05-01-2013, 01:01 AM | #61 | |
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Lol. I would posit, at least in my case, that males would find it harder to recall or could not answer, because they don't care about those kinds of details! No matter what the PC Police say, men and women generally think differently. If you have a man and a woman sitting in a restaurant with conversations going on around them, the man would normally be able to remember generalities/bits & pieces of all the conversations, while the woman would be able to get most of the details of a few conversations. Likewise, if you ask about details of the plot I'd bet you'd get more males remembering than females. Ask about details of the characters and I would think more females would remember more accurately. That is why I agree, as has been stated earlier, that men would generally prefer plot driven stories and women generally prefer ones which are character driven. But I don't think gender has any bearing on an authors ability to tell a story from either perspective. Certainly an author might be more comfortable writing in one mode or another - and might start their career writing in that mode, but their ability is determined by their level of experience, not their sex. I think I have been reading more female than male authors lately, because my daughter handed me a book that she and her friends were reading (something about sparkly vampires) and I got hooked on the genre. Before that I was reading a lot of books by a male author (L. E. Modesitt, Jr.), because those were the series I was on. Before that I read a lot of J. K. Rowling because that was the series I was reading to the kids...now I'm re-reading J. R. R. Tolkien's Hobit/Rings books because the Hobit movies are coming out. I never once thought or felt like I should or shouldn't read any of them because they used initials instead of their names or because they were male or female - never even entered my mind... |
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05-01-2013, 01:56 AM | #62 | |
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05-01-2013, 04:40 AM | #63 | |
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For this to mean anything you now need to find out the percentage of books published in that year for male/female authors - Probably just for Big 6/5/4/however many are left publishers. If about 2/3rds of the books published are by male authors then the reviews are a very even 50/50 split. |
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05-01-2013, 04:45 AM | #64 | |
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05-01-2013, 12:14 PM | #65 | |
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05-01-2013, 12:19 PM | #66 |
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I don't know that it's a gender divide, although I understand that Penthouse (used to?) put out a series of books "for men" that were allegedly non-stop action, and none of that touchy-feely stuff.
If there is a gender divide, I'd be more inclined to think that women writers tend more toward character-driven writing and men tend more toward plot-driven writing, but again, I don't think there's any hard data about it. I was just very interested to find that, based on my last year's reading list, I tended to like books written by women (even non-fiction) better than those written by males. |
05-01-2013, 02:17 PM | #67 | |
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Frankly, I'm most satisfied with a story when I get a good plot driven by interesting characters. I don't need ALL the details of a character's life, but I do need to understand the motivations. This has been a very odd thread! It's all over the place with no predictability at all. I do think it's been pretty satisfying though. |
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05-01-2013, 02:30 PM | #68 |
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Seems to me that the gender divide (with regard to reading) exists solely for those who need there to be gender divide for discussional purposes about gender divides. Otherwise, all the gender-divide hooey is just a self perpetuating myth based on what one gender assumes the other gender likes to read (or write).
Last edited by DiapDealer; 05-01-2013 at 02:39 PM. |
05-01-2013, 03:13 PM | #69 |
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The example of men and women sitting in a restaurant and hearing conversations around them, and who remembered what, was discussed in one of my psychology classes...so I'm sure there is data/studies out there. Can I point you to it? No. But I don't think we need to. They are generalities. There are always exceptions to the rule. If someone says, "We'll, I don't think that way, it must be false." Doesn't disprove the statement. Is anyone here a psychologist who can say for sure that they know how everyone thinks and feels at any given time??
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05-01-2013, 03:31 PM | #70 | |
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I am pretty sure that the claim that was made was based on empirical data and if you really look for them they can most probably be found. But you just saying that every statement can be questioned really do not provide any reason to spend the time to find it. But if you have some scientific data that is not just "but I am not that way" then it might be worth to spend the time. |
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05-01-2013, 03:46 PM | #71 | |
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If one says "The pitbull will easily kill a chihuahua if they get into a serious fight", then you don't need to back that up. It's quite obvious and logical, to anyone who knows both typs of dogs. There is an enormous size, strength and biting power disparity between them that makes the outcome of a serious fight rather predictable. However, if someone says "Men refuse to read women authors because they don't like character-driven stories", then you'd better back that up with some data, preferably data that shows that men don't like character-driven stories, and that women only write character-driven stories. If you don't, then the statement is useless, because anyone could say anything they like. |
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05-01-2013, 05:05 PM | #72 | |
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I do think that publishers think that men-in-general don't like reading stories by women authors, but whether that's a true statement or not, I don't know. And I have no idea whether it's a distinction between character-driven or plot-driven. I know my husband has a greater tolerance for plot-driven stories than I do, but he's also the one who introduced me to Bujold, who is strongly character-driven. |
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05-01-2013, 05:33 PM | #73 |
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I still think it's simply that women generally prefer to read about women, and men prefer to read about men.
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05-01-2013, 05:39 PM | #74 | |
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The argument that was common a couple of years ago and that I described was that the gender of the protagonist mattered. What was always claimed was the female reader did not mind that the protagonist was male but that male reader had more problem with female protagonists. Googling this now it seems there is research showing that both female and male readers prefer male protagonists. |
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05-01-2013, 05:57 PM | #75 | ||
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If a story has no character development, then IMHO, it's just flat. It's a series of events, that doesn't seem to have an impact on the character. I've bought the Paksenarrion omnibus at Baen, and split it up into its three seperate books. When reading some short comments on several sites, I have a feeling that this is exactly the sort of fantasy I like most. In fact, I've read the first 2-3 pages, and I think I like this character already. Maybe even especially because she's female. edit: Spoiler:
The one thing I hate are the fantasy stories with 15-year old guys that grow into hero's within 3 months as protagonists Last edited by Katsunami; 05-02-2013 at 01:04 PM. |
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