THE GENDER DIVIDE, PART II: Tinkerers vs. Probers

Lots of good responses in yesterday’s post, and a lot of the ideas bleed into what I want to get into today. It’s hardly a new topic, granted. Just a few days ago, Karin Slaughter wrote in the Financial Times about how female writers tackle violence in ways that may be unique, or certainly different enough from male writers. When I linked to it, I noted that what I often found to be the case with certain writers, at least early in their careers, is that they almost overcompensated for this so-called gender effect—that women writing violence sometimes went over the top to prove they could be just as unflinching as a man—but in a different way. And that the net result wasn’t always positive, because no one denigrates women like other women.

Many fans lament when they read books by the opposite gender, their own gender gets shortchanged. I’ve heard complaints like, “So-and-so who’s male tried writing from a female point of view and it just didn’t sound like a woman at all,” or “why do female writers always create idealized portrait of men? They just don’t exist.” I’m exaggerating, but the overall sentiments are apparent and cause considerable hand-wringing. So why is this so? The best writing, as I and others pointed out in the first part, should be able to appeal to a wide variety of people, and so the best writers should be able to capture the emotions, tics and quirks of both men and women, ideally in an equal fashion.

Of course, that isn’t the case, and there are lots of examples, both in mainstream and crime writing, where certain books would not be what they are if they were written by the opposite gender.

Slaughter herself explains this fairly succinctly in the aforementioned FT article:

This focus on recovery - wanting to understand the "why" - is something that defines women's crime fiction. While men are certainly capable of writing about women's issues in sensitive ways, there is something about a woman's perspective on violence against women that cuts closer to the core. If anything, I think male writers as well as readers benefit from this perspective. Family, friends, fathers, brothers - all the people in a victim's life are touched. Violent crimes rarely leave just one victim.

I want to focus a little but more on the question of “why” because it’s something that’s a fundamental aspect not only of my own writing, but of everything I do. I was born curious, but there are different levels of curiosity. One is espoused by the question “how does it work” and such people become tinkerers—obsessed with detail, often falling in love with toys (especially of the electronic kind.) Others—I’ll call them “probers”---want to know “why does it work” or even more importantly, “why doesn’t it work”, which can then be extrapolated to deeper questions like “why does something happen/not happen” or “why does someone do something/not do something”.

There are, of course, exceptions to every generalization, and the same certainly applies here, but if I take a sampling of the crime and thriller writers I read, and try to put them in either category, the “tinkerers” will be made up primarily of men, while the “probers” are more likely to be women. “Tinkerers”, I would say, write big standalone thrillers, military novels, espionage, techno-thrillers, gangster-themed books, and so on and so forth. These books are heavy on action, very plot-driven, and laden with details—the more arcane, the better. They aren’t likely to be terribly introspective either, because they are too busy trying to advance the plot, even if they are character-driven. The best examples I can come up with this are some of my favorite male writers, like Ross Thomas, Donald Westlake, Thomas Perry, and Lee Child (never mind a lot of the bestselling male writers of the Grisham/Patterson/Clancy ilk, but as I generally don’t read them, I won’t talk about them here.) All wrote—or still write—great characters that grab the reader from the first, but they never sacrifice the advancement of plot and don’t have too many resting points for introspection. Thomas’s books are the archetype because the plots are so damned twisty and the characters so distinctive, but the blend is almost perfectly balanced.

“Probers” write the kind of books you might expect them to write—character-driven, psychologically inclined, strong sense of place and atmosphere, and while there can be a very strong plot, it’s not imperative for the story to work. People that immediately come to mind are the Psychological thriller queens like Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine, Minette Walters, PD James, and Laura Wilson, more hardboiled-esque types like Denise Mina, Louise Welsh, and Val McDermid, and in the US, Laura Lippman and S.J. Rozan. The men that come to mind that could be included in this category—people like Peter Robinson, T. Jefferson Parker, and Stephen Booth—are those that at least to my knowledge, are read far more and appeal more to women and men. They have all the requisite plot-driven devices and their stories move, but perhaps at a more leisurely pace than would authors who could be more tinkerer-esque.

So, assuming these generalizations are valid (which is, of course, up for debate in the backblogs) can they truly be broken across gender lines? Or is it really a question of what an individual chooses to do, how he or she finds his voice and finds out what it naturally gravitates towards—action and detail, or psychological underpinnings and character development? And what of those writers who attempt, or are successful at, a combination of both? Or what of writers who don’t fit either mold but create new ones?

Maybe it is, as Robert Ferrigno said in the backblogs yesterday, a dangerous exercise to try to pigeonhole writers by gender. But I still have a feeling there’s something to it, even if it’s only a very tiny something. And so, once again, I’m curious for further thoughts on all this.

Comments

[Jim Winter]

I generally get annoyed when someone complains one gender can't write the other gender. If you peel at those people's layers, underneath you start finding that when they say, "Men/Women don't think like that" usually translates into "I don't think like that, therefore no one of my gender thinks like that." Often among readers of PI fiction, you'll find that the person is really complaining that the protag is not a trenchcoat-wearing cardboard cutout muttering bad cliches as he shuffles down a dark street.

Of course, a writer's latent prejudices can come through, intentionally or not. I can't read Ian Fleming's work because all his women are fawning airheads. There are, in fact, women who write men as these idealized hunks or else their men are all stupid brutes. That's just bad writing. (Why I don't read Kay Scarpetta novels.) When this works is when the protag portrays women as fawning airheads or stupid brutes, and yet the writer manages to convey something else.

[David White]

Aw, man, Jim. Just as I was on your side. Ian Fleming did not write fawning airhead women. In fact, in the books, whatever woman Bond was paired with, for the most part was a strong individual woman. I remember Gala Brand from the MOONRAKER novel clearly being a strong woman, and eventually fighting off Bond's advances because she was with another man. THE SPY WHO LOVED ME was written from a woman's point of view, and all of the women in the novels weren't bathing beauties, either. Domino had a club foot in Thunderball. In the movies, especially the Roger Moore movies, yes the women were airheads, but not the books.

However, yes some women right idealized males (the guy in Sue Grafton's A is for seemed idealized to me.) And some men right airhead women (Elmore Leonard's early novels, I believe.) Then again some women are well written by men (I think Robert Parker does a good job of this) and some women write men well (SJ Rozan comes to mind.) And some just stray from the gender issue all together by mostly avoiding it. Pelecanos, I believe has said he doesn't want to write a novel from a female perspective because he doesn't think he can.

[Donna]

Since I missed yesterday's discussion, I thought I'd put all my gender thoughts here. To be honest, I don't care whether books are written by men, women, or pointy headed aliens from the planet Zog; and I've given up trying to categorise the books I read because as soon as I say "I don't like books featuring a piano playing serial killer who leaves a recipe for spam fritters at the scene of his crimes", I'll FINALLY find a piano playing serial killer who leaves a recipe for spam fritters at the scene of his crimes amongst all the millions of others in the genre. As it happens, 9 out of my top 10 authors are male, but the numbers probably even out over my top 20. And I don't think there's any meaning in those numbers - it's just how they pan out. When I was 12 or 13 I loved both Nancy Drew and The Saint, Biggles and Jane Austen - I never really thought about whether they were 'boys books' or 'girls books' - I just liked them.

And as for tinkerers and probers well, I like both, and I dislike both.

Authors who write excellent characters tend to write excellent characters of both sexes.
Donna

[Rebecca]

Must quote Ursula K. Le Guin's novel Tehanu on gender differences: "I think we make up most of the differences and then complain about 'em."

That said, I think the key to writing characters of the opposite gender (or for that matter the same gender) well is to tinker FIRST and THEN probe. (Incidentally, Sarah, Freud would have a field day with you suggesting that women are the primary probers, no? ;-)) In other words: first set up the plot, or at least a few set pieces where you know WHAT the characters will do, and then do what we all do with other people in real life -- try to figure out why the hell they're doing it (possibly so we can duck out of their way the next time they start showing signs of it).

The problem with just probing (as I see it) is that it's a luxury that you only have in fiction. In real life, you never really know what someone else is thinking and feeling as they act, although you can usually make a pretty good guess if you know them well. Many times, you don't even know your OWN motivations for a "gut reaction" until you stop to think about them later. So if you start out "inside a character's head" you're in an implicitly false position (unless you're a first person protagonist looking back at events in the past which you've meditated on with some degree of detachment, and that's a pretty limited POV) and that taints whatever you're writing, and makes it a "what if" exercise, or a psychology textbook example. My parents have always kidded me that I use the words "person" and "character" synonomously (as in "I didn't like X book because no one in real life behaves the way the people in the book do"), but if you do want to write real people, you have to remain always a little outside their heads, guessing at their motivations, because only "characters" have their entire unconscious on view.

Ok, sorry to wander off topic. Basically, I don't think the above approach is limited to either men or women, and this "women are more sensitive" thing makes me deeply suspicious. Romance novels (i.e. women's fiction) are completely plot driven and in love with toys also, it's just that the Clancy submarines are swimming somewhere else.

And David, you don't think that airheads ARE idealized women? Aww, how sweet of you.

[Dave White]

Hey, I've had the discussion before... and airheads are not idealized women... that's for sure. I need a smart down to earth lady.

[Sarah]

You know, Rebecca, I think Freud would have had a field day with me for a lot of other reasons, not just the one you mention.

And only on the backblogs can a serious discussion turn into Dave's search for a date.

[Dave White]

One of these days I'm going to learn to keep my mouth shut. I didn't start it this time....heh.

[Fiona]

I thought THE SPY WHO LOVED ME was by far the best of Fleming's novels...It stands head and shoulders over the rest, generally.

And hey, that guy in A is for Alibi did turn out to be the killer, after all...

[Aldo]

I think this all dangerous territory. Lets just put it down to a good novel is a good novel regardless of who wrote it. Being a 'tinkier' in a 'prober' profession, I'm always working to find common ground. Bottom line, I guess I'll try anything once and a few things twice.

Now Dave, email me off line to discuss your condition.

[John Rickards]

Hmm... I think for the most part I'd go back to what I said yesterday/today/whenever it was (stupid body clock). Of course, I'm now mildly distracted by Dave and Aldo's personal lives, and happy to think, yeah, I'm a prober. A title which will make me a figure of terror at UFO-abductee conventions...

:-D

[Jim Winter]

Huh-huh. Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh. You said "probe."

[Sarah]

Sadly, I had a similar thought as well--but my mind's been in the gutter most of the day...

[Kevin Holtsberry]

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Prober????

[Dana King]

Very thought provoking. I read few female crime writers, and have wondered why. I don't think it's a male sexist thing, though that's exactly what a male sexist would say. What I've noticed lately is that most of the female writers I've read want to explain why something happened. The males that I read generally leave the why up to you. I thought of this a couple of months ago when I read a story by a male author who made sure I understood every character motivation. It wore on my patience after a while, took some of the challenge away from the reading.

This is parallel to your comment, but not identical. It's not that I don't care why: I just don;t care to have it spelled out for me. I've found a couple of female writers over the past year who trust me to figure out the why: Val McDermid and Christa Faust. I'll read more of them.

Note: this does not apply to first person PI fiction. Those are all about the why. Its explanation is an inherent part of the story.

Great posts. I'm sorry I found them so late.