Should a man who writes romantic fiction be asked to write under a female pseudonym?

By
Stephanie
Published: January 10, 2012Posted in: Book Review, feature, guest postTags: , , , , ,

Guest post:

From Britches to Petticoats by author'Harry Bingham

__________

Harry Bingham author pic1 202x300 Should a man who writes romantic fiction be asked to write under a female pseudonym?

I saw recently on Read in a Single Sitting'Maisey Yates' interesting interview which talked about, among other things, the way in which romance novels are treated with low esteem these days. I'm a man and have never thought of myself particularly as a romance author, but all the same I do have an interesting experience which casts some light on what Maisey was talking about.

My first four novels were good old-fashioned yarns. Tales in the illustrious tradition of John Buchan or Jeffrey Farnol, or indeed in the somewhat-less-than-illustrious tradition of Jeffrey Archer. My novels weren't dark enough or violent enough to be thrillers, but they were adventure stories. Romps.

They also, always, had a strong romantic thread. The adventure material led the story, but the women were always strongly developed characters who, in a couple of stories, were almost as important as the male protagonists themselves. Indeed, in my first book, the adventure strand ended up joining the romantic one: the two elements fused. I got good feedback on this aspect of my writing from all readers, male and female.

So I didn't think I was making any great leap when, for my fifth novel, I wrote an adventure story, The Lieutenant's Lover, that happened to have a romance at its heart. It's not that I'd dropped the adventure stuff (I hadn't) or done anything vastly different with the romance (I hadn't). It's just that, for the first time in one of my novels, the adventure was about two people falling in love, being forcibly separated and then re-uniting. Lots of adventure, lots of romance. But the same writer, the same kind of writing.

harry bingham lieutenants daughter 197x300 Should a man who writes romantic fiction be asked to write under a female pseudonym?

When I first presented this novel to my UK publishers, they fell off their chairs with amazement. I had the most perplexed ' the most unhappily perplexed ' editorial feedback I'd ever received. So I did what I was asked to do. Upped the action quotient, cut 20,000 words of text. The whole story became a stronger, pacier read. But still romantic. I couldn't take the romance out without writing a completely different book.

So what to do? My UK publishers, HarperCollins, went with the book I'd presented them. I think they liked it, thought it was strong. But you can see the book cover (above) they put on the book. I didn't and don't have a problem with that cover. But, gadzooks, no bloke would ever, ever buy that book. The curly writing and the woman's face simply scream 'women's historical fiction'. (And by the way, the woman on the cover is a jacket designer's idea of what a 45 year old female sergeant in the Red Army might look like. I'm not totally sure Stalin's troops looked quite so chic in real life.)
But at least in Britain, my publishers were prepared to launch the book, positively and ambitiously, under my own name.

Not so in Germany. There, my 'switch' of genres (the switch that I don't think was any real change at all) caused total alarm. The feedback I got was that they loved my new writing style and approach. They wanted to publish the book. Unfortunately, they felt my existing 'brand' wasn't consistent with that new writing style ' so would I mind changing my name?

Sure, I said. My full name is Thomas Henry Bingham, but I've always been known as Harry. So maybe, instead of Harry Bingham I could be Tom Bingham or Tom Henry or '

No, they said. I wasn't quite getting it. Could I change my name to a woman's name?

I said yes. I wasn't fussed, in all honesty. I told them I'd be very happy to appear as Emma Makepeace and, as far as I know, the book did indeed come out under that name. (Though I've never, as it happens, seen the resultant book.)

What do we make of all this? My own experience didn't suggest that my writing was disdained because it had a romantic theme, but it did prove to me, in the strongest possible terms, that women's fiction had to live in some ghetto of its own. It had to be hurried off, out of sight, kept away from men at all costs. It's not that romance was worse than action/adventure, but it was clearly separate. Romance, in the eyes of my publishers, was to be written by women, for women, featuring women protagonists, and with women prominent on the cover.

No doubt, those things are mostly true. That is: I bet most people who read and enjoyed The Lieutenant's Lover were women. But not only. Men have read it and liked it too. Some women have read it and not liked it.

As for me, my career in petticoats hit a little road-block after that fifth novel. I turned to non-fiction and when I returned to fiction, I returned as a detective novelist. But now that I come to think of it, my detective protagonist is a young woman. I write in the first person. For the purposes of my crime-writing persona, I'm Fiona Griffiths, twenty-seven, dark-haired and petite. So maybe that Emma thing went deeper than I realised '

 

About the author:

Harry Bingham is a novelist and non-fiction author. His editorial company, The Writers' Workshop, offers feedback on writing and other services.

You can also find Harry on Twitter

Books by Harry Bingham (click to purchase):

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