless about what’s really real. When I try to help him understand his feelings, to get him to talk about them, I only end up hurting him more. Doesn’t he know that keeping things buried inside will only make them worse?

Men.

What do you think? Does it "sound" like something a young woman would say and think?

If so, then I have Leigh Michaels to thank, because the first paragraph of my example is a lesson I learned from her book, that is, MOST women DON'T look in the mirror and think "Damn, I'm fine!"

In summary, I enjoyed narrating the book, and although I had hoped that I would learn something from it, I was pleasantly surprised by how much knowledge I did gain, especially with regard to writing gender-realistic dialogue.

I highly recommend Writing Between the Sexes, because it is an interesting, engaging, and just plain fun resource for everyone who writes for a living, or who wants to "get inside the heads" of the other side.

http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B00AFJ...




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