Maturing Chick Lit

I’ve been traveling and returned home a few hours ago. When I travel, I usually read USA Today and there was a good overview of Chick Lit the Life section. Carol Memmott wrote an article called Chick Lit Matures. The article gives an overview of this genre in the general market. There are a growing number of Christian Chick Lit titles as well from a variety of publishers. Language is the general caution with the general market titles.  I read one of these books several years ago. The author is a friend of mine and when she autographed it, she said, “Now, Terry, remember all of the sex in this book is fiction.” I thought it was a funny comment since the book was a novel or the entire book was fiction. As I read it, I began to understand what she was talking about.  This author knew I was a Christian author and the four-letter words and the sexual actions would stand out. It was a key part of the entire plot and I found the reading experience eye-opening.

You can follow the link and read the article but one paragraph in particular stood out to me from Carol Memmott, “The bottom line is the quality of the writing. “The genre is all about voice, and if you have a really fresh, really arresting voice, you can still tell a story about a single girl in the city,” [Jennifer] Weiner [bestselling author of In Her Shoes] says. “It’s such an interesting time in a woman’s life. There will always be interest in that moment when every decision is still right in front of you.”

Like many other types of publishing, the quality of the writing is going to be key. It’s something that many people forget when they send in their query or their manuscript. Here’s another enlightening few sentences from the article. If you don’t have a good definition of this genre, it was defined in a small sidebar:

“What puts the chick in chick lit?

* The heroine is either looking for Mr. Right or getting over Mr. Wrong.
* She's in a dead-end job or is looking to climb the corporate latter.
* She often works in public relations, advertising or for a women’s magazine.
* The tone is often light and funny.
* The story usually is told in the first person.
* By novel's end, the heroine usually has worked out all her problems and has learned important lessons about life.”