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Genre, gender. Eh. Tomayto, tomahto.
Nov. 4th, 2006 10:13 pm11389 words on the Nano novel thus far. Which is not exactly where I wanted to be after three days (I was aiming for 15000, but I got lazy yesterday). Still, better than zero words, which is what I started with.
I'm debating whether or not to post what I write on a filter. Part of me says that all the cool kids are doing it. And you know me. I'm a cliff and good jump away from being lemming.
Anyway.
I was sailing down the River F-List and saw this entry from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nhw and this quote in particular struck me:
One might be forgiven for thinking that whoever chose the pictures believes that fantasy is for girls and science fiction for boys.
Go to the entry and see the covers. One is your standard monochromatic almost-abstract geometric spaceship with extreme perspective type sci-fi colors all done up in blue. Another is a soft pink/light brown romantic fantasy cover that's sort of Pre-Raphaelite complete with long haired woman in flowing robe-tunic thing.
The comment, however, made me start shaking my head and wonder what provoked it. I didn't see anything gender related in the two things. I didn't feel like one was supposed to be the female!book and one was supposed to be the male!book.
You want gender specific cover, go check chicklit covers. With the soft, handwriting type script, the cartoonish women and bright, spacious covers that look like they were designed by Ikea.
These covers?
Are all about genre.
Thing is, books don't come with proper descriptions. They come with brief and inaccurate blurbs that I don't think are written by people who read the book. So the only way you can quickly spot if you're getting something that's to your taste is the cover.
So the cover has to symbolize what's within. Not to say that publishers do a good job all the time.
Thus, a fantasy cover has to have a much different look than a sci-fi cover. And if the fantasy style cover looks "feminine", that's more the judgement of the viewer.
That said, I admit that the fantasy cover is more to my asthetic tastes - but that's because I prefer that type of art to abstract art to begin with. Not because I'm female.
I'm debating whether or not to post what I write on a filter. Part of me says that all the cool kids are doing it. And you know me. I'm a cliff and good jump away from being lemming.
Anyway.
I was sailing down the River F-List and saw this entry from
nhw and this quote in particular struck me:One might be forgiven for thinking that whoever chose the pictures believes that fantasy is for girls and science fiction for boys.
Go to the entry and see the covers. One is your standard monochromatic almost-abstract geometric spaceship with extreme perspective type sci-fi colors all done up in blue. Another is a soft pink/light brown romantic fantasy cover that's sort of Pre-Raphaelite complete with long haired woman in flowing robe-tunic thing.
The comment, however, made me start shaking my head and wonder what provoked it. I didn't see anything gender related in the two things. I didn't feel like one was supposed to be the female!book and one was supposed to be the male!book.
You want gender specific cover, go check chicklit covers. With the soft, handwriting type script, the cartoonish women and bright, spacious covers that look like they were designed by Ikea.
These covers?
Are all about genre.
Thing is, books don't come with proper descriptions. They come with brief and inaccurate blurbs that I don't think are written by people who read the book. So the only way you can quickly spot if you're getting something that's to your taste is the cover.
So the cover has to symbolize what's within. Not to say that publishers do a good job all the time.
Thus, a fantasy cover has to have a much different look than a sci-fi cover. And if the fantasy style cover looks "feminine", that's more the judgement of the viewer.
That said, I admit that the fantasy cover is more to my asthetic tastes - but that's because I prefer that type of art to abstract art to begin with. Not because I'm female.
