The Evolution of Chick Lit
By Guest | September 7, 2010 |
Therese here. Please welcome Margo Candela, author of the novel Good-Bye to All That, as our guest today at Writer Unboxed. She’s with us today to share some insights into–and perspective about–a genre that she loves, chick lit. Enjoy!
The Evolution of Chick Lit
I was introduced to chick lit, along with most of the world, when I picked up a copy of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary. For a while, my chick lit was exclusively of British extraction. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it (though I still have trouble wrapping my mind around wine gum), but was happy when American publishers unleashed a slew of similarly themed novels where wine was wine and gum was gum.
I read one after another, but it wasn’t until 2003 that I considered writing one myself. Plenty of drafts, plus more than a little luck and patience, eventually led to my first novel, Underneath It All (Kensington, Jan. ’07) being published. I’m up to my fourth, Good-bye To All That (Touchstone, July ‘10), which I think is my most chick lit to date.
For a while, though, you couldn’t say chick lit above a whisper, even though plenty of us were still reading, if not writing, it. Those supposedly in the know said the market was glutted, that the genre was played out. What we should be writing, they said, was erotica about vampires, or paranormal romances. Anything but chick lit.
There was no surer way to doom a manuscript than to employ the “gal wants better job and wants to lose weight, but gain boyfriend while finding her bearings in the big city” plot device.
Writer friends of mine started to refer to their books as women’s fiction to avoid the chick lit kiss of death. I took the easy way out—I kept typing and decided to let someone else sort it out.
I write women’s fiction while never denying my novels fit nicely into the chick lit genre. I look to my editor’s notes for guidance because she knows way more about publishing than I do. “This could be funnier” is our code for “let’s go chick lit”. “Too ha-ha when it doesn’t need to be” tells me to think (and type) women’s fiction.
When the Sex and the City movie came out in 2008 I had high hopes we could start calling chick lit chick lit again. The movie’s box office worldwide gross of $400 million made it obvious that women were not only interested in stories about other women having complicated and funny lives, but they’re willing to put their considerable buying power behind it. Trends come and go, but a genre is much harder to kill even if some people try to ignore it to death.
To be honest, I’m not sure where things are going (and SATC 2 really didn’t help the cause), but chick lit and women’s fiction will continue to be published. Great story telling, no matter what anyone wants to call it, will endure and that’s what gives me hope both as a reader and a writer.
Thanks for a great post, Margo.
Readers, you can learn more about Margo and her new novel, Good-Bye to All That, on her website . Write on!
Many thanks to today’s guest.
You can read more WU guest posts by visiting this link.
Interesting post! I was at a writers’ conference not too long ago, and I pitched something that I called “commercial fiction” even though in my head it was “chick lit.” Because my protagonist was 35, the agent told me she thought my story sounded like “hen lit.”
That was a new one for me!
Hi Margo!
Loved the post! Love stories about women with complicated and funny lives! I have a fresh project that I’m letting them figure it out. Chick Lit got a bum rap, but you’re right it’s still out there in a new/different wrapper. And we continue to love it. Thanks for sharing.
Chick lit is one of my fave genres, thanks for sharing this post! I don’t think chick lit is dying or saturated. Most of my friends love reading chick lit..they are so charming and motivating, they always leave the reader feeling darn good :))
Janet Reid on her blog “Query Shark” said about the genre chick lit: “Never EVER use it in a query. The category is dead on arrival.” As a pre-debut author with a Boomer Lit story about a newly-fired workaholic 50 yr. old woman, I think I’m going with commercial fiction! Ideas?
“Great story telling, no matter what anyone wants to call it, will endure and that’s what gives me hope both as a reader and a writer.”
My thoughts exactly. Label it whatever you want, a good story is a good story.
Great post, and I absolutely agree with the last line.
All Chick Lit has ever been is stories written primarily by, about and for women, dealing in a humorous fashion with contemporary issues facing modern women. The fact that this sort of story may have been overpublished for a time or that the packaging may have gotten overdone is just S.O.P. in publishing where as soon as anything gets hot, everyone else rushes to clone it. But the truth is, whatever publishing decides to call it, there will always be a market for smart and funny books about contemporary women facing contemporary issues.
Great post.
My editor also calls my books “novels about funny women” but I don’t think that’s how she refers to them in editorial meetings…Actually, I don’t know what she calls them. I should ask her.
This was a great inside view of the “genre”.
The word “chick” has come a long way, it seems, from the slang origins.
In marketing terms, which label garners more sales and support–chick lit or women’s fiction? It seems to me that the former label is still used by many as a dismissive, put-down, whereas the more general label of “women’s fiction” is more inclusive.
I wonder which label will hold for the long-term writer and reader.
Patricia
https://pmpoetwriter.blogspot.com/
Great defense of the genre (and really good attitude to let the agents/publishers figure out what to call it). I wish there was a way to write stories without genre in mind, but that’s not a very good business mind from what I understand. I applaud you for focusing on your stories and what you love to do.
Nice to see another “Margo” :) – I enjoyed your post. Thanks!
There are people out there who get paid way more than I do to worry about what to call chick lit this week. I call it and enjoy it for what it is. If pegged jeans with zippers on the ankles can make a come back, so can a genre. (But I’m staying well away from those ’80s pants.)
Very well said, Margo. Loved your tweet “Chick lit by any other name is still a novel.” Congratulations and hear hear! :)
Great post, Margo.
And I agree that SATC 2 did nothing to further the cause. It might have set the genre back several miles. All the bad stereotypes and none of the clever fun or heartbreak of the first film. Sigh.
Maureen:
I loved the first SATC movie. It was sharp, funny and realistic (or as realistic as SATC can get). I was hoping Mr. Big would have a heart attack, but it turns out he’s the best part of II. Bleh.
Amen! Love this post, since womens fic is what I mostly read, and what the ms I’m currently revising is. Yeah…call it Pinocchio on a donkey if ya wanna…just keep publishing it. :D
Going to check out your books now. Write on.
Excellent post! And it reminds me of a recent discussion in the YA blogosphere about whether vampires are really dead (no pun intended) or whether WE who control the blogs and the tweets are just sick of it, and thus *saying* it is dead.
In either case, I think your advice is the best: “I kept typing and decided to let someone else sort it out.” :)
Great post! I also got started with British chick lit, and in looking at my bookshelves, most of my favorites are written by British authors. But I love finding new American authors (you included!) to follow.
I personally feel the only ones perpetuating the “chick lit is dead” anthem are those in the publishing industry. Every month a new “chick lit” novel hits the shelves – to my utter delight – so it clearly isn’t dead.
So, keep on typing!
P.S. I have SATC I on my iPod and have watched it about 50 times. It never loses its charm. I liked SATC II, but it definitely lacked the heart and soul of what the series and the first film had. But Liza’s All the Single Ladies had me smiling from ear to ear, and when the girls’ performed their rendition of I Am Woman, I wanted to leap up and join in.