{"id":8602,"date":"2017-08-26T11:35:20","date_gmt":"2017-08-26T18:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/BigJimIndustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=8602"},"modified":"2017-09-12T11:38:22","modified_gmt":"2017-09-12T18:38:22","slug":"trans-thrillers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2017\/08\/26\/trans-thrillers\/","title":{"rendered":"Trans-Thrillers"},"content":{"rendered":"

from The Atlantic<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Why Men Pretend to Be Women to Sell Thrillers<\/h1>\n

Over the last decade, female writers have come to dominate crime fiction, a genre traditionally associated with men. But their appeal goes beyond the byline.<\/p>\n

by\u00a0SOPHIE GILBERT<\/a><\/p>\n

Rafael Marchante \/ Reuters<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Almost 10 years ago, Martyn Waites, a British crime writer, was having coffee with his editor. Waites, who was at something of a loose end project-wise, was looking for new ideas. His editor, though, was looking for a woman. Or, more specifically, a high-concept female thriller writer who could be the U.K.\u2019s Karin Slaughter or Tess Gerritsen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said I could do it,\u201d Waites recalls. His editor was skeptical. But then Waites outlined an idea for a book based on a news story he\u2019d once read, about a serial killer targeting pregnant women and cutting out their fetuses. The concept, he admits somewhat bashfully, was a gruesome one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s exactly what we\u2019re looking for,\u201d was his editor\u2019s response.<\/p>\n

That idea became The Surrogate<\/em>, a crime thriller published in 2009, and Waites simultaneously became Tania Carver, his female alter ego. Before he started writing, he embarked on a period of research, reading novels by popular female crime writers, and made \u201ccopious notes\u201d about their various heroes and villains. Waites was an actor before he was a writer, and \u201cMartyn\u201d and \u201cTania\u201d soon became different personas in his head, almost like characters. He\u2019d sit down to write as Tania and then realize the concept was much better suited to Martyn. Martyn books, he explains, \u201cwere more complex, more metaphorical. The kind of things I like in writing.\u201d Tania books were simpler: mainstream commercial thrillers aimed at a female audience. And they rapidly became more successful than any of Waites\u2019s previous books had been.<\/p>\n