Defining Women's Fiction

First of all, Happy New Year's to all of you out there. I am hoping all of you have a great writing and publishing year!

Today, I want to focus on understanding the women's fiction genre.

I think this is one of the most confused genres out there. This is even more confusing when publishers clump romance and women's fiction in the same category. Even authors who try to re-brand themselves will often start using that term for stories that might not fully be a women's fiction story. The easiest way to see this is to list a lot of the common misconceptions of this genre:

• My character is a strong female protagonist.
• My story is a romance but there is no happily ever after.
• My story has no sex in it
• My story is one that a lot of women like to read.

While a lot of these elements may appear in a women's fiction novel, this is not what we focus on to determine the genre.These are just surface level features.

I started taking the time to define women's fiction a while ago. I, like many authors out there, became very frustrated with the lack of a significant definition.

I like to start with the initial concept that women's fiction is a way of looking at the world. For readers, this is a way to see the world in a new perspective. Essentially, if you read women's fiction, it is like putting on a pair of glasses that allows you to see and experience the world through the female lens. For women, it is a way to see the world in a way they might not be seeing it right now.

Women's fiction is also about being able to relate to the characters and their situations in a way to learn from what they are going through. Let me explain it this way. There is a communication model out there talking about why people go and watch horror movies. In this model, those in the audience have a chance to experience their fears and concerns through the actions, dialogue and behaviors of the characters on the screen. The same occurs for people reading women's fiction.

Women's fiction IS often a genre that shows up on book club lists. This too is often one of the reasons people try to put their stories into this genre. But here is the thing. Book club novels often do not talk about the story. The story is a gateway to explore personal issues and topics. It starts with the novel, but moves beyond that. When I talk to authors about their novels, if they spend the entire time talking about the plot of the story, this becomes one of those signs that the story is not a women's fiction novel. If, however, they dive into the novel, and then focus more on the themes and issues, this becomes more of a hint the story is a women's fiction novel.

Now, let me say right now, just changing your pitch or query letter DOES NOT make your story women's fiction.

So, let's go back to some of those initial characteristics that started this blog. Can their be sex? Sure. Can there be a happily ever after? Sure. In fact, this last characteristic is one that often makes the story more palatable. We want to read a book where the characters find a solution to problems we might be struggling with.

I think the easiest way to think of women's fiction is returning to the theme and the message you want to send out to the reader. This is the driving force!