Long Tale Press

There are probably as many different definitions for any genre as there are readers of it.

But IMHO, most of the industry treats chick-lit more or less as "literary fiction whose themes are intended to appeal primarily to women."

So you'll get books that where the action, such as it is, revolves around relationship dynamics. From a purely plot perspective it may not look like much is happening in these books, but through dialogue and character interaction even in everyday circumstances (like people going out to eat or whatever), lots of action can take place with respect to how the different characters feel about and perceive eachother.

You've got your "Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood", that "Traveling Pants" book whose exact title escapes me, and countless others.

Maybe this is just me, but personally I'm not really sure there is such a thing as Chick-Lit.

Ok, sure, I don't doubt that the book buyers at Barnes&Noble (the ones who buy the inventory, I mean, not the consumers who purchase the books) believe that this category exists, and they probably have sales data to prove it.

What I mean is that from a writing perspective, I'm not convinced that it exists. I'm not a chick, but there are plenty of Chick-Lit books I've enjoyed because they're well written and they tell compelling stories about compelling characters. Similarly, there are probably plenty of Chick-Lit books I would fail to enjoy because they're not well written and I never particularly enjoy reading crap.

So maybe Chick-Lit exists as a category because people believe it exists, but I'm not at all convinced that the concept helps us writers do anything differently than we ought to be doing anyway.

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