The 4 Pillars Of Women’s Fiction
Are you writing Women’s Fiction? In this post, we define women’s fiction and look at how the 4 Pillars of Women’s Fiction can improve your story.
We have written about:
- The 3 Pillars Of Horror
- The 4 Pillars Of Fantasy
- The 4 Pillars Of Romance
- The 5 Pillars Of Family Sagas
- The 5 Pillars Of Thrillers
- The 4 Pillars Of Literary Fiction
- The 4 Pillars Of Science Fiction
- The 5 Pillars Of Police Procedurals
- The 4 Pillars Of New Adult Fiction
- The 4 Pillars Of A Memoir
- The 5 Pillars Of Action-Adventure
- The 4 Pillars Of Magic Realism
- The 6 Pillars Of Westerns
- The 4 Pillars Of Women’s Fiction
- The 7 Pillars Of Historical Fiction
- The 5 Pillars Of Speculative Fiction
- The 6 Pillars Of Young Adult Fiction
In this post, we will be exploring the four pillars of Women’s Fiction. (Click on pillars to find out what a pillar is.)
Is ‘hate’ too strong a word to describe how some women authors feel about the label ‘Women’s Fiction’? Part of the distaste these authors feel stems from the fact that there isn’t a ‘Men’s Fiction’ label. It’s as if Men’s Fiction is ‘real’ books, while Women’s Fiction isn’t to be taken seriously.
Or is ‘Women’s Fiction’ merely a marketing tool? After all, 80% of all books are bought by women. According to British novelist and screenwriter, Ian McEwan, if women stopped reading, the novel would die out.
Before we talk about the pillars for Women’s Fiction, let’s look at the differences between that and Chick-Lit.
The Difference Between Chick-Lit And Women’s Fiction
a) What Is Chick-Lit?
Chick-Lit is primarily concerned with contemporary light-hearted stories written in a conversational tone, and are often humorous. Main characters are usually young career women. Plots often revolve around their dating lives and romantic escapades, friendships, career, and social lives. Self-improvement is also relevant but often only in the sense of how to attract their man-crush. Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding is a good example. Book covers tend to be bright, colourful, often playfully illustrated, with bold fonts. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But, in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë they are not.
Bridget Jones’s Diary book quote: Oh, God, I’m so lonely. An entire weekend stretching ahead with no one to love or have fun with. Anyway, I don’t care. I’ve got a lovely, steamed ginger pudding from M&S to put in the microwave.
b) What Is Women’s Fiction?
Women’s Fiction, on the other hand tend to have a deeper outlook and while they may also tackle love, family, and career, they are not surface level entertainment. They can still be amusing but there’s just more depth to them than in chick-lit. Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen is a good example. Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, Celeste Ng, Virginia Woolf, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Roxane Gay, Delia Owens, Liane Moriarty, Nicholas Sparks, Christy Lefteri, Neville Shute, Sally Rooney, Gillian Flynn, Jennifer Weiner, Edith Wharton, Ann Patchett, Jojo Moyes, Maria Semple, Rebecca Wells, and John Green are other examples of authors of women’s fiction.
Jane Eyre book quote: I stood lonely enough; but to that feeling of isolation I was accustomed; it did not oppress me much. I leaned against a pillar of the verandah, drew my gray mantle close about me, and trying to forget the cold which nipped me without, and the unsatisfied hunger which gnawed me within…
So, if chick-lit is not what you want to write, but your book is primarily about women then it might be useful to know…
On what pillars is Women’s Fiction constructed?
The 4 Pillars Of Women’s Fiction
Pillar 1. The Narrative Voice
In most cases, the voice in the book will be from a female perspective. However, a dual viewpoint is also often used, giving the reader a male perspective of the plot as well. While this is most often employed by male writers, it is a good way to appeal to male readers as well, so female writers shouldn’t ignore it. Some Woman’s Fiction is written purely from the male main character’s POV.
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks, set in both the 1940s and mid 1990s, is written partly in Noah Calhoun’s voice and partly in a limited third person POV and tells the story of Noah’s relationship with Allie. Both points of view allow the reader to interpret the action from both Noah and Allie’s point of view. This makes for a deeper and richer story. It also makes the story more emotional than Chick-Lit would be, or fiction books that men might be more drawn to, like anything by Tom Clancy.
The Notebook book quote: I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough…
Pillar 2. The Time Period
Chick-Lit is firmly entrenched in the here and now, while Women’s Fiction can be set in any era, past, present, or future. A popular time-period is World War II, when women were, of necessity, breaking out of the home-bound roles in which many of them had been stuck. Now, they were running farms, working in factories, and in the military albeit mostly in administration roles. There were exceptions; pilots, spies, code breakers, office managers, secretaries, factory workers, etc were some of the professions that women took on.
One of the most popular Women’s Fiction books, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, is set in the unspecified near-future and it certainly can’t be called Chick-Lit. It is a tour de force, at times funny, mostly horrifying, and altogether too real. The ‘worst’ thing about the book is that nothing in it has not happened in real life at one time or another to women.
The Handmaid’s Tale book quote: We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories.
Pillar 3. The Emotional Quotient
It would be safe to say that as women are more honest about their emotions, that Women’s Fiction is going to plumb the depths of that. Does it mean that the books will be hot messes of tears, rages, and temper tantrums. No.
What they will explore is the drama of the everyday as well as the depths of experience that women go through from childhood through to death and everything that happens in between.
Take, for example, The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Set in 1962s in Mississippi, The Help explores the lives of both the white women of a small town and the African American women who work for them. It is both funny and painfully sad at the same time. It’s a mirror that for some can be hard to look into thanks to its unflinching honesty. It tackles subjects such as racism, snobbery, narcissistic mothers, miscarriages, raising other people’s children, revenge and joy. It’s about the fences we put up and the fences that need to be torn down.
The Help book quote: Ever morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision. You gone have to ask yourself, “Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today?
Themes of Women’s Fiction include exploring the friendships between women. Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistlestop Café by Fannie Flagg and Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier are good examples. Family dynamics and romantic relationships are common themes, as in The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah.
Pillar 4. The Resilience Of Women
Alice Walker won a Pulitzer Prize for her stance against racism and sexism in books such as The Colour Purple. The book tells the story of a young, uneducated black girl named Celie whose life is filled with rape, the loss of her children, confusion, lynching, jazz clubs, and faith.
While this is not the experience of every female main character in Women’s Fiction it is a good example of the depths of experience that characters in the genre are sometimes called upon to tackle. This is not to say that the main female character starts out as heroic. They often are not, but as the book progresses the story documents her emotional journey leading to her personal growth and transformation.
The Colour Purple book quote: Well, I say, we all have to start somewhere if us want to do better, and our own self is what us have to hand.
Another example is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Orphaned at an early age, sent first to live with a cruel aunt, and then to a horrendous school, Jane eventually becomes the governess to a young French girl at Thornfield Hall where she meets Mr Rochester. When confronted with the option of either committing bigamy or living with Rochester as his mistress, Jane flees across the moors. Jane has nothing except her own sense of morality and strength of character to hold on to.
Jane Eyre book quote: I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils.
There are many different stories, different voices, different depths in Women’s Fiction, but these four pillars ungird them all. Unlike many books written by men for men in which the goal is action, Women’s Fiction can be said to have more emotional depth, and more human understanding, especially understanding of the inner lives while navigating the events that life and the world throw at her. Some definitions of Women’s Fiction say that the tone and endings of the books are sentimental, hopeful, and uplifting, but this is not true of all of Women’s Fiction and many of them are truly tragic, like My Year Of Rest And Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh.
The prevailing attitude that says Women’s Fiction is just more pages than Chick-Lit is wrong. While the book is primarily a historical romance, that fact that Zemindar by Valerie Fitzgerald is set in India before and during the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, means that staying alive is the main characters’ goal. The history, the landscape, the battles, and dreadful events of that time make this book much more than a mere romance. And as it is history, there is a lot within it that is relevant to today.
Zemindar book quote: I am also awe-struck – not by the evident heroism, but by the magnitude of the stupidity of human beings. Is all history merely the outcome, the artificially hallowed outcome, of a chance concatenation of ignorance and arrogance in some one character?
The Last Word
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by Elaine Dodge. Author of The Harcourts of Canada series and The Device Hunter, Elaine trained as a graphic designer, then worked in design, advertising, and broadcast television. She now creates content, mostly in written form, including ghost writing business books, for clients across the globe, but would much rather be drafting her books and short stories.
More Posts From Elaine
- The 6 Pillars Of Westerns
- How To Write A Bestselling Book
- How To Be Authentic As A Writer
- How To Use Contrast In Writing
- What Is Memory? & How To Use Memory In Writing
- How To Write Historically Correct Books Without Offending Modern Sensibilities
- Books That Didn’t Age Well
- Authors With Different Pen Names For Different Genres
- Authors With One Pen Name Across Different Genres
- Should You Use A Pen Name For Every Genre That You Write?
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