Write a Woman Like a Man

It’s official: I’ve lost my mind. I’m going through my day thinking, How would I feel about this situation as a woman? I’m not confused about my gender—oh no siree. So what's happening to me?


I’m writing a book told from the first-person viewpoint of a woman.

I’ve written female characters before, but never like this. I’m totally in this gal’s head. A few days ago, I wrote this sentence:

I don’t hate pink or prada—I am a woman, after all—but there comes a point when too much is too much.

And this little charmer of a paragraph:

I tried to shake it off. I had to assume that it was simply a combination of lack of sleep, the lingering head cold, the tilting of the earth. Growing up, whenever I did something out of the ordinary, my brother would always say I was PMSing. I hated that.

Here’s what scares me: so far, this has all come easily to me. Eight years ago, I wouldn’t have had a clue. Now that I’ve been blessed with seven years of marriage, I have at least a fraction of an idea about how women think.

With this novel, I’m not trying to write like a woman. I’m trying to write like a man, but it just so happens that my character is a female. I think I’m finding a balance that both men and women readers would enjoy. That’s my goal anyway.

I want women who like chick lit and women’s fiction to pick this up and love every moment. At the same time, I want men who can’t get enough James Patterson or Dean Koontz to carry this with them on their business trip and stay up too late tearing through the pages.

I’ll tell you all more about the book later. Maybe I’ll post some chapters when they are ready.

Who knows—maybe this will be the book that lands a deal and rockets me to bestseller stardom! Maybe I’ll look back at this in ten years and laugh at my naiveté.

Maybe I’ll finally realize that God made me a man for a good reason, and I shouldn’t spend so much time thinking about lipstick.

Maybe.