NK Chats To… Helen Taylor

Hello Helen, thank you for joining me today. Can you tell me about your book, Why Women Read Fiction and what inspired you to write it? 

I have always been fascinated by the fact that the main readers of novels and short stories are women.  Currently we buy (and also borrow) about 80% of all fiction.  Women are the vast majority of members of book clubs, attendees at literary festivals, visitors to libraries and bookshops, and organisers of days out to literary heritage sites like the Brontës’ Haworth Parsonage. Many years ago, I wrote a book about Gone With the Wind, and more recently a Daphne du Maurier Companion, and while researching both these, I was struck by how many women told me of their passion for both writers and their books, and how profoundly they had wrapped words, scenes, characters and settings into their hearts and their own life stories.

They had even called their daughters, dogs and cats after the protagonists (Scarlett, Rhett, Rebecca). So I set out to ask what it is about reading fiction that appeals to women – and I found it offers escape, a special space just for us (‘me-time’), and the opportunity to spread our wings intellectually and emotionally. It helps us through the night, and gives us insights into our relationships and families, as well as the world beyond. Jackie Kay suggests ‘our lives are mapped by books’.

Fiction is important to so many people (including me.) Which fictional novel has made the most impact on you and why?

At different stages of my life, particular books have resonated.  As a girl, I wanted to be like awkward, unconventional and ambitious Jo March in Little Women.  As a young student, George Eliot’s Middlemarch taught me about social and intellectual pretentiousness, and warned me never to marry an emotionally stunted man.

As a middle-aged and older woman, I’ve learned about worlds very different from my own through writers such as Ralph Ellison, Eudora Welty and Hilary Mantel. Toni Morrison’s Beloved about American slavery is the most devastating novel I’ve ever read, and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening is very dear to my heart because set in a special place of mine, Louisiana.

What were the challenges you faced when writing When Women Read Fiction?

I decided to send out questionnaires to women about their reading, and to interview women writers too.  The enthusiasm with which over 400 women responded to my questions and the wonderful material they provided me with, were very humbling, and I had to try to do justice to it all.  Women love to tell you about what reading fiction means to them – ‘a lifeline,’ ‘my best friend,’ ‘the love of my life’ – and all the ways they have found it helped them in sorrow, joy, sickness and health.

Women writers are very aware of their responsibility to, and friendly relationship with women readers, though they gave me angry accounts of being ‘Little Womaned’, as Hilary Mantel put it – reviewed, paid and valued less than male fiction writers.

What’s your writing day like and what do you need around you? For example, coffee, tea, music, silence?

Alas, I’m not an early riser, but when I get going (after many cups of good English Breakfast tea) I like to write to music – Joni Mitchell, Kate Rusby, Mozart, Leonard Cohen)- but when I REALLY get going and the writing is flowing, I work in silence.  Those are the most productive and precious times.

What’s the first thing you do when starting a new project? What comes next?

I am a slow burn writer. I was commissioned to write a BFI book about the film of Gone With the Wind and I finished it in three months, but usually it takes me years to shape an idea and produce a book.

I had the germ of an idea for Why Women Read Fiction thirty years ago, but I worked on it seriously for about five years. I think it’s a better book for taking so much time.

How do you approach the editing process?

Editing is my favourite process of all.  I find research and first drafts time-consuming and difficult, but I love to edit.

Years of teaching students have given me considerable experience here, and I love to spot my own repetitions, clichés, weak phrases and poor arguments – then brutally cut and reshape.  It’s the most creative process.

What’s your favourite word and why? 

Daffodil.  It’s such a musical word, which speaks of joy.  And the flower itself, with its happy open face,  heralds my favourite season, Spring.

What are you currently working on? Are you able to tell me a little about it? 

Sorry, I can’t discuss the two projects I’m planning as they’re at a very early stage.  One of them will have to be dropped!

Which fictional character would you like to meet and why? 

Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca.  In the novel, she’s dead – and haunts the second Mrs de Winter. I’d love her to come back to life to tell me the dark truths about her complicated life and marriage to Maxim de Winter.

Do you have any advice for new writers? 

It’s hard to be a writer these days – very unlucrative (average earnings around £10.5K p.a.), and challenging in every way. If you haven’t written much, take a Creative Writing course at a university or adult education institution, or go on an Arvon Foundation or Faber writing course.

All writers need a network and community to buoy up their spirits, so join the Society of Authors, the Romantic Novelists Association or any other body that supports your kind of writing – and go to literary festivals to meet writers and hear them talk about the process.

If that isn’t possible, start a writing group with friends. Be prepared to be ruthless with your own writing, and edit edit edit.  Oh, and read as much as you can. The best writers are always passionate and voracious readers.

About Helen:

Helen Taylor has published books on women’s writing, American southern culture, and most recently women fiction readers. Her best-known works focus on popular writing and culture: Scarlett’s Women: Gone With the Wind and its Female Fans, The Daphne du Maurier Companion, and Circling Dixie: Contemporary Southern Culture through a Transatlantic Lens.

Her latest book, Why Women Read Fiction: The Stories of Our Lives, is the culmination of her lifetime interest in women’s reading enthusiasms and practices.

She has taught at the universities of Bristol, UWE, Warwick and Exeter, and chaired or curated many literary events.

She directed the first children’s literature festival in Exeter, and the inaugural Liverpool Literary Festival.

Say hi to Helen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rushton67

About Why Women Read Fiction:

Ian McEwan once said, ‘When women stop reading, the novel will be dead.’ This book explains how precious fiction is to contemporary women readers, and how they draw on it to tell the stories of their lives. Female readers are key to the future of fiction and―as parents, teachers, and librarians―the glue for a literate society.

Women treasure the chance to read alone, but have also gregariously shared reading experiences and memories with mothers, daughters, grandchildren, and female friends. For so many, reading novels and short stories enables them to escape and to spread their wings intellectually and emotionally.

This book, written by an experienced teacher, scholar of women’s writing, and literature festival director, draws on over 500 interviews with and questionnaires from women readers and writers.

It describes how, where, and when British women read fiction, and examines why stories and writers influence the way female readers understand and shape their own life stories.

Taylor explores why women are the main buyers and readers of fiction, members of book clubs, attendees at literary festivals, and organisers of days out to fictional sites and writers’ homes. The book analyses the special appeal and changing readership of the genres of romance, erotica, and crime.

It also illuminates the reasons for British women’s abiding love of two favourite novels, Pride and Prejudice and JaneEyre. Taylor offers a cornucopia of witty and wise women’s voices, of both readers themselves and also writers such as Hilary Mantel, Helen Dunmore, Katie Fforde, and Sarah Dunant.

The book helps us understand why―in Jackie Kay’s words―’our lives are mapped by books.’

Why Women Read Fiction was published by OUP Oxford on 5th December 2019. Click to view on Amazon UK and Amazon US. 

by

Laura

I’m Laura. I started Novel Kicks in 2009. I wanted a place to post my writing as well as give other writers like me the opportunity to do the same. There is also a monthly book club, a writing room which features writing prompts, book reviews, competitions, author interviews and guest posts.

I grew up by the sea (my favourite place in the world) and I currently live in Hampshire. I am married to Chris, have a cat named Buddy and I would love to be a writer. I’m trying to write the novel I’ve talked so much about writing if only I could stop pressing delete. I’ve loved writing since creative writing classes in primary school. I have always wanted to see my teacher Miss Sayers again and thank her for the encouragement. When not trying to write the novel or writing snippets of stories on anything I can get my hands on, I love reading, dancing like a loon and singing to myself very badly. My current obsession is Once Upon a Time and I would be happy to live with magic in the enchanted forest surrounded by all those wonderful stories provided that world also included Harry Potter. I love reading chick lit. contemporary fiction and novels with mystery.