Ed P Zaruk, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
Blogs by Ed P Zaruk
The Value of Womens Fiction 3/11/2009 8:23:03 PM
Thought I'd write about character. My first thriller, which after ten years of editing, lays mouldering in a drawer, was thick on plot. In fact I had an editor in England tell me it was sophisticated and fast moving. That made me feel good. My wife said she found the story sterile. I'm not saying how that made me feel.
Any of you who have read our article, "How I Survived My Husband's Writing" know how I came to learn character writing.
First, to be good at writing emotion, for that is what makes your characters who they are, one has to read emotional writing. Women do it best. I have my reasons why I think they do it so well, but I'm not saying. There are some men who do it well too, Nicholas Sparks, for one. My wife forced me to read women's fiction. At first it was a tough sled, but when I started using emotion a little to fill out my thriller characters, I began to see how it worked so well in women's fiction. I must confess, I now enjoy reading this genre, and will pick up two or three books a year that Marian has read. Some she'll recommend to me, others I start cold. Do I finish them all? Yes. I'll discard mystery or thriller books that are poorly written, some non-fiction falls into this category too, but when I start a woman's fiction book, I tough it out, using the read as an exercise in criticism, and learn what did, and didn't work. I won't read that author again, but will avoid in my own writing what turned me off as a reader.
If you're a writer- To develop your voice, I strongly recommend you read outside your genre.
If you're a reader- New genres, and cross-genres are entering the publishing world. Some will make good reads if we are open to try them.
