Books, and why boys hate them.

In America, the complaint is often heard that boys don't want to read. When the Harry Potter craze hit, teachers were beside themselves with joy, as with the Eragon series. Those have both a large female and male fan audience, and as the hype grew, so did the sales, catapaulting them both to permanent bestselling positions. Unfortunately, many writers (female) have no idea why these sold so well. Now, I am a guy, but I absolutely love reading. I read anywhere from 200-400 books a year, barely any falling below 200 pages, and then not counting what I am assigned for school. But, there have been dozens, if not hundreds of times, that I have thrown a book across the room becuase I couldn't take it anymore. So, for female authors, I am going to outline why those two books were so popular, and how you can make your novel more appealing to a male audience. For the sake of convenience, I am going to address it on a YA fantasy realm, as it is most applicable there. However, most of the rules can be extrapolated to other genres.

The reason that both Harry Potter and Eragon have done so well is that they had a strong male protagonist. It has been shown over and over again that boys won't as readily read about a female protagonist, but the opposite has been shown true. Books that portray a traditional feminist protagonist, that can do all things men can do better, and still have children as well, simply make boys feel inadequate, or worse, angry. This alienates the reader, and then you start to lose that segment of society.

If you are going to have a female protagonist, PLEASE have a male counterpart or foil. Not someone she can show up all the time, but an equal at least. Also, plots we have all heard a billion times before, and most boys think about vomiting when they hear: Girl in oppressive society going to show them up, Girl get married to billion year old geezer in selfsame oppressive society and running away, girl diguising femininity to join army, circus, whatever. All these have been done before, and so boys will not read them. Also, don't have a crippled female protagonist. Boys read books that have strong characters, not necessarily moral, but just strong. They don't have to be Ronnie Coleman, or Arnold, but they could be healthy, at least, please. Not many people like reading about the handicapped.

If you are going to have a fighting female protagonist, For God's sake, don't have her be better than the boys! Science has shown that women have far less upper body strength than men, so they need to adjust their fighting skills accordingly. And don't take the easy way out by making them an expert archer. A woman won't be able to wade into battle with an eleven pound broadsword and take on a two hundred fifty pound warrior. Especially if the girl is say, nineteen. This makes boys mad, because they know this isn't real, and it destroys the realism of it.

Why is it that so many female protagonists seem to hate being a woman? When a female protagonist somehow escapes being noticed as a girl (after going torhough pages of angst about being found out and how sexist her society is) the author builds some kind of fantasy land that men live in, where nothing is expected of them, and they order women around, and their clothing is the most comfortable, blah blah blah. Newsflash! Men are just as restricted as women, but in different ways. Men don't talk about intimate things with other men, can't show emotion, aren't allowed to spend time with unmarried women, so on and so forth. But for some reason, female protagonists are always wanting to be a man. The reason boys like boy protagonists is that they aren't always complaining about how man hating their society is, how they would rather dresses than pants, (unlike vice versa) and how women have it good. And it's not because it's not that way. Boys have just as many problems, women just appear to whine about theirs more often.

Learn how to write a fight scene, and delete senseless exposition. Boys don't like to read endless pages of description, just a paragraph will do. However, female writers seem to put so much description in their books the boy quickly gets bored. Also, fight scenes end up coming off as unrealistic, if combat hasn't been studied and perfected. Most women don't like combat, but boys do. That's why it is rare to find girls that like Halo, the violent first person shooter for Xbox, while it is a megaseller among boys. Boys enjoy seeing things solved with a little bit of blood and sweat: too much diplomacy makes the action/fantasy read like a political pundit. Not that there's anything wrong with political intrigue, just make sure that it has something on the line, someone's life is best. Also, we all know who love politics: Assassins! Boys love reading about assassins. In fact, play Assassin's Creed to get a good idea of how assassins operate.

So change them! Take this advice, and you'll do quite well for yourself in terms of getting boys to read your novels. Stick with it, and you'll hit the bestseller list quite quickly. Best of luck!

Game Ratings: A parent's must-have primer

What are you, 25? 27? Johnnie just started asking for God of War or Splinter cell so you Googled it, am I right? Well, before you start making bad decisions, you need a scoop. So let me tell you, this ain't what it seems.

At first blush, this seems like a great plan. Check the ratings, right? That's in a perfect world. Too much, too often, the American game industry has become hideously twisted. Good idea, bad execution. And that's what I mean: this is the execution of American digital entertainment. Yep. We are suffering from a bad case of rating inflation.

Go to the game section at Walmart or Target. Just scan through the games quickly, count the ratio of M:T:E10:E. All of them M, besides a few Ts and one or two Es, am I right or am I right? This is because ESRB has falled into the same pit that the MPAA fell into twenty years ago.

Take a flash back. Ratings for movies used to mean what was in it, and what wasn't. G meant it was fine to show to the fam, PG, slightly less so, and so on up, or down, the ladder. Then everything started to go haywire. The ratings started to mean Genre and Age category. G meant a movie for babes in arms, PG, a sophmoric humor flick with fart jokes, PG-13 a normal, interesting movie, and R a slightly adult movie with little held back. Unlike the sixties, where PG could mean a nice movie with a soft, sentimental edge, and PG-13 was something you didn't show a kid, this has gotten out of control.

Same with the game industry. Know why you see all those block Ms? Because they have become age touchy. Now that games are no longer only for pimply thirteen year olds in a shady arcade over on Fourth and Poplar, Every game with a little violence, or a swear word or two automatically gets saddled with that hefty M. Heavy handed, to say the least.

So whaddya do? Here's a rough guide to M games and below. Check out game sites. If the game's violence or horror/suspense is mentioned, or revered, it's not exactly a party game for the neighborhood kiddies. But if it mentions only the story and controls mentioned, it's probably safe. Give it a thirty minute play through before handing it over, though. Stuff pops up. BUT: if it says anything about nudity, sexual themes, or drugs, they aren't kidding. Even in a T game, this is not over-exaggerated.

So there you go. Be careful, and remeber, they're made to be fun. Give them a good look, but don't get too jaded. That M is a little overused.