FETCH! >
Suite Scarlett
Martin family birthday breakfasts followed a strict tradition. First, there were Belgian waffles, made by Belinda, the beloved Hopewell Hotel cook. These were served up with an array of toppings: chocolate syrup, fresh lemon whipped cream, stewed strawberries, and powdered vanilla sugar. The air should have been thick with wafflely perfume. Instead, there was an acrid, confusing smell, undercut by a light touch of smoke.
Write a review >
FETCH! >
Writer in Residence
I AM CHICK LIT
Today’s post was inspired by the lovely ladies at Trashonista, who quoted my beloved agent, Daphne. Let’s talk Chick Lit. Why not? Everyone else has done it!
The first and most important thing about this blog post is the TOTAL LACK OF RESEARCH that went into it. I have worked hard on not researching this entry, so don’t go spoiling it for me by sending me links to intelligent articles and posts. My hands are unsullied by the virtual ink of information, and I plan to keep them that way.
When I was both a tiny and a medium-sized mj making my way through writing school, I had two handy categories:
1. Things I thought were useful for writing
2. Things I did not find useful for writing
My two category system has worked like a charm in my professional life.
I like books by writers that are written well and say interesting things about writing. I like books that point out, in lovely, concrete ways, why other books are good and how to make your writing strong. I tremble in awe before essays like “Politics and the English Language†by George Orwell. I enjoy Edmund Wilson explaining his thoughts on why people read detective stories. Vladmir Nabokov’s essays on Russian and English literature will cause your brain to melt in delight.* These things are useful.
Generally, as soon as I see an “ism,†I go and curl up on the carpet for a nice nap. “Ism’s†are not useful to me. I write every single day, and never once has an “ism†helped me to put together a better sentence. “Ism’s†seem useful only to people who like to talk to other people about “ism’s,†which I don’t, so it all kind of works out.
And same goes for labels. I pay zero attention to labels for books. I prefer not to know how a book is classed. I had no idea what Urban Fantasy was when I read an Urban Fantasy that I thought was terrible. Luckily, I had no idea what I’d done . . . because I might not have read more! I might not have known that I love Urban Fantasy! I might not have read Holly Black, Scott Westerfeld, Justine Larbalstier, or Cassie Clare (to name just a few).
So when everyone was debating about “Chick Lit,†I was probably off eating a sandwich somewhere and missed the whole thing. Which was fine by me. Except that I kept getting these interview questions over and over again, people asking me about my favorite “fellow Chick Lit writers†or how I felt about something “as a Chick Lit writer.â€
And I was all . . . “I’m a Chick Lit writer? What the @&#$^ is that?†I am always the last to know.
My true confession is . . . I was kind of insulted. I mean, I went to a Fancy Ivy League University Writing Program and everything. I have shelves full of Serious Books. I had only a vague idea what Chick Lit was, but as far as I could tell, it dealt with three things: marriage, romance, and shoes. And I had a strike against each.
Romance: When my first boyfriend showed up at my door with flowers, my first response wasn’t to swoon. I believe what I said was, “What are these for?†He said our one month anniversary. And I just started laughing at him . . . because, one month anniversary? What? **
Shoes: As I have revealed in the past . . . I kind of hate shoes. I pointedly look forward to the day when we can get rid of feet entirely and just have cool hoverboard-like things welded to our ankles.
Marriage: I have only ever owned one book on marriage. It was called Loving: Marriage and Family Lifestyles and it was one of my required textbooks for senior year religion, and all I did all year long in senior year religion was deface my copy of Loving: Marriage and Family Lifestyles.
�
Evidence: a page from the Loving book belonging to Maureen Johnson, classroom 2A. I was not being particularly subtle on this occasion. Some of my graffiti over the pictures is highly nuanced.
The only thing I really did know was that a lot of people spoke derisively of Chick Lit, basically using it as a synonym for trash and often connecting it to the word “mindlessâ€. I heard there was a whole book dedicated to NOT being Chick Lit, and that Gloria Steinem was quoted on the cover and everything.
Why was everyone lumping me in with this? What a conundrum! I figured I’d better ask around and get more information.
“It’s your covers,†someone told me. “It’s because the girls have no heads. Well, they have heads, but they don’t have tops of heads.â€
I wrote this down.
“It’s the romance,†someone else said.
I wrote this down.
“It’s the light, breezy tone you adopt,†said someone else. “Humor.â€
I wrote this down.
“You should just put zombies in your books,†Justine Larbalestier said. “I don’t care about your question. Just put in zombies. Zombies make everything better.†***
Someone else told me that Chick Lit is about shopping, but I don’t write about shopping. And yet . . . I am Chick Lit. Yet another person told me it was about sassy young women in the city, which I never wrote about until Suite Scarlett. And yet, I am Chick Lit. Person number fifty-seven told me it was something about women who work for magazines, which I have never written about. And yet, I am Chick Lit.
“Oh, most important,†said the last person. “You’re female. Guys don’t write Chick Lit. They tried to make up a male equivalent term, but it never really took off.â€
The only real defining characteristic is that it means books written by women.
Literary terms and theories are pretty jelloid at the best of times. Unlike scientific theories, they can’t be tested or proven—not in any cool ways. You can’t, for example, “prove†new historicism by putting it in a hyperbolic chamber with a weasel. (I assume that this must be the scientific test for something. It sounds very scientific.)
Where is our science when we need it?
When you write about books, you can talk about of your butt a lot and no one can do anything about it. If you’re wrong, no one will die. Nothing will explode. Being busy/lazy, I am generally all for this kind of thing.
If established literary terms are stable as jello molds, then Chick Lit is a soufflé sitting on a fault line. It only means whatever the latest and most effective argument says it means. Or whatever you guess it means. Or whatever Wikipedia says it means. Whether the books under the banner are in any way similar (except for the sex of their authors) . . . well, that’s another question. I’ve seen all kinds of weird and wonderful books that have gotten stuck with the label. It’s very arbitrary.
Normally, this issue would instantly fail my “is it useful?†test. By rights, I should be curled up in my favorite spot, ignoring it. I do, after all, have many fears to cultivate and shiny things to covet. My time on this earth is not infinite, you know.
Besides, I don’t mind being classified with other Chick Lit writers. Meg Cabot, for instance, is the queen of YA Chick Lit (or so I hear). And if you want to lump me in with Meg, GO RIGHT AHEAD.
S
You know, there was a very good reason that Dorothy Parker wrote (or at least was rumored to have written) “Please God, let me write like a man.†She was a great writer, but as long as she wrote about women as a woman, as long as she cracked her jokes, as long as she made her sly observations about female society . . . she wasn’t creating literature. Or so it was often perceived. Many of her male friends thought she was and promoted her relentlessly. Dorothy Parker was one of her own harshest critics.
And so it seems to be with Chick Lit. The harshest words about this term seem to be coming from other women, often under the guise of promoting the work of women. ****
Ladies, why the loathing? Do we really have nothing better to do than slap each other around over some bogus umbrella term?
Anyway, if you want to call me Chick Lit, that’s fine. I’ll just take it to mean that I write like a woman. And there ain’t nothing wrong with that.
It’s when you start calling me “Jellyfish Lit†that we’re going to have a problem.
* I put in these fancy names to make it sound like I know what I am talking about. This is a sure sign I have been to graduate school.
** If any of you have read The Key to the Golden Firebird, I basically give May my response when Pete shows up at the door with flowers. Poor Pete.
*** She is right.
**** Make sure to reread that first paragraph about not doing any research. It is really quite critical to my argument.
27 Responses to “I AM CHICK LIT”
|
Search Result |
copyright | disclaimer | privacy
This website is managed by the State Library of Victoria. Most of the content is created by our users who are members of the public. The views expressed are theirs and, unless specifically stated, are not those of the State Library of Victoria.
She is chicklit hear her roar!
Best post ever, Ms Johnson.
Justine
You forgot one! Your book is in the “Expanding Pants” section.
HeeHee.
This post was great. I work for a university, which I guess means that I’m supposed to be intelligent. I hate it when I admit to anyone that I sometimes like to read Marian Keyes and then the person says, “That’s ‘Chick Lit,’” with much disdain, as if I had said, “In my spare time, I like to lick 9-volt batteries and play tv tag with my imaginary dog, Rudolpho.” I wish more people understood, as you do, that there is nothing wrong with literature written by women for women. I get a little tired of being treated like an imbecile, incapable of understanding “deeper” literature by Ayn Rand or Kurt Vonnegut, just because I also like to read somthing light now and again to make me laugh. Keep fighting the good fight, friend. Speaking of the good fight, poor non-pornographer John Green.
Hopefully this won’t turn into something of Bartlesville proportions and the book nazis will retreat soon.
i think chicklit just means lit for chicks thats what i thought
** If any of you have read The Key to the Golden Firebird, I basically give May my response when Pete shows up at the door with flowers. Poor Pete.
uuummmm i have in fact read the key to the golden firebird, but i do not remember this scene. which is probably because i havn’t read it in a while. so now i am very curious where in the book is this part? a page number would be helpful I am SO curious now. Saying stuff like this makes me want to jump up and read the part instantly, which is what i did, but i don’t know where it is in the book. HELP!
on to the rest of your post. i completely get what your saying about the not paying attention to categories thing. i read books because of their content, not what they are classified as.
Dear Maureen
I love you. I have informed my husband and packed a bag.
See you soon. Get some biscuits in.
I always thought “chick lit” meant a strong, round, female character who may or may not fit in society’s “normal” mold. Generally, something guys wouldn’t REALLY want to read because it has a strong female perspective. Maybe the whole label is based on the fact that most guys make assumptions of what a female character is like and therefore refuse to read books with female main characters? (This has no research behind it, just my opinion!)
I despise “isms” as well. I groan every time I hear one. I would scream, but then people might think I’m crazier than I am. Or they would know I am that crazy.
Categories can be sometimes helpful, but they seem to be more of a burden. The term chick lit never bothered me until I was in 9th grade and some idiot seniors said to me, “So, you read that chicklit stuff, right? The teen equivalent to trashy Nora Roberts or the stuff with sex ever chapter?”
That really bugged me (because, first of all, Nora writes bestseller romance, not porn) and for the rest of the year, I hid all my covers with book socks whenever I had them in public. Until fianlly, I realized I didn’t care. I read romance books. And other stuff. And, those stupid seniors graduated, and I met new friends who liked what I read, sci-fi to romance, to even kid’s books every once in a while.
So thanks for your post, Maureen. It means a lot.
PS…any zombie book of yours would kick butt!
I always thought chick lit was like, the Clique novels.
I originally thought that chick lit meant something either a) cute, b) romantic, or c) laugh out loud hilarious, and had a woman as the main character. I personally love these kind of books.
but then my perspective kind of morphed into something else. My definition of YA chick lit is something that is strong and yet funny, something laid back, but yet a totally truthful portrayal of teenage problems. These books are really, really good and filling; like a triple chocolate cheescake instead of an old twinky. 
And personally, I think your books fit the cheesecake and not the twinky.
omigosh! I love the smileys.
“Chick lit” has generally meant, to me, light-hearted literature dealing with romance. Written from the female perspective, it is often held to be light on themes and meaning - and is often written by women, as that goes along with the whole ‘female perspective’ ideal. It, to ME, means “romance novel” which can include sex, and general references to female stereotypes such as shoe-shopping and make up and fawning over males.
Hmm. I did not really consider your books ‘chick lit’. I suppose I never thought about it, because the books were that good.
oh, MJ. i do enjoy you so.
and more or less agree with you always. so far.
It’s interesting how people will group things. I think…my…dislike of the WORD chick-lit (not of the books themselves!) is the stigma behind it. And besides, what DOES make a book chick-lit? Who can REALLY define that?
When I think of chick-lit…I guess I think of books that are…easier to read than, say, Ray Bradbury (Although I eat those up like candy) but even though I might not have to stop and think about the book for ten hours afterwards, it doesn’t lessen my enjoyment.
It did seem for a while that ALL that was coming out was…the same story. Over and over again. But you know, there is the right time and place for all of those! And I sure read a lot of them! Just because you out-grow them, or move on to a new genre for a while doesn’t make them BAD books.
It’s a great topic Maureen. Thanks for bringing it up.
-Hannah
Who cares what they call it? We all know your books are good, and as long as they call it a good book, it’s all good right?
I don’t think people should have to remain under the umbrellas of stereotyping… you have to go and dance in the rain sometimes! Because, you can’t sing “Singing in the Rain” whilst attempting to click your heels together if you’re standing under an umbrella!
PS> if life is ever in a waffle (I know you didn’t say it was LIFE in a waffle, but I am…) just put maple syrup (or some other tasty topping) and eat it for a snack.
Look, I think the only reason you could be called chick lit.(for some bizarre reason I always think “lit.” is short for litter, which in general doesn’t do the term justice) is because you’re mainly read by women/girls?
This brings me to my huge fat enormous problem: I’m male and I fear that the genre-wise I am best qualified to write chick lit (I write everything, but am talking in terms of succes). I write something and because my name doesn’t hint what sex I am, they assume I’m a girl and critique: “really something for ‘women today magazine’ ”
At the moment I’m writing something for a contest of a (Belgian) female magazine, fingers crossed they won’t discriminate me for my gender.
At least you’re female, get over it. I’m a straight dude. It would be as if someone told you that you wrote scripts that were perfect for a cast with Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme, but really no, they’re good. You should send them off…
In the end, I can’t but second on the zombies. Preferably zombies from space. Has this been done before? Alien-zombies?
I just have to say that I love Justine.
“I don’t care about your question. Just put in zombies. Zombies make everything better.â€
And she’s right. Well, I don’t mean just the zombie part. I mean…it doesn’t matter. People are going to put books into categories, and chances are if ten different people read the same book they’ll put it in at least two or three different categories.
And no matter how they’re categorized…I think your books are great.
Oh, MJ, I do so appreciate your unresearched articles! You’ve hit upon my main beef with the term ‘chick lit’: that it appears to dismiss women authors writing about women. I say we send a zombie to attack all those who use this term to describe any female fiction. Lazy-critic-eating zombies are the best kind of zombies.
I don’t have time to read this right now, but I will. I promise.
and sorry to bother you if you’ve already read this(I’m a very persistent person) but…
What I wanted to say, was that me and my best friend have started a book-reviewing blogspot. We both read your book, ‘The Bermudez Triangle,’ and loved it. She wrote a review for it @
plentyofpaper-reviews.blogspot.com
Please check it out and comment and such if you have time. We would be really, extremely happy if you could mention the site in a post or some other place for us. We need readers and we want to have people to recommend our favorite books to and be able to warn readers against really bad ones(trust me, yours was good).
Please and Thank You always,
♥Heather
I read somewhere (might be AgentQuery.com) that Chick Lit is books where the protag is a teenager/young woman who GROWS. You know, getting through high school/college, finding a job, finding a man… That does sound sort of right, but then again, Gossip Girl isn’t really about that (and that’s one series I know is Chick Lit, even though I don’t know why.) I think it might just be literature about girls, but with no fantasy or anything.
Anyway, you rock!
Why I despise words that end in ism too.
Like colonialism, terrorism, organism, and tourism.
Although, I think I can live with ZOMBIISM.
(paraphrasing an earlier post) I don’t have time to read your crap, but come and read our crap….
ROFLMAOASTC ….
Some of the people here are such treasures.
Since there are only three terms in “Chick Lit Writer” and I’m pretty sure that you don’t mind being called a Writer and, whilst I can’t speak for our American friends (for some of whom it may have other connotations), since Lit is usually taken as an abbreviation of Literature and I am again fairly sure that you don’t have a problem with Literature, it leaves only the one logical (no facts or research here, just simple logic and deduction lol) conclusion.
That being that you are clearly one of those Chicks who dislikes being called Chick.
I remember this quote from a film about cricket (The Bodyline Series?). The English cricket player comes and makes a complaint to the Australian cricket team captain, complaining that one of the Australian cricket players called him a bastard but he’s not sure exactly which one. The Australian cricket captain tells him that he’ll sort that out right away and tells him to follow him and they both head over to the Australian cricket team’s dressing rooms where the Australian captain loudly addresses the Australian team demanding, “Which one of you bastards, called this bastard a bastard?!”
lol
You could extend their abbreviation and abbreviate Chick like they already have done with Literature and refer to yourself as a CLit Writer. Then they’ll have to either put up and explain what specifically they mean by Chick Lit Writer that isn’t also covered by the more succinct CLit Writer variant, or shut up and move on to something substantial and meaningful to talk about… *gasp*
“Sometimes you just have to get naked and take a long hard look at yourself in the mirror. If you can’t manage it for long or get uncomfortable quickly then you have problems. Closing your eyes, wishing it away or ignoring it isn’t going to change it. So shake what your mama gave you and be proud!”
Books are books! Whether they’re good or bad isn’t down to their category it’s down to how well they’ve been written. he only reason for categorizing books os to know which shelf to put them on in the library or bookstore. The fact is once they’re a bestseller they go on that special bestseller shelf and no-one gives a toss about the label.
‘Sides good chick lit rocks!
Sorry about the spelling typos - I should really read these things before I click on the “submit” box.
For the record I meant “The only reason…………..is to know….”
My typing is a work in progress.
Say this: “I’m not soup! Don’t label me!”