Does the gender of a YA author affect the reception and expectations of the readers for the books and characters that they write? > Likes and Comments

I am researching whether or not the gender of an author, if they're male or female, affects anything that readers expect about their books and their characters. Who better to ask than fellow YA readers! For example, why is the phrase “a man written by a woman” used to describe a well-rounded, emotionally mature, charming, and supportive male character in the YA reading community? Do you use that term? If a male character is written by a woman, does that affect how you see that male character, same for female characters written by men? I am really curious what you guys think!

For me personally, not even a little bit. I only care about the author's name if I've read their work and have a preconceived notion on them as a writer particularly. I will say that I read female authors most often (except for in comics), but I think that has more to do with my genre and trope preferences than it does me preferring female authored books.

As a male writer who is heavily (if incidentally) heavily influenced by female authors and currently halfway through a second draft of a YA book, I am interested in your results.

Tommy wrote: "For me personally, not even a little bit. I only care about the author's name if I've read their work and have a preconceived notion on them as a writer particularly. I will say that I read female ..."

What genre and tropes do you read that have a lot of female authors? I think that is really interesting

imo not at all. i’ve mistaken authors’ genders many times just based on their names. tbh i don’t really think about an author’s gender when i’m reading unless there’s a specific reason to. (in certain situations i understand why people might, though) lmk your results tho :)

Ohhh, I have so many thoughts, hahahaha! For me, I find that most women write about men (unless the point of the book is to be brutal) realistically and even at times flattering, whereas men write about women in a fantastical, unrealistic expectations, and at times demeaning way. I think the reason you see phrases such as "a woman written by a man" or "a man written by a female" is because it can be challenging to always talk about a subject that you aren't intimately aware of. However, women do that part better.
When it comes to respecting work, men always get the benefit of the doubt. Where Game of Thrones, which has tons of explicit and non-consensual scenes, and also has dragons, love triangles, is frequently about teen/younger characters, etc. is heralded as a great literary work, but Rebecca Yarros who writes similar tropes is considered to be writing smut (not as smutty as Martin) and isn't taken seriously as a writer.
I have so many more thoughts, but I will leave it at that for now.

Sorry for the late reply.

For the sake of simplicity and brevity, my lean towards male comics creators and female novelists is more about demographics than anything else. In general, more men make comics, and more women write YA series (my preferred books). So, when I read one, odds are it's written by a male writer, and if I read YA it is written by a female (or non-male-identifying) author.

That said, the creator matters very little to me in general.

I will say, off bat, Bailey is correct about her GOT vs. Fourth Wing observations, though, so clearly people have opinions that don't mesh with mine haha.

I have two minds about this but I'm fairly new to the writing scene so please take what I say with a pinch of salt. As a female author I have seen male authors being given more grace for writing certain themes and genres than female authors do for writing in the exact same genres. I'm aware of the whole epic fantasy vs romantasy debate. That a fantasy book written by a man that contains romantic elements is seen as epic fantasy but it is seen as romantasy or smut if it is written by a woman even though it has the exact same themes. The industry can be hypocritical at times in how it deals with male and female authors but that's an entirely different topic altogether.

Speaking as a reader, the author's gender doesn't make a difference to me at all. I prefer to let their work speak for itself and if I like their work I'll look for other works of theirs. An author's gender or any other characteristics aren't deciding factors for me. Authors of certain demographics are generally better at writing characters that have the same or similar experiences but there are some authors who can write characters that are different backgrounds to them incredibly well. It's why authors shouldn't be judged by characteristics like gender and be judged solely on their work.

As a male indie author who just wrote his first book with a 16-year-old female main character, I worried about this. I feared I wouldn't feel as connected to the character, but I was so wrong. I had a great time writing Willow. She's feisty, dark, snarky, and proud of not being a pushover. Very quickly, Willow became someone I adore and understand deeply. I cried while writing scenes where she misses her mom and is angry at her father for leaving her alone to grieve her death. Just to be sure, I had my daughter give me feedback along the way, and she thought I did a great job, and I'm really happy with the story overall. It's also very inclusive and supportive of diversity (as I think all books should be).

The Road Beside just received a Kirkus starred review and a BookLife editor's pick. It's available to read for free on NetGalley if anyone wants to check it out. Love to hear your thoughts.

Sarah wrote: "I have two minds about this but I'm fairly new to the writing scene so please take what I say with a pinch of salt. As a female author I have seen male authors being given more grace for writing ce..."

I'm basically 100% with you (from a writing and reading perspective) on both paragraphs. I acknowledge the biases, while not holding them myself.

Food for thought: I wonder what percentage of these biases (such as GOT being epic fantasy and Fourth Wing Romantasy) has to do with the marketing of the publishers, rather than the biases of readers? Basically, maybe GOT is on the "men's fantasy" shelf, and Fourth Wing on the "women's fantasy" shelf has to do with them thinking that readers care more about such things than we really do?