Most of my adult life I’ve been subliminally convinced that certain aspects of personality are sex-linked, kind of like tri-coloration in cats. As I’m reading a book in preparation for reviewing it, I’m beginning to wonder if that really is the case. I just finished a review of the same novel written by a man. I admire his penetrating analysis of theme. He seemed to have understood the characters and the author’s intention, but he doesn’t say anything about the writing itself, which strikes me as artistic in the extreme. Because this reviewer is also an excellent writer, I was surprised by his silence on the subject.
Then I received a comment from a male reader on my novel that praised it for its content and message. It was a pleasant surprise to have a male viewpoint on a book that has been categorized (not by me) as a romance that tells me he saw the story pretty much as I do. (The people who call it a romance are women.) I have to confess that I'm gratified and a good deal surprised by the praise some men have given it.
Now I don’t know what to do with that subjective observation. After all, what writer hasn’t been told to consider the audience? Which of us hasn’t been warned to think of the market? An addendum to the previous post, I guess.
What IS an author to do?
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