Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
Buried in the culture war thread, there has been some discussion about differences between male and female writers, and how one might recognize the gender of a writer without knowing from the name.
Rowling supposedly writes all her male characters like they are girls. Draco is a bully in a mean girl fashion, while Harry falls in and out of love in a manner more similar to women than men. Another pointed out that male stories tend to converge on one point, whereas those written by women tend to move in many different directions. The "men writing women" tropes are also often telltale sign of author's gender.
I figured it would be fun to ask the rest here: Do you see different trends in how men and women write, and do you believe you can reliably tell the gender of a writer from their works alone?
What a fun topic!
Yes. As a child I would read anything that came near me (a broader selection across time and topic than I would choose if making purchases from a bookstore) and even then I noticed that I could usually tell. I think I've been surprised at the sex of a writer once in my life?
That said, Rowling has a great male character in Corm Strike so she's hardly the person I'd level shallow characterization accusations at. I do sometimes read something and agree that no woman would have that thought, and sometimes its bad enough to be silly, but I don't think a one off "admiring my breasts" would damage my enjoyment of a novel.
I don't think this is at all true. I think its more about genre. Fantasy has a bunch of subplots, thrillers only a few. Both sexes can write shallow characters, both write plots that are simple or complex.
If anything its a matter of tending towards styles. Sparse female writing is Cather or Ingalls, male its Hemingway or Steinbeck. Cheap/easy womens writing tends towards sounding like a romance novel, mens it boils down to Crichton / Preston. Different stuff gets left out, elided. I'd say womens writing is more attractive but that could be because I have a female brain and that style of thought feels more correct. Note to calibrate my taste, my favorite books literary writing wise are "Time Travelers Wife", "Circe", and "Piranesi'. But many of my favorite authors are male (Pratchett, Bryson).
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