Is my novel Chick Lit?

Can we get a basic definition?

I second the above poster--I've never really understood what defines a novel as "Chick lit" as opposed to Romance, mystery, or Mainstream. I'm interested to hear what other NaNoers have to say on the issue.

"Chick-lit" covers a lot of bases nowadays -- it's not all shoe shopping, designer clothes, and Cosmos [if it ever was].

Chick-lit heroines deal with life, death, love, relationships, family, jobs, marriage, babies......if it's a mystery cross-genre the MC is also dealing with a murder, if it's paranormal cross-genre, the MC might be a witch dealing with vampires. Etc.

There's a vast array of sub-genres under the chick-lit umbrella -- I think what they all have in common is tone and 'tude -- a kind of humorous, self-deprecating tone, even when the going gets rough [which it will, b/c conflict is drama![

Here's a good summary and definition of "chick-lit" from a few years ago --http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA623004.html

And from an earlier post [by Amanda Renée, self-avowed Chick Lit Writer]:

Sounds more like Chick Lit to me. Chick Lit is generally defined as having romantic elements, but not a centralized romance. Good example, romance (think Harlequins) tends to focus on the romance throughout every chapter...Chick Lit focuses on the MC's life, family, friends, etc., with elements of romance interjected throughout. Chick Lit tends to be lighter (more humorous) than a traditional romance.

So would this count as Chick-Lit?

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21 year old Felicity is single, but perfectly happy with her job, and her best friends Aly and Carla, and her life in general. Well, apart from the fact that Aly and Carla keep asking her when she's going to find her Mr. Right, and her parents keep pestering her to marry some rich doctor she isn't even interested in, that is. When she loses her job, it doesn't help that her parents pressure her even more to marry the rich doctor. But then she finds help from an unexpected source...

*

Please take into account that not all of the girls are girly and glamorous - Aly is, but Felicity is shy and quirky and Carla is your girl-next-door, sweet, good-tempered, best friend you'd go to for advice kind of girl - they're not mega-rich or anything, and I'm thinking of having Felicity work in a high street shop, not a designer-clothes, expensive shop, and Carla is a waitress. I don't know what Aly's job is yet. And I'm twisting some of the stereotypes and clichés. :D Would this still seem like chick-lit? And I want to write something quirky. Oh, and it's set in London, where I'm from, but I think that fits with the clichés, because it's a big city.

NaNo '09: Don't Cost A Penny
Non-NaNo Suns and Stars Book Trailer

Lisalulu09- sounds exactly like Chick Lit to me. :-)

Orange County South ML
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Is this chick lit, romance or mainstream fiction?

The main plot is romance but my mc doesn't fall in love right away. She starts off with a few bad dates with different men plus the obstacles she's facing are psychiatric as she's schizophrenic. A lot of the dates go badly because she's either hearing voices, delusions, paranoia or wacky side effects such as being sleepy but unable to fall asleep, rashes on her legs, or loss of short term memory. A part of the novel will be her going to therapy and learning coping skills, and going to see her psychiatrist and getting pills. This won't be serious. I want it to be a light read that touches on serious issues but doesn't take itself seriously.

2009: Being Schizo is Love

It sounds like it could be literary fiction, but I'm sure it would be more fun if you think of it as chic lit :)

Tom

I think therefore I am pretentious.

When I think of Chick Lit I think it's kind of humorous, quirky is a good word for it too. I think if your MC actually does fall in love with that rich dr. it would be great, especially if she did it in a very roundabout way... Anyway, I like to read chick lit more than mainstream (or Women's) fiction because although it might be more than shoes and shopping the characters are dynamic and usually more fun.
Sex & the City is a good example. (not a novel but still a good general idea)

Katrina
http://katkommentary.blogspot.com/

I've got a mystery farce staring a young fabulous realtor (highly cheesy, but she doesn't think so!) with no murders, and a bit of love/hate with a macho Italian. Does it fit under the mystery subcatagory of Chick lit?

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

TraciH, that could be mystery lit IF your YFRealtor "comes of age" and grows in the story (you need to conclude in a positive manner) and you tell a story 19 to 29 year olds, or maybe 18 to 35 year olds, will relate to and you tell it in an upbeat way.

www.jessiefitzgerald.com

Okay, mine is about a sixteen-ish year old girl who is an outcast in her high school along with her two best friends, but a new guy at school who is gorgeous and on the soccer team, and therefore has achieved instant popularity, has started to pay her a lot of attention. At first she hates him, but later struggles with the fact that she just may be falling for him. Meanwhile, she's busy trying to keep everyone out of her personal life, because her father left again and her mother is now depressed.

The romance part is basically a modernized version of Pride and Prejudice.

2008- Almost an Angel
2009- Burning Sheep (in progress)

I want to read that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NaNo '09: Don't Cost A Penny
Non-NaNo Suns and Stars Book Trailer

NaNo '09: Don't Cost A Penny
Non-NaNo Suns and Stars Book Trailer

Me too! I think it's great to take these old stories and bring them up to date. I loved "Clueless" :) Go for it. Whether it's chic lit or romance or YA - who cares, it's a great idea.

Tom

I think therefore I am pretentious.

Tom

I think therefore I am pretentious.

Mine is Two friends from a small town have grown up with each other. They like each other at different times and never in sync with each other. Their friendship hinders their relationships with their sig. others. Just before they graduate HS, they start a sex friends relationship, however, as they meet and remeet again things get worse for them not better. They never quite click enough to have a serious relationship. Separation of time makes this worse and their relationships with other men and women can't hold together well because of this relationship with each other. In the meantime the MC is trying to find herself and her life, but this whole screwy relationship is hindering her from finding it. She's smart, she's intelligent, she's even likable, but the more she gets tangled in this relationship, the more she gets more and more jaded, bogged down and unable to move forward with anything in her life. I call it the Anti-"The Notebook" story, 'cause time, space and experience pulls them more apart, rather than together.

I titled it "Missing You" Because both meanings of Missing apply.

^^;; I believe this would be dark Literary Chic Lit. (the story is told from her POV). BTW, I'm avoiding Bronte-esque drama... I have a deep-seeded feeling this plot is unpublishable.
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Telling someone you're a writer is like telling them you're an obsessive compulsive bipolar schizophrenic that goes to AA meetings once a week.

Novelists are a conscienceless lot.--Diana Gabaldon (An Echo in the Bone)

I'm really wondering if my idea would be considered chick lit. I haven't got the whole thing planned out yet, but this is the main gist:

My mc is a college professor. She is divorced, lives alone, and leads a boring and depressing life. Lots of bad things happen to her.

Not too much yet, as I haven't decided whether things will end good for her or not. Chick lit?

This depends on how the plot plays out I think... We'd need more to decide whether it's chick lit or not.
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Telling someone you're a writer is like telling them you're an obsessive compulsive bipolar schizophrenic that goes to AA meetings once a week.

Novelists are a conscienceless lot.--Diana Gabaldon (An Echo in the Bone)

I'm not sure wether my novel is Chick Lit or YA....
My story is composed of snapshot of my (still nameless) heroine starting from around the age of 15 to 25 (maybe a tiny bit longer than that). It's about some key moments of those years, falling in love for the first time, accidental pregancy, abortion, running away and starting over, college, falling in love again and so on and so on...
What do you think? is this Chick Lit or YA?

I'm going to jump on the "is this ChickLit" bandwagon here.

I really wanted to write something about the Greek system, just because it's something I would like to read myself and I have yet to find any novel about it. I'm not really quite sure what I want to write yet, but I know that my FMC is a senior in college, partially looking back on her four years and partially moving through to her graduation date in the spring. She's had trouble getting over one particular ex-boyfriend (who may or may not reappear in the present, I haven't decided) and there will be a whole host of other males as well, I imagine. She's not really struggling with anything in the real world, per se, but rather how to transition from college to the real world.

I know that's all very vague, but I haven't really started planning out a lot as I am in the midst of midterm season. So any answers or advice would be great! :)

I think chick lit can cross genres, to an extent. Someone posted about a mystery story, and I'd say that could fall into both mystery and chick lit as it has elements of both. Although if the focus is on the mystery rather than the character and the obstacles she faces being a chick in the situation she's in, I'd consider it "a mystery with chick lit elements" as opposed to a "chick lit mystery."

That being said, I think the YA vs. chick lit argument is tougher. I could be very wrong, but I think if the characters are teens and it's written for teens, it is YA, not chick lit. (For example, let's go back 15 years or more and look at the Sweet Valley series -- they had a lot of chick lit elements in them, but they starred teens and were written for teens, so I'd consider them YA. Same with the Twilight books. Now, if the characters were in their mid-20s instead of high school, and the plot was geared to appeal to that age group -- chick lit. IMO anyway.)

Erin
aproposofnothingblog@gmail.com

Nothing exclusive about Chick Lit with Mystery, Fantasy, Sci-fi, etc. You can cross all of those. The only trouble is with the publisher who has to market your book.

US Chick Lit tends to have women in their 20's or 30's, but that doesn't mean they can't start off as 10 years old or even be 80. Just has to be woman-centric.
----
Telling someone you're a writer is like telling them you're an obsessive compulsive bipolar schizophrenic that goes to AA meetings once a week.

Novelists are a conscienceless lot.--Diana Gabaldon (An Echo in the Bone)

I always thought the general rule of Chick Lit was boy meets girl type stuff.

Is it still Chick Lit if my MC is a lesbian?!

I too am calling my novel Chick Lit but wondering if that is right... I am doing three characters all written in first person, but the central character is a mid-thirties mother and teacher who finds herself in polygyny when her Egyptian born DH returns home from Cairo with a second wife. My central character is an American Muslim and it all kinda revolves around her reactions to the situation so I think her voice will end up telling the bulk of the story. I want to show all sides involved... But since it's focused on relationships I'm calling it chick lit... What do you guys think?

come visit me at http://ummlayla.blogspot.com

I think Chick Lit is a very cool genre. My idea focuses on the MC getting some raw deal in life, especially when it comes to men and relationships. Although i intend to include the perspective of her male bff/ love interest the main story is about her finding herself. It might be simple and predicatable but I really hope I can develop my characters well enough to make the story worth reading.

We chicks do not discriminate based on sexuality. A lesbian chick is a chick.

I'm not 100% sure about this one...
...basically 28 year old with a 6 year old. Her family were always under the impression that the father was somebody she'd known in college. Really it was a family friend, an ex-client of her accountant uncle (and just so happened to be an actor, of course :) He is over 30 years her senior. His wife is trying to get a seat in politics and (of course) the affair and the news of the child comes out. The story flicks between 'now' and 'then', the affair when it happened, her feelings and fears over what will happen to her child and her families reaction to what they consider a scandal in the family.

Is it chick lit? I actually have 3 plot lines in the making and am just waiting till the 1st to decide on what feels right....am hoping it's this plot, as I'm having a lot of fun doing character sketches of the actor....Hmmm...Alan Rickman keeps popping into my mind :)

Tha mo bhàta-foluaimein loma-làn easgannan

I don't know . . . that sounds a little heavy for chick lit to me.

What about this one? Did I write a romance novel, chick lit, women's fiction or what?

Kathy Brooks isn’t looking for love. While recovering from a bad marriage and an even worse divorce, she took herself off the market and threw herself into her career to the exclusion of everything else – including a personal life and her interest in writing. She meets Charles Morgan, Jr. - a sexy and intriguing client of her law firm who appears to be interested in more than just her body. He encourages her to pursue her dreams of writing. When she decides to take a chance and do just that her vengeful ex-husband, her law firm’s strict anti-fraternization policy, and her own doubts threaten her happiness. To get closer to her dreams, Kathy will have to put it all on the line – her career, her heart and maybe even her life.

I'm pretty sure that mine is chicklit. But I could be wrong.

Its a dark comedy in which my MC is a naive young writer who is trying to get an agent. In the course her querying she falls into a whirlwind romance and a marriage with a middle-aged bestselling writer, which sours pretty quickly. Meanwhile she's developed a thing for the hunky surferboy neighbor, who also happens to be a bestseller writer.

Little does she know that her husband is involved in a diabolical game that's about to turn her whole world upside down...

Candique = I don't know . . . that sounds a little heavy for chick lit to me.

Do you think so? Hmm, that was what I was afraid of, when I posted it did sound more serious than intended, but the format in my head is cheery and (hopefully) quite funny. Now I'm not sure if I should aim to write it as ChickLit or Fiction....as well only time will tell! Thanks for the input!

Tha mo bhàta-foluaimein loma-làn easgannan

I always considered chick lit to be a 20 (or 30) something who's trying to figure out her life and may or may not fall in love along the way. If they're still in high school, that's not really chick lit yet. It's still young adult.

Now me, I know mine's chick lit. Fresh out of college, Megan takes the first job offer she gets so she doesn't have to move back in with her parents. It doesn't matter that she hates it - it pays the rent. Then she meets Jake, who makes her remember why she went to college in the first place and what she always wanted to do, and how what she's doing isn't it. I don't know if she and Jake end up together or not, as he's going to run off to play professional baseball six weeks into their relationship, and I can't see a self-respecting chick lit main character quitting her job to live off her professional athlete boyfriend. :)

"You can get away with stuff in real life that you can’t get away with in fiction." -Robin McKinley

Not entirely sure mine is Chick Lit, either, but it seemed liked the best classification at the time. That may change as I write. I read a decent bit of Chick Lit. However, I feel that Chick Lit is the literary equivalent of a romantic comedy movie. And I kinda hate those movies. So while my story fits a lot of the elements of Chick Lit, it probably won't be quite as humorous, the love interests might not stay together in the end, and the villain might not get his just desserts. But my MC is young, trying to figure out life. I plan to develop her character through her relationships with others, especially two men in her life.

Southern Chick Lit might also be a better term for what I'm writing. I was always told to write what you know, and, well, I've lived in South Carolina almost my whole life. I'm using location and Southern customs as a tool for characterization.

This is lifted from my profile page:

This is the story of Jenna, age 25, who may or may not be pregnant by her boyfriend Lucas. While Jenna grapples with the implications of her possible pregnancy and her true feelings about her relationship with Lucas, her exboyfriend, the toxic Bradley whom Jenna just can't seem to quit, re-enters her life. And the plot thickens...

I'm excited to get started!

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Dianne

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Ignoring June