Chic Lit / Women's Fiction

[ricaykw]

I was looking at an agent's web site the other day, and she said that she accepts (among other things) chic lit and women's fiction. What is the difference?

[scarletpeaches]

ChickLit tends to focus on one female protagonist with job or boyfriend troubles, usually in her early- to mid-twenties, and has a happy ending - she gets the man or the job she has always wanted and her evil boss/cheating boyfriend gets their come-uppance. The tone would be light-hearted or funny.

Women's fiction is either more literary or aimed at an older audience, probably focussing on marriage/divorce/kids/a more high-powered career or other more serious matters. It can also include sagas. Women's fiction is usually quite mature in tone, as opposed to the jokiness of chicklit.

[loquax]

Slightly off topic, but I just had a thought; would a novel with a male protag who has troubles with girlfriends/work count as chick-lit too?

[maestrowork]

Slightly off topic, but I just had a thought; would a novel with a male protag who has troubles with girlfriends/work count as chick-lit too?

Some call that "hunk-lit."

[loquax]

Who reads it? Don't tell me; hunks.

[scarletpeaches]

Over here it's called LadLit.

Or, more cheekily, DickLit.

[Garpy]

I think the term is CockLit.

I also heard there's a racier, more erotic strand of ChickLit known as ClitLit. :popcorn:

[loquax]

They keep getting worse. It's making me uneasy...

[britwrit]

Over here in London, it's called Ladlit.

[scarletpeaches]

It MUST be DickLit! It rhymes with chick, that's the whole point! :D

[StoryG27]

It MUST be DickLit! It rhymes with chick, that's the whole point! :D

:ROFL: Bravo! I like this one!

[rowriter]

Here is an informative entry in Wikipedia which also has some good external links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_lit

The link here (one of the external links on Wikipedia) has several examples of different kinds of chicklit and also recommendations:

http://chicklitbooks.com/whatis.php