Women's Fiction

Of the few written reviews Running From Herself has received, one of those was from a man. He awarded it five stars, by the way. So, there's my conundrum with labeling my novel women's fiction. 

In the days when I was a prolific reader, books were labeled either fiction or non-fiction. I didn't have money to buy books, so I visited my local library every week. One of the things I did each time was scan the library's posted list of bestsellers, and I'd put my name on the waiting list for any book that was listed; I didn't care what its theme was. If it was a bestseller, it had to be good, right? And I wanted to read good books. As it turned out, some of them weren't to my taste, but I still read (most of) them all the way through. Books for me back then were a scarce commodity, and I treated them as such.

One of my favorites was The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough. In fact, once I read it, I signed up for the wait list again and re-read it. I notice that on Amazon the book is categorized as contemporary literary fiction, historical Australian and Oceanian fiction, and 20th century historical romance. Also family saga fiction. What? No women's fiction? How can that be? When it was originally for sale in bookstores, one would find it on the "fiction" shelf.

That's the problem with today's obsession with labels. And perhaps with the abundance of inexpensive books. Readers are missing out. They're limiting their choices.

In the past I categorized my books as women's fiction because they had to be slotted in somewhere, and my protagonists were women, after all. Now I prefer contemporary fiction, because for one thing, no one seems to understand what women's fiction even means. And choosing women's fiction is limiting. I applaud the one man who bought the book, even though it does have a female main character. Most men probably wouldn't.

What is women's fiction, by the way? This article from the Women's Fiction Writers Association describes it well. 

"In many stories, there is a substantial character arc that supplements the plot, but in Women's Fiction, the focus of the story IS the character arc; the change of the protagonist's worldview IS what the story is all about.

In the novel's beginning, there is a misbelief or a character flaw that the protagonist has, and the external events of the novel (plot) force the protagonist to change their misbelief/correct their character flaw toward the end of the novel."

In other words, women's fiction is about life—real life. I would wholeheartedly embrace the women's fiction label if it wasn't so limiting. I like reading about a woman's journey to find herself or to find her true purpose, and I like experiencing all her stumbles along the way. I can relate! Sure, romance is incorporated into every one of my books, just like in real life, but the romance isn't the main plot. 

A lot of readers see "women's fiction" and assume that it's romance. Romance has specific story beats that must be adhered to: the "meet cute" (as they call it), the conflict, and the HEA (happily ever after). That's a simplification, of course, but every romance novel must have those beats, especially the HEA. 

My novels don't necessarily have an HEA, but usually they do. Only my HEA's are about the main character finding her true place (at last). Often that does involve her love interest, but love is only part of the bargain. If she can't be happy with her true self, all bets are off.

I like a story to unfold—like a downy blanket—I sink into the story all warm and comfy and let the world pass by. I'm not the type of reader who goes for "shoot 'em up" tales, unless the good (or bad) guy has some sort of personal story that's interesting. I'm a fan of the human condition.

In Running From Herself, if Leah even knows what her true purpose is, she sure spends a lot of time denying it. She's too focused on "the thing she's supposed to be", a thing that has always consumed her identity, and as far as she knows, always will. She's adept at convincing herself that certain things are true, even when they're not—such as the man who by all appearances should be her life companion.

While I dislike genre classifications in general, one of the categories I chose for this novel was "coming of age", which one may think of as a story about a young-ish person, but in reality it's this:

"...personal transformation and finding one's place in the world. This journey can happen at any stage of life." 

Coming of age is actually an apt description of this novel. Perfectly apt, in fact. I like that description—it fits.

So, as you can see, I'm ambivalent about book categories in general. I don't like 'em, but my books have to have 'em. 

All I like is a good story.