The blogosphere is exploding with attacks on chick lit.
Look here (and the several dozen responses that follow), here (ditto), here, and here (comment #2).
Look here and here for a few well-written responses.
The most interesting thing I’ve noted on all of these posts is that the people proclaiming the loudest about their dislike for the genre of chick lit said mainly that they didn’t like the fashion-obsession and the shopping and the stupid heroines and the deus ex machina happy endings and the plotless books. To my thinking, that’s like saying you don’t like romance because you hate books with arranged marriages or beautiful bluestocking heroines or rich heroes or secret babies. That is not what comprises the genre, folks.
But when someone tries to make that point by presenting examples of chick lit books that don’t have the qualities the chick-haters describe, the response was almost universally, “Oh, I don’t think of that as chick lit.”
Well, isn’t that convenient! It’s so much easier to dismiss an entire genre when you decide that any book that doesn’t have the qualities you dislike is not part of that genre.
Sheesh. This is why so many chick lit writers are disavowing their own genre, why my own editor is describing my book as “more than chick lit.” Isn’t it better to say that the genre is more than what the detractors are calling it? I’ve read flat, shallow chick lit books that I’ve disliked, and I’ve read riveting, deeply funny, deeply moving books about women growing into their lives and taking charge and saving themselves. One of my very good writing friends say that the true romance in chick lit is about loving yourself.
To misquote agent Lucienne Diver: “Don’t tell me that you space-set book with the phase-guns isn’t science fiction because it’s better than science fiction. Don’t put down your own genre.”
My book is chick lit. It’s a coming-of-age story about a young woman told in a tart, funny, confessional tone. She doesn’t go shopping (though I think I mention her picking up a package of underwear in chapter one), she’s not an idiot (though she could probably stand to brush up a bit on her literary critics), there’s suspense and drama and plot to spare and she’s going to have to fight pretty damn hard for her happy ending.
I do not write in the “shopping genre.” I write modern, funny, female-oriented coming-of-age stories. I don’t give a shit about shoes, but it’s still chick lit.
May 27th, 2005 at 2:06 pm
*applause* I had myself a field day over at Squawk Radio. Yet another diss on chick lit. Because reading all of eleven books qualifies one to comment on what comprises the genre and why it should be universally hated
And hey, I’m not writing chick lit. I’m writing flat-out romance with multicultural chick lit overtones. I trumpet that chick lit part very loudly, you understand.
And I love me my designer shoes.
Barb
May 27th, 2005 at 3:11 pm
I don’t mind genre writers who bash other genres, though I do mind it when they bash other genres to make themselves feel better about theirs. I don’t like people who bash something they have no experience with, but I don’t expect that to change. But I can’t for the life of me figure out why people would choose to define something based on the poorest examples of that something. Stereotype, much?
May 27th, 2005 at 3:20 pm
Yeah, cause I bet it never occurred to any of them to read the back covers…and then pick the ones that don’t mention shoes, if they don’t like the freakin’ shoe stories! [insert eye roll]
Great blog, Diana! You have a great way of expressing things and making a lot more sense than I do when I try to express them.
Shannon
May 27th, 2005 at 3:31 pm
Thanks for gathering all of the comments in one quick way to access it and catch up on what’s being said. I agree with you that it’s not right for someone to bash one genre over anothe genre. It’s simply a matter of taste and what one prefers. It’s like Mike Tyson said a while back (and yes, I realize he’s a dumbass, but this actually made sense): “If you don’t like it, turn off your television.” If you don’t like chick lit, don’t buy it. But you know what, there’s a great deal of people out there who DO like it and they read it. And the publishers are still buyig it and it’s selling…so someone likes it. Guess we have to also realize that this blog community is really quite small when you look at the big picture. It’s only a couple hundred people expressing their opinions on each other’s sites ad nauseum…so it’s not like there’s this great urban upheaval towards the genre. LOL! Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but when it’s misinformed and unresearched, it makes it less credible. Good blog, Diana.
As we founders of the Chick Lit Chapter said…”it’s all about the attitude.” It’s about a confidence, a sense of self-love, finding yourself and finding your way. I think Barb had a great response on Squawk Box (appropriately named *eg*) and you know…if you like it, read it. If you don’t, the stores are full of thousands of other books.
And I’ve loved shoes long before chick lit existed…way back to the days of my first patent leather shoes with the little buckles that I wore with the socks that had lace trim. *GG*
= )
May 27th, 2005 at 4:06 pm
Thanks Shannon — I feel like those in support of chick lit said all they could on a few of the sites I listed, and all the points that you all are making here — to the expected effect. I didn’t see much new there. ::shrug:: I’m not particularly interested in getting into a discussion about the pros and cons of chick lit, or about the pros and cons of bashing genres.
What I am really curious about is how one gets away with defining a genre solely based on the cons, as some of those posters were doing with their “I don’t think of [insert good novel here] as chick lit.” Anyone feel like ocmmenting on that?
May 27th, 2005 at 4:23 pm
Hehe, yes, it was me in that last blog who commented. I’ve been extremely vexed, after venturing out to buy some new books, and ending up with a stack of the most plotless books ever with the stupidest heroines ever. And having a pubbed friend tell me those were the hottest new stars and I’d better sit up and take notice. I was all like, so *this* is what I’m supposed to do if I want to fit in?
May 27th, 2005 at 4:44 pm
Why would you want to “fit in,” D? Don’t you want to stand out? I don’t think you should necessarily follow stars to become a star. I think you should write the best thing you can and create your own orbit. And I do think that quality counts for something. These books have a huge following, the fans will buy what comes out (a certain percentage will keep doing it, even if the quality drops), but if you write soemthing that knocks it out of the park, even the people who aren’t fans will take a look.
But the only point I’m trying to make here is that the genre is not defined by the qualities that the people who dislike the genre dislike. You say you write chick lit, right? Dark, thrilling, paranormal adventure chick lit. Their attitude seems to be that if it’s any good, it’s not chick lit.
That’s the part that doesn’t make sense to me.
May 27th, 2005 at 4:56 pm
I think, and have thought for awhile now, that this weird bashing of chick lit is really a jealousy thing. These other writers are threatened and pissed off that chick lit outselling their masterpieces!
Well, it’s a funny thing about supply and demand. You give the people what they want, they tend to buy it.
I also agree that it’s really a small and small minded community of writers that is spewing this anti-chick lit nonsense. I think the reading public is smart enough to make up their own minds about what they want to read.
And I do believe that there is really no such thing as bad publicity. All of this attention given to chick lit, even though it’s bashing it, ironically also draws attention to it, and probably doesn’t slow sales a bit, if anything, it might increase them.
Serves them right.
May 27th, 2005 at 4:57 pm
You linked to my bitching, but to be fair, shouldn’t you link to my follow-up post on the bitchery as well?
May 27th, 2005 at 5:05 pm
Candy, hon, what I keep saying (and what none of the commenters here are commenting on) is that the bashing is not my problem, nor is the idea that you haven’t read much chick lit and are only saying what you are saying based on a small sample. My problem is the people who respond to, “But here are some examples of chick lit that isn’t like that,” with “Oh, I don’t think of that as chick lit.” The idea of “Good In Bed is deep, therefore it’s not chick lit, because chick lit is shallow and about shopping. That’s why I hate it.” I mean, WTF?
May 27th, 2005 at 5:07 pm
That’s why I have no interest in the follow up post, unless it, too, features comments about how anything presented as chick lit that doesn’t deal with shoes isn’t chick lit becuase it doesn’t deal with shoes. That’s the part I don’t get.
May 27th, 2005 at 5:17 pm
I get that. But given how you lumped my link with all the other links and not making it clear that only a couple of my commenters have espoused that opinion make it seem as if Sarah and I are the ones are some of the people who are determined to define chick lit as books featuring shoe-obsessed, shallow heroines.
Hence my interest in providing a more rounded picture.
May 27th, 2005 at 5:22 pm
Ooof. Apologies for that incredibly bad sentence. Lemme try again:
Given how you lumped my link with all the other links and how you did not make it clear that it was only a couple of my commenters who espoused that opinion, makes it seem as if Sarah and I are among the ones who are determined to define chick lit as books featuring shoe-obsessed, shallow heroines.
There. A bit more coherent. I think.
May 27th, 2005 at 6:14 pm
Grrr. I find myself peeved at people who diss stuff until they realize how marketable said stuff is and then decide to participate and then use all kinds of qualifications in their language to explain why their stuff is special and not objectionable and then…and then…just, grrr. If you’re going to diss it, own up to your damn diss.
May 27th, 2005 at 6:53 pm
To address your question, Diana–
>>What I am really curious about is how one gets away with defining a genre solely based on the cons,< <
There are people in the world who focus on negatives no matter what. It doesn’t matter how much positive there is, they will pick OUT the negatives just to present them to the world. You cannot ask these people to say what they DO like, because their minds are so focused on what they don’t like, and ruminating on and regurgitating what they don’t like, that they never even formulate in their minds what the DO like. They get away with it, because it is a free world and they can say what they want, and they will always find someone to agree with them. (Thankfully, we can find someone to agree with US, too!)
What’s that saying? If you look for the negative, you’ll always find it? Something like that.
And whoever made the point about “jealousy” being a factor, you bet it is! (And, Candy, don’t jump down our throats, because I’m not saying that EVERYONE who bashes chick lit, or any other genre, is jealous…just some…a LOT, especially among the writing community). There will always be people who will bash chick lit or romance or whatever (or the some of the literary community bashing genre fiction), just because they are jealous of the success of these genres.
And then there are others who do the bashing to make themselves feel better about themselves. Kinda like playground bullies.
Just wish people understood the difference between having reading preferences and putting down other people’s reading/writing preferences. Grrr…
Shannon
May 27th, 2005 at 9:30 pm
OH, Sorry, Candy — I didn’t mean to portray that. I did say that it was the comment posts that caught my interest. To be honest, I think it’s good when people discuss what they see as failings in a certain genre. It gets people looking at them and maybe beginning to hold higher standards. I do not like it however, when people begin to think that the low standard defines the genre. [continuing to beat that dead horse]
I hate the deus ex machina endings I commonly see in some lower-quality chick lit. It was one of the first things I said to my editor when we started talking about revisions — I am very firm in the belief that for my heroine to deserve and achieve her happy ending that she will have to take control of her own destiny and fight for it and make substantive changes to her worldview. If I have any kind of “moral” to my stories, then that’s it
Liz dearest, as always you crack me up! And I think it’s even weirder when it’s the industry folks or the press who try to convince them that they aren’t part of the crowd — No, Ms. Crusie, don’t call it romance! It’s too GOOD for that! — and then the writers have to spend their time saying that they don’t view it as a diss to hear their writing put in the genre they meant it for. Genres aren’t “good” or “bad” — books IN those genres are “good” and “bad”.
It really is like stereotypes. The more I talk abotu this, the more I find myself using language we use to discuss any kind of intolerance. I’m reminded of something that happened in Australia. While we were abroad, anti-American sentiment was at it’s peak, especially in Europe. One day, I was sitting around the hostel with a table of Europeans, a few Kiwis and two other Americans, and one girl, a Dane, was talking about how she hates Americans, and how they’re all boorish and uneducated and culturally bereft and obese and lazy and prejudiced… and we just sat there blinking at her until she noticed. She said, “Well, you guys aren’t like Americans.” I said, “Who is like an American?” She said, “Homer Simpson.”
Right. And the average French man is Pepe Le Pew.
May 28th, 2005 at 10:28 am
What a great post. Great title too.
I was recently told by an agent that I should describe my book as ‘contemporary women’s fiction’ rather than ‘chick lit’ because ‘chick lit’ is pejorative.
But, to me, chick lit means something specific and it’s not about shoes. (Btw, where are all these shoe obsessed books? I haven’t read them.) You describe it beautifully, Diana.
I keep wanting to say that we should reclaim the term, but … it’s not feminism, it’s not the “c” word … then again … there are some similarities.
May 28th, 2005 at 3:40 pm
Their attitude seems to be that if it’s any good, it’s not chick lit.
That’s the part that doesn’t make sense to me.
**That part doesn’t make sense to me, either. Just as judging a genre by a few books (hangs head in shame). And what’s with all the fashion obsessed rants? If all those people hate fashion, just who is buying Vogue, and Elle, and other well-selling magazines? Oh. I’ve got an idea. Thank you!
But I’ll stand firmly on my too many dumb heroines peeve. Since that, I’ve read quite a lot of books, and many of them just make me want to clutch my head and weep, “Oh, God, give the poor woman some brains.” But then, so do my office roommates.
May 28th, 2005 at 5:17 pm
Nobody likes dumb characters, D, in any genre. And I have read many a chick lit where the characters are far from dumb, indeed,w here they seem to be the only ones around that have any brains at all! I actually dislike the ones where the characters don’t seem to have two brain cells to rub together (I didn’t care for 32AA, which is one a lot of the supporters seem to be holding up as an excellent example — I mean, the boyfriend might as well have been holding a neon sign saying, ‘I’m a cruel vicious jerk who is going to fuck you over!’) but there are many where the heroines are very intelligent and capable. I hope you’ve found some, and I’d be happy to make some recs.
May 28th, 2005 at 10:17 pm
Kudos to you, Diana! I agree with the others. Not nice to bash any genre. What’s good reading for some might not be for others. What’s all the fuss about anyway? I just don’t get it. I love chick lit books – reading and writing them. I don’t like vampire books, but does that make me a critic? A personal observation, maybe, but a qualified one? Hardly not. So, what makes these naysayers qualified if they don’t even understand the genre in the first place? *scratching head*
May 29th, 2005 at 5:12 pm
Found some, but I’m always glad to get some recs
My other issue with some critics is the shallowness… if a heroine cares what she looks like, they immediately deem her shallow. And stupid, too. Sigh. Reminds me of Legally Blonde. I mean, she wasn’t! 
May 30th, 2005 at 6:42 pm
Great blog once again Diana. I was in a workshop with a fairly well known writer who continually bashed chick-lit, despite the fact that I stated more than once when I started the workshop that was what I wrote and was proud of it. She finally stated that she felt that it was reducive (is that the right word) to women writers because of the whole shoe-shopping, publishing assistant stereotype of chick-lit. Mind you, she felt that the only fiction to write was literary fiction. This despite the fact that her books were often shelved next to books like Jennifer Weiner, and other chick-lit writers. She even bashed the genre in her latest manuscript, until we told her that it sounded a bit mean spirited.
She finally tossed me out of the workshop, because I kept saying I wrote chick-lit.
May 30th, 2005 at 9:32 pm
Oh, Elizabeth, you have to share more of this story! I will corner you in reno and ply you with cosmopolitans until you spill! She kicked you out becuase you wouldn’t kow-tow to her narrow-minded take on worthwhile writing and prejudiced view of what counted as “literary fiction?” Good for you on not shutting up. I don’t think I’d have much to learn from someone who took that attitude either!
May 31st, 2005 at 12:20 pm
Diana, I had to laugh at your struggle to focus the discussion on your main point. It was like a flashback to a hundred different loop discussions we’ve been a part of.
So, to be explicit:
I agree, it makes no sense to define a genre by its bad examples and try to remove any good examples from said genre.
Natalie