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In the hot and heady days of summer 2005, when publishers’ hopes were still riding high, I sold my first novel, Bed Rest, to HarperCollins in the United States. It was women’s commercial fiction, or chick lit—a story of a successful New York lawyer whose life is thrown into chaos when she’s forced for months onto pregnancy bed rest. HarperCollins cheerfully threw a second book into the deal, a sequel called Sleepless Nights, as did my British publisher. The U.K. edition of the second novel came out last year, and the U.S. edition is due to appear this month. Yet as I started preparing the manuscript of Sleepless Nights for its American birth this summer, I realized that the chick-lit novel as we know it—one of the great publishing phenomena of recent times—is the product of a boom-time that has passed.
The big chick-lit novels of the last few decades are all, no doubt about it, deeply pre-recession in cast. Plum Sykes’s gloriously glamorous heroines sashay through the pages of her novels taking care to note the size of the jewels their friends wear to bed, not to mention the couture origin of every last item of clothing. Sophie Kinsella’s consumerist heroines are equally fascinated by apparel—but Becky, protagonist of The Confessions of a Shopaholic, hasn’t got the trust fund to back up her addiction to Denny and George scarves. To read about Kinsella’s 2000 London with the benefit of hindsight is to see a credit crash waiting to happen. Becky exists in a double reality—in the space of five minutes she switches from deciding she’s got to STOP SPENDING, to believing that winning the lottery is a really good way out of debt. And her credit card companies are just as confused. On the same day that the customer accounts section of her credit card company duns her for escalating debt, the customer services division sends a letter wildly encouraging her to spend more, dangling Italian handbags as an incentive.
Becky is charming and naughty and clearly appeals to the lurking spendthrift in all of us. But if she were writing the novel today, I doubt Kinsella would give her the same job—the character is, with wonderful irony, a financial journalist. Becky’s self-centeredness causes her to make serious mistakes that hurt others, not just herself. Think about Jon Stewart’s merciless savaging of Jim “Mad Money” Cramer on The Daily Show for promoting risky investments. Are readers still willing to forgive a heroine who fecklessly encourages her middle-aged neighbors to make a make a financial decision that costs them £20,000?
I asked myself a parallel question as I began to revise my own chick-lit sequel for its American debut. I’d filled the backdrop of my story with the usual cheerful glamour—lawyers swapping stories about their wealthy summer vacations, nice clothes, easy living, scandalous gossip. Like most other women’s commercial fiction, mine was a mix of realism (the surprises of the first year of mothering) and escapism (a second heroine is courted by a superstar litigator). Rereading my novel in its pretty purple-and-blue 2008 U.K. cover, I knew I had to save it from its casual pre-recession excess. Cheery consumerism and aimless career-dithering were clearly out of touch in a world of mortgage defaulting, pink slips, and repossessed homes. And why should readers empathize with a couple of heroines who fritter their days away thinking about—well, not very much?
Hastily, I began to rewrite. There’s a limit to what you can do with an editor breathing down your neck, but in a single mad month I slashed and burned and frantically rebuilt.
SNL: Equal Opportunity Objectifiers
Jon Hamm spent most of the Saturday Night Live episode he hosted last night shirtless.
Confessions of a Woman Comedy Writer
Allison Silverman accepts one from New York Women in Film & Television (and tells us why it's rare).
Comments
Lots of diversity out there
By: chicosaur | Tue, 09/01/2009 - 04:56
I have to disagree with the poster that said there are no overweight heroines in chick-lit, please read "Good in Bed" and you'll find an extremely well written story about an overweight woman that happens to fit in the chick-lit genre.
One Book Helps Kill Chick-Lit?
By: melissablue | Thu, 08/13/2009 - 23:36
I find that interesting for the simple fact that I'm on my fifth re-read of Frenemies. A story about women. A story about what it means to be friends. A heroine who is a librarian who doesn't have an obsession with fashion. Yes, she has a part of her body that she despises, but what woman doesn't have something about them they wish they could change? But, this makes the novel somehow less? I disagree.
What it comes down to, I don't think we read the same women's fiction or chick-lit. It was easy for me to find a novel about an overweight woman who was truly overweight. The life circumstances she overcame were the same I could relate to. She wanted somethign better for herself, but she was too scared too. For so long she had settled. At the end of the book she stopped settling. Yes, she got the guy. Yes, it was humorous. When did humor become a bad thing? When did novels that make you want to take prozac after reading it become "real" novels and the only ones worth writing?
The misconception I'm seeing here is that if a novel doesn't tackle hard issues then it's worthless. Austen wasn't trying to cure world hunger with Pride and Prejudice. In essence the story was about a heroine wanting to gain her own indepence in a time where women were considered objects to be acquired and to produce a heir. This story was about Elizabeth's journey. It was women's fiction. It had humor.
So it is what women find important in today's society that you find not worth writing about? Tell me what is it really.
And, if you want to agrue about a novel being realistic when was the last time someone had to deal a situation from The Great Gasby? Or any literary fiction. Make your true argument about what you find distasteful about women's fiction, because the ones you have now just don't hold up.
Incredible
By: bbc72 | Thu, 08/13/2009 - 13:46
It never fails to stun me how much vitriol is spewed when the subject of women's fiction is introduced - and that the angriest spewers are women themselves.
I read and write romance novels and I stand by the genre as a legitimate and profitable wing of the publishing industry. I find it sad and ridiculous that so little respect is given to – or demanded by – the writers, readers and publishers of this juggernaut of a genre. No other single genre – including the much vaunted “legitimate literature” – rakes in as much cash as romance/women’s fiction. So what does this tell us?
People like to be entertained.
People like to be entertained with fun and frivolity because it gives them a chance to step out of their own lives for a time, out of their responsibilities and wondering if the next paycheck is going to cover the mortgage, car insurance, daycare, whatever. I, personally, get enough of that stress in my daily life and I don’t need it to be the focus of my entertainment.
But maybe that’s just me.
Am I saying that if a story doesn’t come with a happy ending it’s worthless? Of course not. Because that would be *ridiculous* and erroneous. We need all types of stories because we are all types of people – and it never hurts for us to step out of our comfort zones and check out someone else’s flavor of entertainment. That’s how we grow. That’s how I have a library built on the collected works of Shakespeare, the Brontes, Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, Nora Roberts, Jennifer Crusie, Lani-Diane Rich, Anne Stuart, PJ Tracy, Dan Brown, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut – and those are just my keepers that I can rattle off the top of my head. I’ll pick up any book that sounds like it’s got the goods by way of story.
As for Ms. Bilston’s “Americanization” of this particular novel, I have to say that that I’m actually more interested in this new altered version. I will be making the effort to find this and see if it lives up the hype. And if not, no harm no foul. I’m certainly no worse off for spending a few days reading a novel following one woman’s journey than I would be rereading Romeo & Juliet (the biggest, fattest anti-romance out there). Because the beauty is that I will likely learn *something* from the experience, even if that is simply this writer's style is not my cuppa.
Not all stories are created equal. Not all books released under the “literature” or “romance" tags are worth the paper they’re printed on. In fact, the great majority of them are mediocre leaning into truly awful. Not all books released by renowned authors are of the same caliber. But if you don’t try, if you don’t open your eyes and mind to the endless possibilities available then you will miss the true gems that pop up.
Closed minds are everyone’s loss.
To the author, I'm not a huge
By: Red | Wed, 08/12/2009 - 23:35
To the author, I'm not a huge fan of chick lit, but I found this article very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
To previous commentators: People write the stories they need to tell. The author isn't Dickens and she isn't trying to be Dickens. She's telling the story of one woman, in a specific place and a specific time. It's not great literature, but it is a story, and anyone who writes understands that not all stories are intended to be great treatises on human nature. They're just stories.
Wow
By: LaniDianeRich | Wed, 08/12/2009 - 14:31
The comments here are really stumping me. The commenter who said a book should be written for everyone, not just for women and their shoes seems to think that whoever the protagonist of a book is, their story will only have value to people exactly like them. Makes me wonder what I ever saw in Hercule Poirot. The comment that there should be no chick lit at all (or women's fiction, then?) sounds vaguely mysoginistic, which surprises me here at Double X. I read Slate, I listen to the podcasts, and I just think this place is smarter than that. I know it is. So. A question:
Why is it okay for Stephen King to write about grisly evil, for Tom Clancy to write about spies, for Augusten Burroughs to write about his tragic childhood, but it's not okay for Sarah (or me, or hundreds of other writers) to write about women? The heroine in my first novel - marketed as chick lit - was a divorced victim of domestic abuse. No shoes. No high-paying NYC job in publishing. No credit card debt. Yet it was still marketed as chick lit, and hence, there's a snap judgment without reading it that the story has no value. I don't mind people who read my work telling me they thought it was dumb, that's fair. That's opinion. This is just ignorance.
There's nothing in Sarah's article that validates this vitriol, and I find it sad that for all the hatred in these comments, no one is arguing what we should be talking about - the fact that fiction about women is automatically viewed as less valuable on its face, and having no value at all if the woman dares to have a happy ending. That would make for a much more interesting discussion.
Not quite there yet
By: Clobbersaurus | Wed, 08/12/2009 - 13:03
How about we have NO "Chick-lit". How about we stop separating ourselves from everyone and try to write something that relates to everyone? You hit that point on the head in your own article - that recession is a driving plot designer. What you really meant to say was "recession brings us together (or tears us apart) and helps us all rethink and relate to one another". Whenever you pull off your blinders and think outside of the "I'm a female, I only relate to female audiences" box, you might discover a better sort of life than one cranking out books about a Single, Female lawyer (a certain Futurama reference there). I know, she had a husband. But the point remains. You write for a limited audience, expect to make limited money, receive limited praise, limited exposure and thus wield limited influence. You like Dickens, huh? Notice how the focus in his novels isn't always about a character struggling with everyday life? There are things bigger than your everyday troubles.
People who write affecting novels in recession-times NEVER did it about one single, female character and how her "conversation style" changed at a party. There was more depth to it than a simple "let's use one woman's example as a microcosm for society". Changing the conversation at a party? Wow, is that supposed to be some sort of deep symbolism??? Let's see, they still talk about...money, don't they? They're still BORING. Your attempt at 'reaching something new' is hardly an example to follow for other would-be writers. Let's see some real imagination, let's see someoene at the party tell a great story that doesn't involve snoozer-material like "how your 401k is dwindling, boo hoo hoo".
Like the rest of America and its genius writers, you're just another 'trend-spotter'. Like chick-lit hasn't been suffering since the START of the recession in 2007. You're 2 years late! But congrats on being another academic whose 'study' concludes with "we need more work here" or "______ field needs to re-invent itself". But then again, your party scene tells that perfectly - getting a glimmer of an idea does not count as executing that idea in itself.
you helped kill chick lit
By: Smokey78 | Wed, 08/12/2009 - 12:01
Oh my, do rich women really worry about the jewels they will wear when on bedrest? ANd here I thought they'd be more worried about their babies. And who really rents a yacht at 2k a day? And even before the recession... I know alot of lawyers, they make a good wage but they couldn't afford a yacht, even for a few days.
The reason chick lit is suffering is due, in large part, to the completely unsympathetic and unrelatable characters contained on their pages. I know it is more difficult to write about characters who have lives that more closely mirror those of the women reading the literature,but the end product is far more enjoyable. I've read a few of these gems and I have looked for more but to no avail.
One can relate to some of the characters, but far too often the characters are all very wealthy (or are dating, marrying, or breaking up with wealthy men) and their lives are charmed with beauty and ivy league degrees.
This sort of whiny article is precisely why the writers of chick lit are so embarassed. They should be. They write frivolous books that are basically identical to each other in content and then want to be taken seriously. I'm not saying that the books themselves have to be serious, they should be light and wacky, but at least write about characters that one can identify and sympathize with. Make me want to care about those characters and I will buy your book. Making me wish that an anvil would fall on your characters "perfectly coifed" hair is no way to sell a book.
American version?
By: cab_codespring | Wed, 08/12/2009 - 11:22
Why does there have to be an American version? I would much rather read the UK version. I don't want to read the American version, I get enough America living here.
The Self-Hatred of Chick Lit Writers
By: LaniDianeRich | Wed, 08/12/2009 - 10:39
Hello, Sarah! It's nice to meet you and I enjoyed your article. I wish you the best of luck with the American release of your book, and it's an interesting take on the process of revision. Been there, baby.
What always bothers me, however, is the knee-jerk self-hatred that comes with writing any women's fiction that features a female protagonist between the ages of 18-30. The previous commenter's attitude toward all fiction that may fall into this category is exhibit #1. How often are you told, by people who have never read you and don't know anything about your work, that what you do is useless and meaningless?
I write humorous women's fiction and romantic comedy, and I'm shocked by how often I'm expected to apologize for this, as though I'm committing some act of treason against the very institution of literature. Whatever. People who are too ignorant to keep an open mind that good work comes in all genres are really not my concern; they're not my reader and they never will be. What bothers me is what we think of ourselves. Here you are Sarah, one of our own - "We are not about to turn into Gaskell or Eliot" - taking time out of your article to say you're not a real writer because you choose to write about a woman who doesn't throw herself in front of a train at the end.
I spend so much time drilling into my students that if they don't think they're great writers, if they're not willing to say, "I'm a great writer and what I write is important," then they shouldn't be wasting their readers' time. Because if you don't think what you write is worthy, then why should I? Or anyone else? If we, when discussing what we do, say, "Well, I'm certainly not Dickens or Austen," then we are letting the ignorant people who dismiss us en masse without reading us tell us what our value is.
We write women's fiction, stories for women about the things that matter to women. We write about emotion, family, community, growth. Are some of the books silly? Sure. Becky Bloomwood is probably not going to be considered one of the great philosophers of the generation, but is philosophy the only value that matters? Making people laugh when they're depressed is a value; making them cry when they can't express that emotion elsewhere is a value; giving hope and happiness is a value. But these things are not valued by the literary elite, and readers apologize for enjoying it, and we writers kick ourselves so they don't have to waste their valuable, important, philosophizing time doing it for us.
And the truth is, we are Dickens and Austen, more than we may realize; neither one of them was respected in their lifetimes, either.
So continue writing, Sarah, and I wish you the best of luck in everything. But please, stop saying what you're not, and be damn proud of what you are. If someone wants to take you down, make them break a sweat doing it. There's no need to swing back, just stand your ground and say, "I'm a great writer, and I don't give a crap what you think."
Chic LIt was never relevant
By: Sisi | Wed, 08/12/2009 - 08:05
I've tried desperately to find a writer who portrayed the lives of women in as humorous and realistic way as Helen Fielding did in Bridget Jones. But even then Bridget just HAD to fall in love with a very wealthy man.
Recession or not most novels, like the ones written by this author, have ZERO appeal to me. As do the Shopaholic books. THey are nothing but too thin, too pretty and too fashionable women getting in trouble and finding some rich man to save them from their foibles. The women are always doctors, lawyers, or writers. Women are also teachers, social workers, accountants and engineers. Some work in retail. And being 10 pounds overweight is not overweight. Why can't a women who is a 100 pounds overweight be a heroine? Why can't she have an average life, introduce some romance and excitement into the lives of middle class average heroines. And they need not be saved by rich men, they could fall in love and be 'saved" by nice average guys.
Its easy to write about glitz, glamour and yachts. Its a real challenge to find a story in real life.
Don't waste your time cutting up the party scene in your book, it won't sell any better b/c it sounds like a waste of time to read.