Boys are not just girls continued

When you’re a female writer who ignored her younger brother and never had a son and you want to write a book that will appeal to male readers, research takes on a whole new meaning. Or maybe that was an advantage. The teenage females and males had to be realistic and they had to be today’s youths. Too much knowledge might have led me to try utilizing my memory of the way things were when I was younger. Instead, I had to work hard on discovering how kids are TODAY. While I never tried to dress in boys clothing or walk into the men’s room, I spent a month waking up each morning and reminding myself that I was a boy. By that I meant spend the day seeing life as if I were a seventeen year old boy. (And an alpha male at that) It was hard at first, but after a few weeks I really slipped into the role. I even began viewing teenage girls through new eyes. (I promise I’m back to normal now.) I hung around teen boys and mixed groups, flagrantly eavesdropped and especially noted the differences between the way they acted with girls present and without.


Here are some points I used to keep both sets of readers interested:

1. Accept gender differences when building the major characters. As much as we adults may wish our kids were gender neutral, they aren’t. Girl protagonists can be tomboys, boy protagonists cannot be wimps. While it will always be true that girl readers love the hot hunk, they will also take a guy with a “softer side.” Male readers will be turned off.

2. Did everything I could to keep up the pacing and insert micro-tension to keep readers wondering now only how major plot points would be resolved by the end of the story, but, more importantly, the immediate issue of what would happen on the next page.

3. Give the guy strong male friendships. In PULL, I handed the hero two male friends, and they bonded the old-fashioned way, through physical competition. Girls may become BFF’s by talking and common interests, boys usually bond via activity.

4. In addition to being an alpha, my hero is also a tortured soul. He’s a guy who needs the love and support of a good woman—meaning the female reader can mentally insert herself into that role, and the male reader can understand his feelings about the girls in his life.

5. The villain is almost as hot as the hero. As my villain and villain battle for supremacy in school, sports and the heart of the heroine, there is also a not-so-subtle battle in the female reader’s mind over which is the hottest hunk, just to be sure both genders remain interested.

6. Finally, just for the female readers, I handed the hero younger sisters. This gave the added benefit of possibly appealing to MG readers. The fourteen-year-old sister is tough, not butch, but definitely someone capable of being pals with a guy as well as a girl female readers can like and worry about.

Did I succeed in creating a book that both young women and men will enjoy reading? Readers will tell me soon enough when it goes on sale at the end of October. But word from my trial readers were good, at least no one called David a wuss. And I guarantee I received some benefits just from the effort. I’ve learned to love today’s music and found some new teen and tween friends.

No, boys are NOT just girls with a few anatomical differences

Because my debut novel is a first person coming of age and YA romance written entirely from the male's POV, I am sometimes asked what the differences are in writing with a male vs female protagonist. To  me this goes farther. I wanted not just to write from the guy's point of view, but to be realistic enough to attract male readers while not turning away female readers. Actions, activities and motivations that attract and even captivate a young female reader can completely turn off a young male, making the effort a delicate tight-rope.

First, I had to keep in mind that boys are not just girls. Not even when you take the obvious anatomical differences into consideration. The medical and phsycological experts I spoke to during the research phase of writing PULL left me convinced. Evolution has wired guys differently.  Show don't tell is slightly different when trying to reach a male who is primarily sight-oriented. I was told again and again my young male would not care about differences in smells or textures - and if he even noticed them the male reader would consider him a wimp and lose interest. On the other hand, the female reader would want to know that different perfumes or fashions would effect him. They do--the fashions at least--depending on exactly how much of her they show.  Meaning I had to be careful not to turn the girls off by revealing what guys are REALLY thinking. Girls are still the majority readers and I did not want to risk alienating them in my quest for reality.

I originally intended PULL to be traditional third person with alternating POV's between the hero and heroine. I think the struggle to do the male POV is what changed that decision. It was easier to actually become him doing first person. And suddenly I decided it was important to stay him, and to let readers of both genders see the heroine and her arc through his eyes.

I also had to keep an eye on the basic rules of writing for young adults. Their books need tight writing and strong hooks. The plural is deliberate. You have to hook a younger reader and then hook them again and again. If you want to write for young adult male readers the task is even harder. The hooks have to be stronger and more plentiful, filled with enough tension and action to keep those pages turning.

At a recent conference I heard an editor say that “readers are rude.” This was not meant in a bad way. She was stressing that a reader can, and frequently will, put down our books and never pick them up again. If the pace slows, or characterization isn’t strong, or activity fails to move the story forward, or the action is motiveless or the motive is confusing, or any of a dozen other reasons, a reader will drop you. Especially a young adult reader.


In a way writing for young adults is more difficult than writing for adults. YA’s are less tolerant of pacing and characterization issues and they catch on faster if we’re pretending to understand their world. We aren’t writing down to kids, we have to write as if we were kids. And we have to remember the fast pace of our competitors, the other things that draw on their time and attention. And we have to supply them with a steady stream of “good parts” to keep a reader engaged. Adults may have learned patience and be willing to live with delayed gratification. Our tween and teen readers are likely to demand that ALL parts be good parts.

To complicate things, a young male and young female definitions for good parts may overlap, but will not be identical. As middle graders, both genders have similar likes and dislikes. But as they hit adolescence and beyond, that changes. Fortunately there is still some overlap

Next: What I did to make PULL good for both genders