Women’s fiction has always been a genre that’s hard to pin down.
The label evolved to broadly describe stories of interest to women, and throughout literary history, it’s been called everything from “domestic fiction” to “sentimental fiction” to “chick lit” and even to “glitz fiction.”
In the past, it’s often been lumped in with romance, but a decade ago, the Romance Writers of America (RWA) disowned the genre when they decided that women’s fiction stories didn’t fall under their umbrella. The Women’s Fiction Writers Association soon formed to offer them safe harbor, but even its founders struggled to define the term when they created the organization in 2013.
Late last year, Publishers Marketplace rode the crest of a seemingly growing wave by formally dropping the classification, moving stories previously considered to fall under the women’s fiction banner to their respective genres, like general fiction, suspense, historical fiction, etc.
When even the authors, publishers, and marketers of your genre struggle to define what it is, how can an author write stories that will appeal to and meet the expectations of publishers and readers—and how do you market them?
WHAT EVEN IS WOMEN’S FICTION, ANYWAY?
Part of the problem in understanding women’s fiction is that no one seems to agree on how to define it.
The most common characterization is often along the lines of “stories by and about people who identify as women,” but it can also refer to the intended readership as well—stories for woman-identifying readers.
But that’s where things quickly start to get squishy. What makes a story specific to women?
Often it has to
