What exactly is "Women's Fiction"?

This copied from Aunt Cathy's Lecture Series # 1 Genres

Women's: Again, this contains many different sub-genre, but usually it entails family oriented stories that span one, two or three generations and usually contain internal problem solving and familial relationships. Fried Green Tomatoes is an example.

My personal fav's that are often tagged 'Women's Fiction' (although some of their books contain 'strong romantic elements) are Jodi Picault, Jennifer Crusie, Lolly Winston, Jennifer Weirner, and Susan Wiggs.

On an I like to simplify things note, I kinda think if the woman's journey is the main focus--with or without a romance--it is W's fic. If the main focus is the building romance--even with the woman's growth/journey included--it is probably a romance.

Hope that helps.

Basically, WF is stuff written with a female audience in mind.

Chick-lit is primarily aimed at youngish women. Romance is for women who want to read love stories. Some women favour family sagas.

Which leaves us with novels that don't fit a specific sub-genre but have elements that appeal to women in general. For example: Anne Tyler's Breathing Lessons and Joanna Trollope's The Rector's Wife

See now, that link to wiki (and others like it) are what confused me. But the more I poke, the more it seems like querying agents who list women's fiction but don't specify romance (when I write romance) was probably a fail on my part.

LorelieBrown said:

See now, that link to wiki (and others like it) are what confused me. But the more I poke, the more it seems like querying agents who list women's fiction but don't specify romance (when I write romance) was probably a fail on my part.

Click to expand...

Hey, Lorelie, yep, the wiki explanation is a bit too broad-brush and misleading. If an agent doesn't specifically list that they rep romance, I'd either steer clear or check their client list and the books they represent very carefully to see if they're a 'match' with what you're submitting.

Good luck.