Before I go on . . .
Last week we talked about Chick Flicks, but some our more popular than others.
Less popular with men (in my case, I have yet to see Beaches, Steel Magnolias, etc. BUT, I know they’re excellent films. Well someday.) Less popular are mostly women in sad endings where the romance is not the driving force.Much more popular with men are romances and romantic comedies.
Listen up. This week I want to touch on communicating. Studies say women speak 20,000 words a day, and men, 7,000. But men are more introspective to make up for the lack of words. Yet many writers want the male POV to be straight forward, logical, and short. Consider all that was left unsaid, which a male would mull over during or after an encounter.
GUYS ARE INTROSPECTIVE (or, yes there’s something going on in there)
An example from a romantic comedy:
A girl who is attracted to a guy friend walks up to him in their place of business and says, “It’s warm in here.” She just wants to talk to him and breaks the ice. (Joke, unintended)
The guy really likes her and wants to protect her (yep men do that) so he says what might be thought of as the dumbest thing by the gal. “Well look at what you’re wearing.” said with the warmest smile. She’s wearing a sweater.
“It was colder over there.” She becomes defensive.
He starts staring at the ceiling, inspecting air ducts (to figure out if there’s something wrong with the air-conditioning). She walks off feeling unloved and wondering why the guy thinks she doesn’t know enough to take her sweater off.
The guy might mull over all sorts of things in an effort to repair the relationship. He’d think about how she might interpret his words, if she felt sad, rejected, etc. About how he could have said it better (maybe, “I know I just took my sweater off, and then the air-conditioner, you know, will kick in again. He’d likely reject asking her to take all her clothes off, as too bold. He’d worry about how to make it better for her. He’d worry if she’d think he was showing off as smarter than her because he took his sweater off first. He’d wonder if he could ever explain himself, since his thoughts are so complicated. He’d think: well maybe she didn’t want him anyway, and fine if she thinks so little of him. He’s liable to have all these thoughts occur at the same time and then sort them out.
In a later post, I’ll talk about straight line thinking.
Will our too-hot heroine and hero get together? Well, you’re the writer. I have a feeling, they’ll lock themselves in the boardroom and damn, their productivity will suffer . . . or will it?
Okay, some men can get carried away with their thinking. Remember he’s your hero. Guys are introspective. Whatever choice you make with your hero regarding the amount of interior monologue, if you bust a stereotype, make sure your male POV is deep enough to not only show his way of living, loving, and thinking, but you’ll write the POV so well, people will think of you as the next Judith McNaught. . . .
Oh so true! I notice men tend to take women at their word, rather than decipher the meaning behind it. When my DH and I argue, it's usually because I applied some meaning to his words that didn't exist or because he took me at my words literally rather than understanding what I meant by them. And, you know, he's supposed to read my mind :)
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