Throwing (or writing) like a girl

I’m at the stage of life where I go to Little League games to watch and cheer on my grandson. In the stands a few games ago, I turned to another oldster and said, ‘You have a boy in the game?’ He replied, ‘Yep. You’ll see him. He throws like a girl.’

I watched the boys warming up and, sure enough, it was easy to pick out his grandson. He threw like a girl. I tried to capture what characterized the distinctive throwing delivery but could only return to the old saw about pornography, ‘I can’t describe it but I know it when I see it.’ (By the way, he played just fine despite his odd throwing style).

This brings me to the actual point of this blog post: writing like a girl. You see, I’m a man. Been one all my life and didn’t realize I couldn’t write like a girl until I tried it. Actually, it’s more basic than that; I didn’t know how to think like a girl.

I had a perfectly good premise for a story. It was about a middle age woman with grown kids and a husband totally immersed in his work. Feeling adrift, she decided to take a solo trip through the southwest of England, ergo the name ‘Southwest’. Obviously, I couldn’t have her just wander around by herself so I had her hook up with a young Irish girl waiting tables in a B&B and decide impulsively to help the girl out of a jam. I thought I was doing okay until I tried to divine how the women would relate to each other. That’s where I ran off the tracks.

When I showed my brilliant draft to some women, I was universally booed off the stage. ‘No, no, no! That’s not how they would relate or how they would discuss sensitive matters. You’re going at this like a typical man; just bulling your way in and crashing around breaking crockery.’ Ouch. Looks like my feminine side was not as evolved as I had thought. Back to the WIP for a thorough rethinking.

The moral of this tale of woe (although I’m told I finally got it right): Writing like a woman takes a different mindset and it’s imperative that real women parse any effort of a man to convincingly imitate female thought, action or communication. I have been properly chastened.