Quick! Write that boy a book!
Thursday, 13 December 2007 09:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spqrblues(A rant, not related to Rome at all. You can skip it.)
It's taken a long time, but I'm finally hearing, from more and more quarters, exasperation at the sheer bewildering wrongness of the near-constant insistence in the publishing industry that "we need more boy books"—a mantra I've been hearing since Day One of entering the publishing field. (Never mind for now what a "boy book" actually is—you can refer to the section in the Chicago Manual style guide on removing girl cooties.) A few days ago, YA author Tamora Pierce questioned this Truth in her journal, in which, along with much other spirited commentary on a variety of sub- and related topics, she states:
In the last couple of years, there has been a lot of stuff about how we don't have enough books out there for boys.
The last couple of years? Try the last couple of decades.
I have no idea when this idea originated—but I'm thinking it began whenever someone saw that there were a noticeable number of books that girls really like, with strong female heroines who are interested in something other than cute boys and taffeta (not that there's anything wrong with either, in moderate amounts). That you could look at a bookstore children's section and see more than Tom Swift, Boy Scout manuals, and the tamer novels of Robert Heinlein. Still it goes on, the pressure to make books "boy friendly," because (I am often told) we must give boys more, or they won't read at all. There just isn't enough reading material in the world directed at males. Keep this just between you and me, but I hear there are entire genres of novels written with the expectation that no men will read them at all (Romance genre, I'm looking at you).
In all seriousness, I've heard there's a phenomenon in which a man can be sitting in a lecture hall full of men, then if a handful of women enter and take seats, there's a perception that the room has been, well, taken over by women, a perception that there are many more women in the room, by percentage, than there actually are. I explain it poorly. But I did hear this, probably in lj or on DailyKos, so you know it's real.
I'm tired of being expected to make books I work on more "appealing to boys" (read: more violent! more muscle-y! more Xtreme! no kitties with pink bows! toss in a four-page fight scene!) because what's of prime importance is capturing the wild male reader, and girls, well, they'll accept anything you have on offer. One hears this at conferences (which I attended far too many of the past few weeks). One hears this at acquisitions meetings. I think the company I work for is bending away from this a little bit, but not in a way I would prefer. Can't have everything. Also, can't be more specific in a public forum. Alas.
I'd quote what YA editor Sharyn November has to say about the perpetual "we need more books for boys" wail, but this is a family journal. I only allow naked body parts, not cussing. Oh, wait, I allow cussing, too. Okay, never mind.
It's taken a long time, but I'm finally hearing, from more and more quarters, exasperation at the sheer bewildering wrongness of the near-constant insistence in the publishing industry that "we need more boy books"—a mantra I've been hearing since Day One of entering the publishing field. (Never mind for now what a "boy book" actually is—you can refer to the section in the Chicago Manual style guide on removing girl cooties.) A few days ago, YA author Tamora Pierce questioned this Truth in her journal, in which, along with much other spirited commentary on a variety of sub- and related topics, she states:
In the last couple of years, there has been a lot of stuff about how we don't have enough books out there for boys.
The last couple of years? Try the last couple of decades.
I have no idea when this idea originated—but I'm thinking it began whenever someone saw that there were a noticeable number of books that girls really like, with strong female heroines who are interested in something other than cute boys and taffeta (not that there's anything wrong with either, in moderate amounts). That you could look at a bookstore children's section and see more than Tom Swift, Boy Scout manuals, and the tamer novels of Robert Heinlein. Still it goes on, the pressure to make books "boy friendly," because (I am often told) we must give boys more, or they won't read at all. There just isn't enough reading material in the world directed at males. Keep this just between you and me, but I hear there are entire genres of novels written with the expectation that no men will read them at all (Romance genre, I'm looking at you).
In all seriousness, I've heard there's a phenomenon in which a man can be sitting in a lecture hall full of men, then if a handful of women enter and take seats, there's a perception that the room has been, well, taken over by women, a perception that there are many more women in the room, by percentage, than there actually are. I explain it poorly. But I did hear this, probably in lj or on DailyKos, so you know it's real.
I'm tired of being expected to make books I work on more "appealing to boys" (read: more violent! more muscle-y! more Xtreme! no kitties with pink bows! toss in a four-page fight scene!) because what's of prime importance is capturing the wild male reader, and girls, well, they'll accept anything you have on offer. One hears this at conferences (which I attended far too many of the past few weeks). One hears this at acquisitions meetings. I think the company I work for is bending away from this a little bit, but not in a way I would prefer. Can't have everything. Also, can't be more specific in a public forum. Alas.
I'd quote what YA editor Sharyn November has to say about the perpetual "we need more books for boys" wail, but this is a family journal. I only allow naked body parts, not cussing. Oh, wait, I allow cussing, too. Okay, never mind.
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no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 01:09 pm (UTC)Maybe we just need to all write LIKE men to get boys to read our work?
Here's a fun thing I found.
http://bookblog.net/gender/genie.php
It'll analyse the writing and come up if it was written by a male or female.
I've been putting snippets in. B2Creative keeps coming up male. Perhaps she's the one that needs to be writing boy books.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 01:27 pm (UTC)I'm thumbing through my Chicago Manual trying to find that section on removing cooties. I can't find it! This is why I've never submitted anything for publishing - my writing is positively infested with girl cooties!
You must have put in a section that featured Tamarin. Maybe even the part where he did, y'know, THAT. 'Cause that part is actually devoid of girl cooties, I believe. Maybe. Hmm.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 01:44 pm (UTC)Words: 73
(NOTE: The genie works best on texts of more than 500 words.)
Female Score: 101
Male Score: 45
However your entry here: http://b2creative.livejournal.com/11401.html
Got this:
Words: 195
(NOTE: The genie works best on texts of more than 500 words.)
Female Score: 185
Male Score: 227
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!
no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 02:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 02:05 pm (UTC)Does THAT involve scratching, burping, and hitting things? Because those seem to be some qualifiers expected in a "book for boys," as far as I can tell from what I hear. Make sure any girl characters are accessories, little sisters who show up periodically to pester the heroes, or, at the most, spunky sidekicks. Keep it funny. A race car and a robot would help. Maybe a robot driving a race car. And make sure someone is screaming dramatically on the cover, while punching someone, preferably someone else. Also, try to have your hero come of age by killing a blue jay or running over his brother with a robot-driven race car. Such is my understanding, anyway.
scratching-burping...
Date: 2007-12-14 04:43 pm (UTC)Re: scratching-burping...
Date: 2007-12-14 11:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 06:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 06:45 pm (UTC)(I'm now wondering where I can fit this into the comic... hmm... I'll leave the mayhem-making to Felix and the mountain.)
no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 03:26 pm (UTC)Words: 560
Female Score: 684
Male Score: 1085
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!