Last week, I had started
to talk about a particular issue. Your target audience of book-buyers
contains more women than men .
Can you hope to
sell them crime fiction that doesn't
introduce strong female characters early
in the narrative?
It's not that I don't have such
characters in the book that I'm writing;
it's just that men are the major
characters in most of the early scenes (until we're about 14,000 words into the
story). The question is, is that
OK, or would it deter a female bookshop
browser, or a publisher, from buying my
book?
My first thought was to look at the work
of other authors of crime fiction. Many
write books that follow the adventures
of male characters. Often, there
are strong female roles - and also many
scenes that focus on a woman or on the
relationship between a woman and a
man. Fair enough, you think,
"It's about a bloke, but women are
well represented in the cast of the
story."
But I also noticed something interesting
about one particular author whose work I
admire.
I'd say that his books are primarily
about men; the good guy and the chief
bad guys are always male. I'd also
say that, although he has a fair number
of female characters, this author
doesn't often succeed in making them
really three-dimensional. What he
does do, however, is introduce them
early - as early as the first
scene. The early scenes might even
make you think that a woman was going to
have the most important part in the
story.
You'd be wrong, of course.
I've come
to the view that this particular author
isn't really comfortable writing about
women but that he tries his damnedest to
give them a decent amount of time on
stage. This is done partly to reflect
real life but also to give his books an
appeal to a female readership that they
would otherwise lack.
It seems to work.
So what lessons do I take from this?
I'm not sure yet. I had always
envisaged that my story would have three
leading characters - three
"stars" if you like - and that
there would be two male stars and one
female one. The leading supporting
role would also be female. So I'm
reasonably comfortable with the overall
balance throughout the book. The main
question about the opening scenes is
perhaps best expressed in another way -
a way that doesn't explicitly mention
gender.
It is this: are the opening scenes good
enough to capture and keep the interest
of intended readers?
© David Gray
|
