Can you tell a writer's gender?

[Poppaea]

This is what it said:

You scored 9 out of a possible 10

Not bad, but you're no Sir Vidia.

I think he is right. The way to tell is in the details. Very detailed: Female. So-and-so detailed: Male

[RainingLemur]

Yeah. I usually read the authors name on the book and think "Hmmm, Steve sounds like a man's name. I bet they're a man." It's pretty easy, actually. And for the ones that are somewhat ambiguous, there's often a picture of the author on the dust jacket (or whatever the flappy-wraps are called on hardback books) or in the back of a paperback.

In this case? 8 out of 10 on wild guesses.

[BenG]

8 0f 10 correct for me. I tend to read both genders, except for fantasy where I read mainly male authors.

[CWatkinsNash]

You scored 6 out of a possible 10

Sloppy thinking. You clearly need to read more books by men.

Better than I thought I'd do, actually.

[Ea]

4 out of 10 - and I thought Mr. Naipaul, Rushdie and John Irving was female, and Atwood male Who cares anyway, but grumpy old men

Originally Posted by peterjmerrigan

didn't Rowling deliberately publish as 'J.K.' in order to obscure her sexual identity?

P. D. James most definitely did. Helped her get published in the first place.

Originally Posted by Stitchawl

When I was in college I took a class in short story writing. One of our assignments was to write a story 'as if we were of the opposite gender.' There were some very interesting results.

I bet the results said more about what the writer thought about men and women's writing than anything resembling reality.

[beppe]

You scored 5 out of a possible 10

Sloppy thinking. You clearly need to read more books by men.

Why should I?

BTW. The best thing that I read up to now, this year, is by a dame. Cross my heart. Byatt, Dame Antonia Susan Duffy, DBE (commonly known as A. S. Byatt).

Over all, with the passing of time, I like men less and less. Writers, fellow commuters, drinking buddies, people in line with me at the cash, MR fellows ...

[DMB]

I would find it hard to imagine a woman writing something like this. I find it hard to imagine a man writing something like this, although I seem to recall that P.G. Wodehouse had a male character who wrote slushy romances.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by DMB

I would find it hard to imagine a woman writing something like this. I find it hard to imagine a man writing something like this, although I seem to recall that P.G. Wodehouse had a male character who wrote slushy romances.

Men writing romance novels under a female pseudonym are not completely unheard of.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Ea

Men writing romance novels under a female pseudonym are not completely unheard of.

Very true. There are a number of male authors who write for Mills and Boon (Harlequin) using female pseudonyms.

[mayoi]

You scored 7 out of a possible 10

Not bad, but you're no Sir Vidia.

I'm not?

[beppe]

Originally Posted by DMB

I would find it hard to imagine a woman writing something like this. I find it hard to imagine a man writing something like this, although I seem to recall that P.G. Wodehouse had a male character who wrote slushy romances.

Originally Posted by Ea

Men writing romance novels under a female pseudonym are not completely unheard of.

Originally Posted by HarryT

Very true. There are a number of male authors who write for Mills and Boon (Harlequin) using female pseudonyms.

It's the future, and maybe already the present. Now that the anthropological reasons for men predominance are finally(*) fading out, the deep values come to the surface. They read more, because they are more interested in the interior life: they know about it - while we have to read about it - so they are a more proficient target for the market.

(*) We do not have to run for the calories gathering anymore, on the contrary ...

[sassanik]

I got 5 out of 10, apparently I am really not good at telling the difference.

It is also true that some male authors write under female names when writing romance novels.

An interesting test.

Amy

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

This is what it said:



I think he is right. The way to tell is in the details. Very detailed: Female. So-and-so detailed: Male

Nonsense. It's when the details are actually correct that you get a clue.

A test involving selected excerpts is, in my opinion, rather pointless. I believe I can usually tell whether the writer is a man, a woman, or something else.

I recently read a book written by a man and woman team. It was painfully obvious who wrote which parts.

The odd names that hide gender almost always belong to women authors.

[cfrizz]

I got 7 out of 10. I don't care either way, although, the majority of my books are written by women.

[kevinp]

I've been reading two different series lately. SEAL Team Seven series by Keith Douglass. He goes into detail about the weapons and the firefights and not so much character depth. And the alphabet murder mysteries by Sue Grafton. She goes into detail about what every character is wearing (which gets really old after a while).