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Writing Between the Sexes
“Why can’t a woman be more like a man?”--Professor Henry Higgins, My Fair LadyMen and women think, talk, and act differently – which causes problems for writers who are trying to create characters of the opposite sex.When we understand the difference between behaviors and attitudes that are seen as “masculine” or “feminine,” we can use those behaviors and patterns to create characters who are plausible and unique, but not stereotypical. Each person displays unique qualities, influenced by upbringing, family of origin, ethnicity, education, profession, and experience. These behaviors are so ingrained in us that the characters we create often act, think, and talk just as we do – whether or not that’s convincing for the character.Writing Between the Sexes will help you to identify your own gender-specific behaviors, notice those of the opposite sex as well as of other people who are different from you, and use your observations to make your characters realistic and believable.Leigh Michaels is the award-winning author of more than 100 books, including historical romance, contemporary romance, and books about writing. Her books have been published in 27 languages and 120 countries, with more than 35 million copies in print.
- GenresWriting
47 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 13, 2010
3 people are currently reading
222 people want to read
About the author
Leigh Michaels
351 books173 followersLeigh Michaels is the pseudonym used by LeAnn Lemberger (b. July 27 in Iowa, United States), a popular United States writer of over 85 romance novels. She has published with Harlequin, Sourcebooks, Montlake Romance, Writers Digest Books, and Arcadia Publishing. She teaches romance writing at Gotham Writers' Workshop (www.writingclasses.com) She is the author of On Writing Romance.
When Leigh was fifteen she wrote her first romance novel and burned it. She burned five more complete manuscripts before submitting to a publisher. The first submission was accepted by Harlequin, the only publisher to look at it, and was published in 1984.
Michaels was born in Iowa, United States. She received a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, after three years of study and maintained a 3.93 grade-point average. She received the Robert Bliss Award as top-ranking senior in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and won a national William Randolph Hearst Award for feature-writing as an undergraduate.
She is married to Michael W. Lemberger, an artist-photographer.
When Leigh was fifteen she wrote her first romance novel and burned it. She burned five more complete manuscripts before submitting to a publisher. The first submission was accepted by Harlequin, the only publisher to look at it, and was published in 1984.
Michaels was born in Iowa, United States. She received a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, after three years of study and maintained a 3.93 grade-point average. She received the Robert Bliss Award as top-ranking senior in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and won a national William Randolph Hearst Award for feature-writing as an undergraduate.
She is married to Michael W. Lemberger, an artist-photographer.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 7, 2012
First of all, the mandatory disclosure:
I am the narrator of the audiobook version of this work. I took on the project because, as a writer, it was intriguing, and as a reader, I knew instinctively that much of what Leigh Michaels had to say was spot-on.
Back in ye olde college days, I did a small research project on gender differences, and it has always been a subject of interest to me.
Plus I just plain love women, and have been on a never-ending quest to understand and communicate with them. Hopeless, I know, but still . . . one must try.
With all that said, Writing Between the Sexes is a short, very easy to read, understand, and use resource for anyone and everyone who reads or writes for a living, either directly or indirectly.
Much of the material and the examples given (by necessity) involve very wide generalizations, but this is to be expected when tackling a topic as broad as gender differences in language.
Of her many real-world examples, two stood out for me recently. The first involved a crime drama show that I was watching the other day, where the malefactor was publicly detailing his contrition for his wrongdoing.
Like a politician, he went on and on, blah blah, "If anyone was hurt, certainly that was no one's intention, blah blah." Then he finished his statement by saying, "I apologize." At that moment, I was applauding the writing, because as Leigh demonstrates in her book, men are much more likely to use the phrase "I apologize" than they are to say "I'm sorry," and the character's use of the gender "correct" phrase made the whole scene ring true. As a viewer, my emotions were played just so, (and just as the writer intended) as I was left thinking "That scumbag wasn't 'sorry' for anything, except perhaps getting caught."
Another example I found in reading an excerpt that was recommended to me by an author, it was a space-opera featuring a female protagonist/heroine. As I read the excerpt, supposedly in the first-person voice of our heroine, of course she was in the shower, and as she left and toweled off, she just had to mentally summarize her stunning good lucks and taut body for us, the reader.
How many guesses do you need to determine the gender of the author? Keep in mind, this was before I had read Writing Between the Sexes, but I was immediately "turned-off" by this obviously gender-irrelevant prose, and I could not bring myself to read further.
Of course some female writers are guilty of the same offenses when describing actions by their male characters. They use dialogue and situations that are simply "incredible" and unrealistic to most male readers.
After reading this book, I revisited my own WIP, (my first attempt at fiction, BTW) and wrote a scene where my female character looked at herself in the mirror:
What do you think? Does it "sound" like something a young woman would say and think?
If so, then I have Leigh Michaels to thank, because the first paragraph of my example is a lesson I learned from her book, that is, MOST women DON'T look in the mirror and think "Damn, I'm fine!"
In summary, I enjoyed narrating the book, and although I had hoped that I would learn something from it, I was pleasantly surprised by how much knowledge I did gain, especially with regard to writing gender-realistic dialogue.
I highly recommend Writing Between the Sexes, because it is an interesting, engaging, and just plain fun resource for everyone who writes for a living, or who wants to "get inside the heads" of the other side.
I am the narrator of the audiobook version of this work. I took on the project because, as a writer, it was intriguing, and as a reader, I knew instinctively that much of what Leigh Michaels had to say was spot-on.
Back in ye olde college days, I did a small research project on gender differences, and it has always been a subject of interest to me.
Plus I just plain love women, and have been on a never-ending quest to understand and communicate with them. Hopeless, I know, but still . . . one must try.
With all that said, Writing Between the Sexes is a short, very easy to read, understand, and use resource for anyone and everyone who reads or writes for a living, either directly or indirectly.
Much of the material and the examples given (by necessity) involve very wide generalizations, but this is to be expected when tackling a topic as broad as gender differences in language.
Of her many real-world examples, two stood out for me recently. The first involved a crime drama show that I was watching the other day, where the malefactor was publicly detailing his contrition for his wrongdoing.
Like a politician, he went on and on, blah blah, "If anyone was hurt, certainly that was no one's intention, blah blah." Then he finished his statement by saying, "I apologize." At that moment, I was applauding the writing, because as Leigh demonstrates in her book, men are much more likely to use the phrase "I apologize" than they are to say "I'm sorry," and the character's use of the gender "correct" phrase made the whole scene ring true. As a viewer, my emotions were played just so, (and just as the writer intended) as I was left thinking "That scumbag wasn't 'sorry' for anything, except perhaps getting caught."
Another example I found in reading an excerpt that was recommended to me by an author, it was a space-opera featuring a female protagonist/heroine. As I read the excerpt, supposedly in the first-person voice of our heroine, of course she was in the shower, and as she left and toweled off, she just had to mentally summarize her stunning good lucks and taut body for us, the reader.
How many guesses do you need to determine the gender of the author? Keep in mind, this was before I had read Writing Between the Sexes, but I was immediately "turned-off" by this obviously gender-irrelevant prose, and I could not bring myself to read further.
Of course some female writers are guilty of the same offenses when describing actions by their male characters. They use dialogue and situations that are simply "incredible" and unrealistic to most male readers.
After reading this book, I revisited my own WIP, (my first attempt at fiction, BTW) and wrote a scene where my female character looked at herself in the mirror:
As Stephanie drove home, she thought about what Rob had said. She checked her face in the mirror, and wondered how she could look five years older now than she did only a few hours ago. Between the stress lines, worry lines, crow’s feet, and just plain wrinkles, there was hardly any face left.
My God, I’m a hundred years old. I don’t know what Rob sees in me. We couldn’t be more different. He sees life in ways I can’t imagine, and he’s clueless about what’s really real. When I try to help him understand his feelings, to get him to talk about them, I only end up hurting him more. Doesn’t he know that keeping things buried inside will only make them worse?
Men.
What do you think? Does it "sound" like something a young woman would say and think?
If so, then I have Leigh Michaels to thank, because the first paragraph of my example is a lesson I learned from her book, that is, MOST women DON'T look in the mirror and think "Damn, I'm fine!"
In summary, I enjoyed narrating the book, and although I had hoped that I would learn something from it, I was pleasantly surprised by how much knowledge I did gain, especially with regard to writing gender-realistic dialogue.
I highly recommend Writing Between the Sexes, because it is an interesting, engaging, and just plain fun resource for everyone who writes for a living, or who wants to "get inside the heads" of the other side.
January 21, 2013
I won this book in the Firstreads giveaway and was not disappointed. Michaels is a prolific writer and really knows her stuff when it comes to identifying the differences in actions, speech patterns and body language between her male and female characters. I am impressed by how much information she was able to stuff into this slim 52 page instructional guide.
It bothers me when an author comes up with a clever and an interesting setting, then creates characters with inauthentic voices or actions. Michaels reviews the different ways men and women behave, from eye contact (or lack of by men unless they want to be confrontational) to statements vs questions, empathy vs problem solving.
One of the reasons I tend to avoid male fiction writers is the painful way they portray their female characters. There are exceptions (Cody McFadyen's Smokey Barrett is so well written I remember checking the authors bio, convinced I was reading a book written by a woman) but too often men don't give women the depth of understanding/empathy they deserve. Women authors can screw up too by making their male leads into the idealized men they'd like them to be and failing at building their perfect Ken doll. Not all men have to be alphas, but there are characteristics men share. That need to protect, inability to ask for directions and speech patterns that tend towards statements rather than questions are all discussed in this handy guide.
If her online seminars on writing are as good as this small manual, I may be signing up for some writing tips myself in the near future.
It bothers me when an author comes up with a clever and an interesting setting, then creates characters with inauthentic voices or actions. Michaels reviews the different ways men and women behave, from eye contact (or lack of by men unless they want to be confrontational) to statements vs questions, empathy vs problem solving.
One of the reasons I tend to avoid male fiction writers is the painful way they portray their female characters. There are exceptions (Cody McFadyen's Smokey Barrett is so well written I remember checking the authors bio, convinced I was reading a book written by a woman) but too often men don't give women the depth of understanding/empathy they deserve. Women authors can screw up too by making their male leads into the idealized men they'd like them to be and failing at building their perfect Ken doll. Not all men have to be alphas, but there are characteristics men share. That need to protect, inability to ask for directions and speech patterns that tend towards statements rather than questions are all discussed in this handy guide.
If her online seminars on writing are as good as this small manual, I may be signing up for some writing tips myself in the near future.
March 22, 2016
3.5 Stars for a quick guide to differences between the sexes.
This would be impossible to write without rubbing a woman or a man the wrong way, as it has to be stereotypical to be of any value. The author is explicit about that though and I feel like she balanced it quite well.
This is in a brief, summarized format. For people who are really not attentive to details this can be a useful guide.
This would be impossible to write without rubbing a woman or a man the wrong way, as it has to be stereotypical to be of any value. The author is explicit about that though and I feel like she balanced it quite well.
This is in a brief, summarized format. For people who are really not attentive to details this can be a useful guide.
May 12, 2015
I read this because I heard the author give a presentation at Kentucky Romance writers. The book is an interesting take on how the differences between men and women come into play and what we read I recommend it.
February 24, 2023
3,5
Interessante, ma forse troppo bianco/nero. È vero in linea generale che gli uomini si fanno meno paranoie mentali e parlano di meno rispetto alle donne, ma esistono anche le zone grigie.
Interessante, ma forse troppo bianco/nero. È vero in linea generale che gli uomini si fanno meno paranoie mentali e parlano di meno rispetto alle donne, ma esistono anche le zone grigie.
June 10, 2012
Pretty good at pointing out the general differences between how men and women think. Although nothing is ever set in stone. XD
December 18, 2022
A really great guide with real world examples of how to create dialogue between the sexes that can help you focus on the romance and fraternization writers are often in search of.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews