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

Guest post:

From Britches to Petticoats by author'Harry Bingham

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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.

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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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11 comments

  1. What an interesting piece. I knew that it often happened that pseudonyms were created when women wrote adventure thriller books, I didnt consider it probably happens as regularly in reverse.

    Thanks Harry/Emma

  2. Stephanie /

    Thanks for visiting, Shelleyrae. Ive heard of women using male pseudonyms or initials for horror, thrillers or childrens books, and Ive also heard of male category romance authors using them, but not for mainstream fiction. It says a lot about (perceived) market expectations and marketability. I wonder how widespread it isI doubt that these gender switches are widely advertised!

  3. Roger Sanderson, a former rugby player, wrote romance novels for Mills & Boon under the pseudonym Gill Sanderson. I have a comedy screenplay I wrote a few years ago about a man who writes a chic lit novel, and when he is unable to get an agent, he tries submitting using a womans name. Needless to say, said agent takes her on, and he then has to pass himself off as her in the publishing world, high heels, wig and all!

    By the way, Harry, you reviewed a manuscript of mine a few years ago, which was set in Brazil. After taking much of your advice, it was extensively rewritten, and has now been self-published. Thanks for your help.

  4. Stephanie /

    Thanks so much for visiting, George, and so glad to hear that Harrys had such an impact on your career.

    I didnt know that Roger wrote under Gill Sanderson, but Ill definitely check out his work! I love the sound of your tongue-in-cheek screenplay, too.

  5. Its not unusual to have to either change genders or be vague when writing something for which you need to appeal to both. In childrens and YA fiction its a well-known thing. Susan Hinton became S.E. Hinton and plenty of kids STILL dont know she was a girl. Then theres one Joanne Rowling Robert Corbet wrote a romantic comedy, fifteen Love for the YA market, under his own name, but when it was reprinted as a Girlfriend Fiction book, it was as R.M. Corbet. That may have been because it was a reprint, though, as Barry jonsberg and Scott Gardner also wrote Girlfriend Fiction, under their own names.

  6. Stephanie /

    Ive definitely seen it happen in YA because of the whole girls will read books by either gender, but boys will only read books by men idea, but I usually hear stories about women writing as men (or undefined gender) rather than the other way around. Thanks for the extra data point about Robert/RM Corbet!

  7. How odd, I cant imagine rejecting a book as a reader because the author is a Harry not an Emma or vice versa. I can however imagine (very easily) rejecting a book because the cover art is yet-another-womans-not-quite-full-profile with scrolling, lipstick red writing for the title. I guess its equally judgemental!

    • Stephanie /

      Thanks for visiting, Alex! I dont think Ive ever knowingly discriminated against a book based on an authors name (although whether this is actually true is up for debate), but Ive certainly done so with covers. Ive read about so many female authors frustrated by niche branding that puts them in front of a certain subset of female readers, but narrows their wider appealand often their perceived literary integrity.

  8. The mind boggles at the thought of a rugby player writing Mills and Boon, but I can well understand why hed use a pen name imagine how his fans would react. :-) good on him if he can do it, though. Covers matter. They do, no matter how old or young you are. I work in a school library and I notice who borrows what. Covers matter to the kids. But I think that mostly, names dont, and publishers are fooling themselves if they think they do. Boys who know perfectly well who wrote Harry Potter read it anyway. Maybe its because word of mouth does it. I should add, boys read my novel Wolfborn, which just has a wolf on the cover. ;-)

  9. Stephanie /

    Im quite enamoured of the idea of a rugby player writing MB, just so long as theres no tackling involved in the bedroom!

    I think youre probably correct about the fact that kids dont *really* care about the sex of an author, and that its just publishing lorerather like that old saw about green covers not selling.

    Covers are absolutely a selling point. I did a callout yesterday to find out what made people pick up a book from the shelf, and it was unanimously the cover. Sure, theyll check to see whether they like the blurb or the writing style, but the cover is what makes that first impression.

    With a title like Wolfborn, Sue, Im not surprised both boys and girls love itgreat title!

  10. Vintage RIASS post: Should a man who writes romantic fiction be asked to write under a female pseudonym? http://t.co/e0QAMnAk

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