Does Gender Matter When Giving Feedback?

I was giving some feedback to a student last week when he said, 'You're always trying to make it more emotional,' which took me be surprise, because that wasn't what I meant at all.  I've had other male students say I was recommending that I should make their work more reflective.  Again, not guilty - in my opinion.  But obviously what I thought I was suggesting wasn't coming across as I intended.   

I thought for a little bit, and then said, 'Don't think emotional, think attitude.  What's the character's attitude to what has just been said? What does it make them think?  What are they going to plan to do next?'

I'm currently reading  Deborah Tannen's You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation which looks at, surprise surprise, how differently women and men use language to communicate.  I haven't yet finished reading but already it's making me think both about how I give feedback, and how I write male characters.  (I expect I'll blog about this when I've digested it a bit more.)

What I have noticed when teaching is that there are more male students who tend to write action and dialogue, while women are more in tune with the character's internal monologue.  Of course, this is a generalisation and there are many students who buck the trend, althoughI think it would be fair to say that thrillers - which tend to be read by men - concentrate on action and dialogue, while romance - which tends to be read by women - concentrate on exploring the main character's feelings.

When I'm giving feedback, it's a question of degree.  I don't think the main character in a thriller should suddenly start emoting all over the place, nor that the main character in a romance should suddenly initiate some ass-kicking action. I think the extremes should be avoided - ie the novel that reads as a film script with a few he saids, she saids chucked in, or the one that rambles on and on with the main character hypersensitive to the nuances of what's been said but without anything actually happening.  

But I will be watching my language from now on.  I'm going to be judging which words are more appropriate - words like attitude, plan, thought, emotional, response, interior.  And I'm going to make sure that my thriller writers don't think I'm encouraging them to write what my other half refers to as 'the soppy stuff.'

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Exeter 21st May

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

Men and Women - Mars and Venus?

I usually try to avoid gender generalisations - I think people are people, and the similarities between the sexes outweigh any differences.  Recently I was asked to take part in a debate about writing about sex, and was scouting around for examples of good sex writing.  A (male) friend suggested a passage from John Irving's Last Night in Twisted River so I had a look at it.  

The characters - former lovers - are talking in the front of a pick-up truck, and things are developing from there.  Yes, it's well written but I could have guessed it was written by a man, and appreciated by a man.  One of them (the woman) has her hunting rifle with her and where a woman writer might have written in detail about what she was wearing, John Irving gives us lots of detail about the gun.  I did wonder if it was an elaborate metaphor for something else, but came to conclusion that no, it was just a gun.  

There's no doubting that men like facts and machines in a way that women generally don't.  Similarly, women like reading what another male friend calls 'the soppy stuff'.  When I read War and Peace as a teenager I remember skipping all the battle stuff but lapping up Pierre and Natasha's story.  Perhaps that's where great literary works score - they have a balance between female and male appealing qualities. 

Hmm.  Right - off to put some facts and machines in the WIP!