Chick Lit Rules

[angerona]

in chick lit, when a working woman gets pregnant, she starts making plan for leaving work after she gives birth (and sometimes long before it). If she's single and the father is not in the picture, the book may make a nod towards reality and so the woman will make contingency plans for working part-time. Most of it from home. Why? Tell me, why?

Comments

[vremyavpered]

and why, or why are you reading chick lit??!

:)

i mean, you can't suspend your disbelief when you're watching a crappy movie, but you can when reading a crappy book?

[angerona]

It's easy and enjoyable to read. Besides, I enjoy pulling it apart like that, too.

I think my problem with movies is not the inability to suspend my disbelief. It goes much deeper into many different things.

[vremyavpered]

i see :)
well, as long as you're enjoying it. :)

[angerona]

I am :). I actually would love to even write one :)

[skyg74]

I don't read chic lit but its a great post and I really enjoyed it :)

[skyg74]

on a second thought ... maybe I should read some chic lit. Any book/ author you would recommend?

PS I read the shopaholic series already

[angerona]

I haven't read shopaholic series. I actually haven't read all that much :).

[angerona]

glad to hear it :).

I actually like reading chick lit. Easy and fun and gives opportunities for taking it apart.

[alinaf]

You should consider the target audience of chick lit. I bet most of it is housewives from flyover states in their 20s-40s. So a lot of it makes sense.

[angerona]

oh sure. Perhaps I'm just distilling the rules, so that I can follow them when I write my own :).

For example, I can definitely see why there's a rule against dieting-exercising weight loss. Who can identify with that? :)

[alinaf]

Exactly! But to make a good writer, you have to really infiltrate the system, and I seriously doubt you can do that just by dissecting the books. You gotta live like the audience. They don't care that you can describe the life of a lawyer or a programmer or an engineer working mother accurately! Or that dieting regiments are reasonable! :))

You know Timur Shaov has a great song about "lubovnye romany".

I have to admit - I've never read a chick lit novel.

[angerona]

yep, I like that song :).

I've actually written something that could pass for chick lit if I could actually finish it or something :)

[ligovka]

Is Janet Evanovich - chick lit? Stephany Plum is a bounty hunter! ;)

[angerona]

I think that's a separate category -- isn't it murder mysteries?

[ligovka]

i guess... chic murder mysteries though! ))

[ksushis]

I think you're reading too much of Jennifer Weiner :)))

[angerona]

glad you know the name :). But not only her, I swear -- the example about someone waking up 4 years later isn't from her, or the one about the girl exercising on a stationary bike in a haze.

[ksushis]

I met her even :)... I think she's now about the only chick lit author I read... I couldn't believe what she did in Certain Girls though.... That was pretty "un-chick-litty".
I do agree with you on most points.:)

[angerona]

When did you meet her?

Why do you think Certain Girls isn't very chick-litty? The end isn't sappy-good, sure, but it's not, say, "Her Sister's Keeper" tear-jerking, either.

I definitely think Certain Girls is chick lit, although it's also noticeably better written than Good in Bed.