What's the difference between man-writing and woman-writing?

[TheEarl]

Off another thread:

It's been espoused that men and women tend to have different writing styles, not universally, but speaking about broad strokes. I'm kinda curious as to how people think the writing's different. Is it a case of going with more emotions than actions, using different words, using different sentence structure or what?

I'm on the fence. On the one hand, men and women's brains work very differently, but on the other, I think good character writing involves you thinking with the brain of the character, rather than with your own. I'd like to hear POVs.

The Earl

 

[kendo1]

There was a thread about this maybe 6 months ago, and it was suggested that some AH'ers should write a piece and the others would try to figure out if the authour was male or female. Shanglan aside!

It seemed that male writers were more interested in detail, females in emotions.

There. That should start you off!

 

[domjoe]

Off another thread:

It's been espoused that men and women tend to have different writing styles, not universally, but speaking about broad strokes. I'm kinda curious as to how people think the writing's different. Is it a case of going with more emotions than actions, using different words, using different sentence structure or what?

I'm on the fence. On the one hand, men and women's brains work very differently, but on the other, I think good character writing involves you thinking with the brain of the character, rather than with your own. I'd like to hear POVs.

The Earl

AH Thread Archiver should be here. There was a good thread on this a while back. It was a "guess the gender" challenge. It's suprisingly easy, with a few notable exceptions, to guess a lit author's gender from their writing style.

 

[CharleyH]

Off another thread:

It's been espoused that men and women tend to have different writing styles, not universally, but speaking about broad strokes. I'm kinda curious as to how people think the writing's different. Is it a case of going with more emotions than actions, using different words, using different sentence structure or what?

I'm on the fence. On the one hand, men and women's brains work very differently, but on the other, I think good character writing involves you thinking with the brain of the character, rather than with your own. I'd like to hear POVs.

The Earl

Hard to pinpoint, since there are many who transcend ... but on Lit? The top stories? Men write geared toward how big the tits are, and how she got off because of his big dick. Men (straight) write to get MEN off, rather homoerotic if I don't say so, and women write to get themselves off. That is probably the biggest difference.

 

[kendo1]

And Shanglan?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Off another thread:

It's been espoused that men and women tend to have different writing styles, not universally, but speaking about broad strokes. I'm kinda curious as to how people think the writing's different. Is it a case of going with more emotions than actions, using different words, using different sentence structure or what?

I'm on the fence. On the one hand, men and women's brains work very differently, but on the other, I think good character writing involves you thinking with the brain of the character, rather than with your own. I'd like to hear POVs.

The Earl

It's very hard to articulate. Much like there are elements of style that are hard to articulate.

It isn't a great example, but Cloudy writes with a certain feel. I can't put it into words, but when she asks me to look at something, I can tell where she is having trouble, simply because the passages feel wrong. More often than not, without her even having to tell me where she is having trouble I can tell by the feel. But there is no one element or single sytlistic idea that I can pinpoint as that feel. I just know if I can feel it or if I can't.

Shang, on the other hand, is a fine example of someone who writes in a gender neutral maner. I don't get the feelig I've read a work by a man. nor do I get the feling I've read a work by a woman. I get the feeling I've read a work by an excellent author. With harkens back to your observation on character writing being more about being in the character's head than your own.

Still, you can often tell. I just can't imagine anyone reading a story by Lucky or Mats and going, yep, a man defintely wrote that. Partly genre of course, but partly the feel of the works.

I wish I had a more concrete answer, but I really don't. That doesn't make my convicition any less.

 

[domjoe]

It's very hard to articulate. Much like there are elements of style that are hard to articulate.

It isn't a great example, but Cloudy writes with a certain feel. I can't put it into words, but when she asks me to look at something, I can tell where she is having trouble, simply because the passages feel wrong. More often than not, without her even having to tell me where she is having trouble I can tell by the feel. But there is no one element or single sytlistic idea that I can pinpoint as that feel. I just know if I can feel it or if I can't.

Shang, on the other hand, is a fine example of someone who writes in a gender neutral maner. I don't get the feelig I've read a work by a man. nor do I get the feling I've read a work by a woman. I get the feeling I've read a work by an excellent author. With harkens back to your observation on character writing being more about being in the character's head than your own.

Still, you can often tell. I just can't imagine anyone reading a story by Lucky or Mats and going, yep, a man defintely wrote that. Partly genre of course, but partly the feel of the works.

I wish I had a more concrete answer, but I really don't. That doesn't make my convicition any less.

I have a basic rule of thumb when trying to guess (which admittedly fails often), which is that male writers using more visual and action words, and fewer "feeling" or sensation words, than do female writers.

 

[Liar]

Since I once got a feedback email (from a reader that hadn't looked at my gender in the profile and for some reason assumed I was a woman) that expressed how impressed she was that I could write so convincingly from a male POV, I don't know what to think about this.

I guess there might be tendencies on a very general scale, but I can't tell if it's a man or a woman who have written something unless I know that before reading. I tend to assume that a male protagonist is written by a man and a female one by a woman, even in 3rd person POV, but I can't say if the characteristics in themes and language differ.

 

[CharleyH]

Shang, on the other hand, is a fine example of someone who writes in a gender neutral maner.

How so? Shang seems to write from a male view - as much as I have seen in Camlann and in SDC and others, as well as story discussion? I am interested if Shanglan does not mind our banter about his stories, how you see them as gender neutral, Colly? Not saying you are wrong - only that I like to see in a new way.

 

[carsonshepherd]

This might be of interest to you, Earl. I ran three of my stories through it and it guessed female on all three.

Gender Genie

 

[Liar]

This might be of interest to you, Earl. I ran three of my stories through it and it guessed female on all three.

Gender Genie

Interresting link. It seems I'm a woman after all.

 

[Evil Alpaca]

Off another thread:

It's been espoused that men and women tend to have different writing styles, not universally, but speaking about broad strokes. I'm kinda curious as to how people think the writing's different. Is it a case of going with more emotions than actions, using different words, using different sentence structure or what?

I'm on the fence. On the one hand, men and women's brains work very differently, but on the other, I think good character writing involves you thinking with the brain of the character, rather than with your own. I'd like to hear POVs.

The Earl

Men and women's writing styles are very different. It's probably harder to masturbate and type if you're a woman. Anyone written porn, gotten a sex change and then written more porn? We need a within-subjects sample.

 

[Guest]

Hard to pinpoint, since there are many who transcend ... but on Lit? The top stories? Men write geared toward how big the tits are, and how she got off because of his big dick. Men (straight) write to get MEN off, rather homoerotic if I don't say so, and women write to get themselves off. That is probably the biggest difference.

Darnoel says he resents that and you dont know nothin so there.

Debbie

You dont get a heart cause I think your just trying to start another argyement.

 

[Guest]

Darnoel says he resents that and you dont know nothin so there.

Debbie

You dont get a heart cause I think your just trying to start another argyement.

No, what I said was that she's full of shit again.

 

[CharleyH]

Darnoel says he resents that and you dont know nothin so there.

Debbie

You dont get a heart cause I think your just trying to start another argyement.

Well Debbie, you are a beautiful porn queen DUFUS. So, lick me if you can find a clit.

 

[carsonshepherd]

Men (straight) write to get MEN off, rather homoerotic if I don't say so, and women write to get themselves off.

Ahahahah! I write to get women off because I know they'll be buying my novels some day!

 

[CharleyH]

Ahahahah! I write to get women off because I know they'll be buying my novels some day!

That's cuz' we get off on gay guys more than straight ones. NOW THERE is a discussion.

 

[NoJo]

This might be of interest to you, Earl. I ran three of my stories through it and it guessed female on all three.

Gender Genie

People here who've already tried it, should look at the Ratio of the Male vs Female Scores which appear just before the guess, rather than the overall guess at the gender. All my stories have prox the same ratio of around 1.1. So my stories are pretty much gender-neutral.

Less than 1 means male, grater than 1, female.

Example from one of my stories:

Female Score: 2007
Male Score: 1832

Ratio (which you have to calculate yourself): 1.0955


The statistical method used is related to the "lexical fingerprinting" techniques used by historians to establish the author of disputed literature -- famously passges of the bible and Shakespeare.

 

[Boxlicker101]

This might be of interest to you, Earl. I ran three of my stories through it and it guessed female on all three.

Gender Genie

I have run quite a few of my stories through this. On the gay male stories, it says I am a male. On everything else, it says I am a female. When I say it is wrong, it gives me an insulting reply.

I think one of the things it looks at is personal pronouns. I am not sure just what id does with them, because the gender of personal pronouns depends on the gender of the characters in the story.

 

[NoJo]

I have run quite a few of my stories through this. On the gay male stories, it says I am a male. On everything else, it says I am a female. When I say it is wrong, it gives me an insulting reply.

I think one of the things it looks at is personal pronouns. I am not sure just what id does with them, because the gender of personal pronouns depends on the gender of the characters in the story.

Besides personal pronouns, spatial words like "above" or "below" are deemed to be indicators of masculinity in writing.

It's obviously a lot easier to simply identify an author through their word usage than to say anything about that author's personalility or gender.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Besides personal pronouns, spatial words like "above" or "below" are deemed to be indicators of masculinity in writing.

It's obviously a lot easier to simply identify an author through their word usage than to say anything about that author's personalility or gender.

Pegs me as female on all but my sci-fi, fantasy and mil fiction.

 

[Pure]

there've been a couple threads on this.

one might read some of the investigators' papers. notions like 'feeling' or 'visual' were not used, nor specific anatomical terms, but less apparent wordings and phrasings including the word 'the', prepositions, etc.

of course, we're dealing with a 'generalization'; as the investigators admit, some females like AS Byatt write in a way that turns up 'male' by the chosen indicators.

lastly, the ability of a writer (in this forum) to 'fool' the program or anyone guessing, is not, imo, a relevant issue; once you know what's looked for, you can alter your scores, just like any test of your behavior or personality. our clever females, here, in reading 'male written' and 'male oriented' porn can easily come up with that stuff and 'appear' male.' (but that's quite a bit a matter of content, knowing what males like to read about. descriptors they generally like (enornous hard dick), etc.)

 

[Boota]

When I first posted my story and started getting feedback I was mistaken for a woman quite often. Boota is a non-gender specific name and I had no pics up. As soon as I told people I was a man they were surprised, but for the most part they believed me and let it go. Except for one lady, who insisted that I had to be female because of the way I wrote that story. I didn't realize I was writing any specific way as I was doing it, but I was writing it specifically for two women I personally knew. I was writing toward their tastes, so maybe that was it.

 

[NoJo]

I try to write my stories in a gender-neutral way, except when I get carried away.

 

[Stella_Omega]

That's an interesting toy, the gender genie. I like the confetti in the results page, makes the smut look so festive!
It guessed that my lesbian BDSM- which I think is exceptionally hardcore and almost masculine feeling ( except better written then men's lesbian hardcore) was female. And my dainty, sensitive, softcore, homoerotic story was written by a man.

One thing I noticed is that "she" is a feminine keyword, while "he" is not a keyword at all.
Was is feminine, is is masculine. Does this mean the men never write past tense??? That's a big surprise!