October 12, 2024 • 16 mins
It's nearly been a full decade since British author Paula Hawkins made a name for herself in the literary world.
Crime thriller The Girl on the Train was a global number one bestseller - it sold over 23 million copies and helped solidify Hawkins' place in the crime fiction sphere.
She's returned with her latest work, The Blue Hour, and fans and critics alike are calling it her best book yet.
Hawkins says her strategy to keep readers hooked is to keep little plot twists coming - and encourage readers to go back and look for hints.
"There are obviously lots of different ways of getting into books - and some are slow burns. But it's a great thing where you come up with an idea and think - oh yes, I can grab them with this one."
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks edb Right.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
It has been almost ten years since author Paula Hawkins
made a name for herself. It was in January twenty
fifteen the journalist in romance writer released her first crime thriller,
The Girl on the Train. The book was huge, a
global number one best seller, sold twenty three million copies
and established her place as an author of crime fiction.
And she might just have a new bestseller on her hands.
(00:34):
Her new book, released this week, has been touted by
those in the industry has her best yet. I ripped
through it. It's called The Blue Hour, and Paula Hawkins
joins me from the UK. Good morning, Paula, good morning, Hello.
Thank you so much for being with us. When it
comes to picking a book to read, my mother always
used to say to me, read the first few pages
(00:55):
of a book, then flick to the middle, read a
few pages. If it catches your attention, it reads well,
then go for it. With The Blue Hour, I didn't
get to the middle. I was totally hooked in the
first few pages with this very clear idea about a
bone and an artwork. Is that intentional? Is that what
you want within a couple of pages to have created
(01:17):
a page too that the reader can't put down?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yeah? Absolutely, I mean I think that that. There are
obviously lots of different ways of getting into books, and
some some are slow bones, but you do it is
obviously it's a great thing where you come up with
an idea and you think, oh, yes, I can grab
them with this one, because the idea kind of grabed me.
It's this idea that there's a sculpture that's made out
of various found objects and including animal bones or supposedly
(01:45):
animal bones, and then someone, you know, a grizzly discovery
is made that actually maybe one of the bones is
not an animal bone, it comes from a human body,
and that sort of that that opens the story. And yeah,
I think that is It's such an intriguing it's such
an intriguing idea.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
It's very good. I loved it. I mentioned it that
the Dining of the Dining Tape. I said to my teenagers,
I said, this is the beginning of the book, and
they both immediately said, I want to read that. So
it works even when you're just even when you're just
retelling it how important, then, is it to keep those
little twists coming with your books? There were lots of
(02:24):
moments where I was like, oh, hang on, what just happened?
And I have to go back and read. It's not
like the twists are obvious. It's not like you feel
them coming. How hard is that to write like that?
Speaker 3 (02:40):
For me, it kind of happens quite organically, that those
moments sort of occur to you while you're in the writing.
It's not something I can plan and advance necessarily, because
I don't want it to feel Oh, you know, I
don't want the reader to feel, ah, here is a twist.
You know. You want them to just be sort of
push people in slightly misdirect on this page, or slightly
(03:03):
point them in a different direction on a different page.
You would just want I mean that that reaction that
you just had to say, oh, hang on and go
back a bit. That's sort of what I want to
make people start wondering, wonder about this character, wonder about
the next character, somebody you might think is warm and
lovely and kind, and then there'll just be a moment
where you actually are given cause, given cause to doubt
(03:25):
them slightly those things as I say, I do feel
they happen quite naturally and organically while you're writing the books,
So they should feel that they shouldn't feel jarring, they
should feel part of the flow of the novel.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
So how much do you plan out your plot in
your stories?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
The way it seems to happen now is that I
need a sort of an end point to aim for. Definitely,
you know, I need to know kind of in broad terms,
who've done it, and that's what I'm that I know
that I have to get to that point where where
the mystery is solved and that the culprit or whatever
is revealed. Aside from that, I don't like to plan
(04:05):
a huge amount from the outset. I'd rather sort of
start writing, start developing the characters. However, about usually about
halfway through, I think I sort of have to take
a step back, and that's when I will have a
little you know, I'll put post its on a wall
or whatever, you and sort of figure out that At
(04:26):
that point you can kind of see the shape of
the novel developing, and you can kind of figure out
the points of tension and the points where maybe the
tension is slacking and you need to change something. So yeah,
so I tend to plan kind of halfway through, which
sounds weird, but it's only at that point that I
can really see the shape of the novel properly and
sort of gauge what I need to do next.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
And then do you find that you go back and
rewrite much?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
There's always yes, there is always quite a bit of
editing goes on this novel. I loved writing this novel,
I really did, And it didn't feel some of them
take me an incredibly on time to figure out plots
and to move but you know, move all the sort
of chest pieces around and that kind of thing. There's
novel sort of flowed in quite a satisfying way, and
(05:16):
I didn't have to do too much too much structural work,
which was great because it meant that I could really
concentrate on the language and the level of the sentence
and trying to get the sentences beautiful, which is what
I want to do. I want I don't you know,
it's not just about a story. It's about write writing compelling, interesting,
beautiful sentences as well, so that you know that are
(05:37):
going to be a pleasure to read. So I had
more time to focus.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
On that this time fantastic, seating, fantastic characters. The book
is filled with these complex women, all quite different, but
probably the one thing they might have in common is
that they sort of don't really sort of fit in,
but do have the capacity to do some quite ghastly things.
Where do these characters come from?
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Well, they are, you know, they're comfort all sorts of places.
But they generally I'll usually start with one particular kind
of aspect of them, and that might be something that
might come from someone I've met or someone I've read about,
but you know, they none of them come to me
fully formed. There there will just be one aspect. And
(06:22):
with Vanessa the artist in this piece, I was, you know,
I thought about a woman who was this is going
to sound strange, but making things from broken things. That's
kind of where she started, and that was inspired by
an art expression that I'd gone to see that that
isn't actually how it sort of turns out. You know,
there is an aspect of that in the novel. But
(06:42):
so you take one tiny thing and then you start
building around and think, well, why would she do this
and where is she doing this? And you start interrogating
where she comes from and why she why she's drawn
to certain things. So and you know, so that's sort
of how they start. They tend to start with one
particular character trait, and then I build a whole person
around that trait.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Vanissa's an artists who leaves her complicated marriage to be
free to pursue her aut to focus on her own ambitions.
Are we accepting enough of women who want to live
life on their own terms these days?
Speaker 3 (07:18):
You know, you kind of keep I sort of think
that progress has made and then you'll read something and think, oh, gosh,
maybe it hasn't been. Maybe it hasn't been. You know,
so Vanessa is working mostly in the nineties, and she's, yeah,
she's gone off on her own, she's left her husband,
she's decided she doesn't want to be married, she doesn't
(07:39):
want to have children, all those kind of things, and
you think, like, that isn't actually particularly radical anymore, is it?
And then you read stories from the United States at
the moment where they keep going on and on and
on about chap as women and how you know, awful
childless women are, and you think, oh, well, actually, maybe
it is still a radical aptitude to live your life,
you know, slightly outside of that in inverted commas normal
(07:59):
family domestic structure. So I mean, I think we still
have we still find women who who who just choose
to plow their own borough problematic, which is ludicrous. But yeah,
and she is very much She's very single minded. She's
not the kind of person that everyone would want to
but I admire that kind of single mindedness. I can
(08:20):
see that it has its downsides, but that devotion to
to you know, to work and to making her mark,
I can really admire that.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
The setting the story is set on an island off
the coast of Scotland which is sort of joined to
the mainland by a causeway that can only be passed
at low tide. Do you love remote places? Do you
find them productive for working?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
It's yeah, I have these kind of I am very
drawn to places like that. I constantly imagine myself living
in places like that. I think I'm aware now that
it's kind of a fantasy that actually I wouldn't really
want to live there all the time. In a place
like that, I like the idea of being cut off
or having no one around, having no one to bother me,
(09:05):
of being in nature and you know, somewhere really peaceful,
where I can walk, where I can swim, all those
kind of things. But I also know that if I
was on an island like that where it's you know,
in the winter, it would be dark in the middle
of the afternoon and it would be creepy, and I
would probably just never sleep. So it's a fantasy, but
I am it's one I indulge myself in.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
But such a good place to kill people and hide bodies?
Is there something that you sort of is there something
that you think about often you might find yourself somewhere
or doing something and go hang on a mote. This
could be quite good.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
I mean I do because it is not that easy
to get away with murder anymore. I don't think there's
so much you know, CCTV and everyone's got bones and everything.
Every I feel like we're being watched all the time.
So if you want to get away with a dark
deed fictionally, obviously, you know, it helps to be in
a place like that where you might be able to
(09:58):
do something or you know, where bodies can might lie
undiscovered for a long time. So that, yeah, that's another
The attraction first places from a crime writer's point of
view is that you have the scope to to act,
to behave badly. I'm unseen.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
I mentioned in an introduction that this book has been
touted by those in the industry. Is your beast yet?
Is it your base book?
Speaker 3 (10:27):
I think yes, I think it is. I'm I'm really
I think as happy as I've been. You know, I'm
never happy with what I've done, no one, I don't
think writers ever are. But then well, there's always more
that you could go back and do. It's what I mean,
you always, you know, look at the the things you
might improve. But I am really happy with it. And
I did as I said. I really enjoy writing it.
(10:47):
I loved the process. I love the characters, I love
the setting. I love sort of imagining myself in that setting.
I went. I spent a lot of time on the
west coast of Scotland, wandering around, taking photographs and notes
and all that kind of thing. And I spent a
lot of time reading about artists and the lives of artists,
and you know, I just it was a real pleasure
to write. So I do hope that the readers get
(11:08):
similar pleasure, you know, from reading it.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Oh look, I just loved it, I you know, I
good on the train and your name synonymous with each other,
and look, I did it in the introduction. Do you
hope that one day, though, when you're introduced, it will
be something for other than The Girl on the Train.
I mean, you've written other novels as well. We really
altod move that on, shouldn't we? Are you sort of
feed up with that sort of association?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Do you know what? It's funny because I think I'm
less fed up than I once was, and now there's
so much distance between me and it. I'm fond of it,
and I appreciate what The Girl on the Train did
for me, how many doors it opened, the life it's
enabled me to have. I think when I, you know,
the book following that, I was I said it sort
(11:53):
of I bridled against the fact that that's all everyone
seemed to talk about was the last book, not the
book in hand. But now you know, I'm fine with it.
It is the one that people remember a lot of
people really really loved that novel, and so I'm not
going to I'm not going to denigrate it. You know,
Rachel still has a place in my heart.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
You've been successful as a journalist, a romance writer, and
now obviously a crime writer. You found global fame in
your early forties. Is success in later life a good thing?
Do you think?
Speaker 3 (12:28):
I think it's probably easier to deal with when you're
forty than that when you're twenty two or something. You know,
I think you having failed a lot, which I had
in that, you know, before I wrote The Girl on
the Chain, you kind of you know you have something
to compare it to. You know that this is an
unusual thing that's happening to you. You know that this
is not everything is going to be like this. You're
(12:49):
maybe more what I certainly was more kind of grounded
and comfortable in myself as a forty something than I
was as a twenty something. So I mean, I would
have to really ask someone who became very successful in
their twenties. But I think it's possibly more more destabilizing,
in a bit more differ got it to handle when
you're when you're young.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Paula, it's been such a sort of a busy decade
since the release of that book. Our writers supportive. What's
the best advice you've been given when it comes to
writing that you've asked for?
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Oh gosh, that's a really tricky That's a tricky one.
To answer. I mean, I think that generally writing communities
are incredibly supportive. You know, it doesn't feel like a zer.
There is some game. I think one person's success doesn't
mean somebody else's failure. But you know, people tend to write.
If they read a book they like, they then want
(13:47):
to go and read more books, so it's actually it's
good for everyone. In terms of advice, though, gosh, I
can't think of any I mean, there's so much. There
is so much great advice I've had, and I think
probably i've been I've watched writers about me and real
around me and realized that taking your time, not rushing
(14:08):
into things. I think where I've made mistakes, it's been
by trying to do trying to get things done too
fast and not sitting with the characters and letting a
story kind of really percolate. I've read a lot, you know,
I've read really great writing books by Stephen King's Writing Guide,
which I think is just called on Writing, and George
Saunders one as well. I'll just filled with really like
(14:31):
generous advice which I would recommend to any reader, any writer. Sorry, Paula.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I just want to finish by coming back to what
I spoke about at the very beginning that importance of
the hook. And I mean, I started this book and
I literally didn't put it down. I read it till
I've finished it. Do you think, though, do you even
not finish a book? Like I've always felt obliged once
I've started a book to just to finish it, that
I owed the book something. And now I've got to
(14:57):
fifty two and I'm like, I don't. Life's too short.
If I'm not enjoying this book where it's really bay written,
I don't need to read it. Do you ever not
finish your book?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
It's quite rare, but I but I don't think you
should pursue things. If you know, if you're thirty pages
fifty pages in and it's really not work, I say, yeah,
give it's fifty pages. And if you really really don't
feel this is for you, then I then I would say, no, Well,
you know, there are so many books out there. You
don't have to spend your time on something that's not
that's not interesting you were grabbing you. But on the
(15:30):
other hand, I recently read a novel and I won't
give the name because I don't want but I was
reading it and I was thinking, oh, I don't I
didn't know that it was badly written, but I was thinking, no,
I'm not sure this is for me. And then I
ended up really loving it. So there's always that it's true,
that happens, so you don't want to give up too early.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
That is true. Paula Hawkins, thank you so much for
the book. Loved it. Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you, and The Blow Hour is in stores now.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to news Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks edb Right.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
It has been almost ten years since author Paula Hawkins
made a name for herself. It was in January twenty
fifteen the journalist in romance writer released her first crime thriller,
The Girl on the Train. The book was huge, a
global number one best seller, sold twenty three million copies
and established her place as an author of crime fiction.
And she might just have a new bestseller on her hands.
(00:34):
Her new book, released this week, has been touted by
those in the industry has her best yet. I ripped
through it. It's called The Blue Hour, and Paula Hawkins
joins me from the UK. Good morning, Paula, good morning, Hello.
Thank you so much for being with us. When it
comes to picking a book to read, my mother always
used to say to me, read the first few pages
(00:55):
of a book, then flick to the middle, read a
few pages. If it catches your attention, it reads well,
then go for it. With The Blue Hour, I didn't
get to the middle. I was totally hooked in the
first few pages with this very clear idea about a
bone and an artwork. Is that intentional? Is that what
you want within a couple of pages to have created
(01:17):
a page too that the reader can't put down?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yeah? Absolutely, I mean I think that that. There are
obviously lots of different ways of getting into books, and
some some are slow bones, but you do it is
obviously it's a great thing where you come up with
an idea and you think, oh, yes, I can grab
them with this one, because the idea kind of grabed me.
It's this idea that there's a sculpture that's made out
of various found objects and including animal bones or supposedly
(01:45):
animal bones, and then someone, you know, a grizzly discovery
is made that actually maybe one of the bones is
not an animal bone, it comes from a human body,
and that sort of that that opens the story. And yeah,
I think that is It's such an intriguing it's such
an intriguing idea.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
It's very good. I loved it. I mentioned it that
the Dining of the Dining Tape. I said to my teenagers,
I said, this is the beginning of the book, and
they both immediately said, I want to read that. So
it works even when you're just even when you're just
retelling it how important, then, is it to keep those
little twists coming with your books? There were lots of
(02:24):
moments where I was like, oh, hang on, what just happened?
And I have to go back and read. It's not
like the twists are obvious. It's not like you feel
them coming. How hard is that to write like that?
Speaker 3 (02:40):
For me, it kind of happens quite organically, that those
moments sort of occur to you while you're in the writing.
It's not something I can plan and advance necessarily, because
I don't want it to feel Oh, you know, I
don't want the reader to feel, ah, here is a twist.
You know. You want them to just be sort of
push people in slightly misdirect on this page, or slightly
(03:03):
point them in a different direction on a different page.
You would just want I mean that that reaction that
you just had to say, oh, hang on and go
back a bit. That's sort of what I want to
make people start wondering, wonder about this character, wonder about
the next character, somebody you might think is warm and
lovely and kind, and then there'll just be a moment
where you actually are given cause, given cause to doubt
(03:25):
them slightly those things as I say, I do feel
they happen quite naturally and organically while you're writing the books,
So they should feel that they shouldn't feel jarring, they
should feel part of the flow of the novel.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
So how much do you plan out your plot in
your stories?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
The way it seems to happen now is that I
need a sort of an end point to aim for. Definitely,
you know, I need to know kind of in broad terms,
who've done it, and that's what I'm that I know
that I have to get to that point where where
the mystery is solved and that the culprit or whatever
is revealed. Aside from that, I don't like to plan
(04:05):
a huge amount from the outset. I'd rather sort of
start writing, start developing the characters. However, about usually about
halfway through, I think I sort of have to take
a step back, and that's when I will have a
little you know, I'll put post its on a wall
or whatever, you and sort of figure out that At
(04:26):
that point you can kind of see the shape of
the novel developing, and you can kind of figure out
the points of tension and the points where maybe the
tension is slacking and you need to change something. So yeah,
so I tend to plan kind of halfway through, which
sounds weird, but it's only at that point that I
can really see the shape of the novel properly and
sort of gauge what I need to do next.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
And then do you find that you go back and
rewrite much?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
There's always yes, there is always quite a bit of
editing goes on this novel. I loved writing this novel,
I really did, And it didn't feel some of them
take me an incredibly on time to figure out plots
and to move but you know, move all the sort
of chest pieces around and that kind of thing. There's
novel sort of flowed in quite a satisfying way, and
(05:16):
I didn't have to do too much too much structural work,
which was great because it meant that I could really
concentrate on the language and the level of the sentence
and trying to get the sentences beautiful, which is what
I want to do. I want I don't you know,
it's not just about a story. It's about write writing compelling, interesting,
beautiful sentences as well, so that you know that are
(05:37):
going to be a pleasure to read. So I had
more time to focus.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
On that this time fantastic, seating, fantastic characters. The book
is filled with these complex women, all quite different, but
probably the one thing they might have in common is
that they sort of don't really sort of fit in,
but do have the capacity to do some quite ghastly things.
Where do these characters come from?
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Well, they are, you know, they're comfort all sorts of places.
But they generally I'll usually start with one particular kind
of aspect of them, and that might be something that
might come from someone I've met or someone I've read about,
but you know, they none of them come to me
fully formed. There there will just be one aspect. And
(06:22):
with Vanessa the artist in this piece, I was, you know,
I thought about a woman who was this is going
to sound strange, but making things from broken things. That's
kind of where she started, and that was inspired by
an art expression that I'd gone to see that that
isn't actually how it sort of turns out. You know,
there is an aspect of that in the novel. But
(06:42):
so you take one tiny thing and then you start
building around and think, well, why would she do this
and where is she doing this? And you start interrogating
where she comes from and why she why she's drawn
to certain things. So and you know, so that's sort
of how they start. They tend to start with one
particular character trait, and then I build a whole person
around that trait.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Vanissa's an artists who leaves her complicated marriage to be
free to pursue her aut to focus on her own ambitions.
Are we accepting enough of women who want to live
life on their own terms these days?
Speaker 3 (07:18):
You know, you kind of keep I sort of think
that progress has made and then you'll read something and think, oh, gosh,
maybe it hasn't been. Maybe it hasn't been. You know,
so Vanessa is working mostly in the nineties, and she's, yeah,
she's gone off on her own, she's left her husband,
she's decided she doesn't want to be married, she doesn't
(07:39):
want to have children, all those kind of things, and
you think, like, that isn't actually particularly radical anymore, is it?
And then you read stories from the United States at
the moment where they keep going on and on and
on about chap as women and how you know, awful
childless women are, and you think, oh, well, actually, maybe
it is still a radical aptitude to live your life,
you know, slightly outside of that in inverted commas normal
(07:59):
family domestic structure. So I mean, I think we still
have we still find women who who who just choose
to plow their own borough problematic, which is ludicrous. But yeah,
and she is very much She's very single minded. She's
not the kind of person that everyone would want to
but I admire that kind of single mindedness. I can
(08:20):
see that it has its downsides, but that devotion to
to you know, to work and to making her mark,
I can really admire that.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
The setting the story is set on an island off
the coast of Scotland which is sort of joined to
the mainland by a causeway that can only be passed
at low tide. Do you love remote places? Do you
find them productive for working?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
It's yeah, I have these kind of I am very
drawn to places like that. I constantly imagine myself living
in places like that. I think I'm aware now that
it's kind of a fantasy that actually I wouldn't really
want to live there all the time. In a place
like that, I like the idea of being cut off
or having no one around, having no one to bother me,
(09:05):
of being in nature and you know, somewhere really peaceful,
where I can walk, where I can swim, all those
kind of things. But I also know that if I
was on an island like that where it's you know,
in the winter, it would be dark in the middle
of the afternoon and it would be creepy, and I
would probably just never sleep. So it's a fantasy, but
I am it's one I indulge myself in.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
But such a good place to kill people and hide bodies?
Is there something that you sort of is there something
that you think about often you might find yourself somewhere
or doing something and go hang on a mote. This
could be quite good.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
I mean I do because it is not that easy
to get away with murder anymore. I don't think there's
so much you know, CCTV and everyone's got bones and everything.
Every I feel like we're being watched all the time.
So if you want to get away with a dark
deed fictionally, obviously, you know, it helps to be in
a place like that where you might be able to
(09:58):
do something or you know, where bodies can might lie
undiscovered for a long time. So that, yeah, that's another
The attraction first places from a crime writer's point of
view is that you have the scope to to act,
to behave badly. I'm unseen.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
I mentioned in an introduction that this book has been
touted by those in the industry. Is your beast yet?
Is it your base book?
Speaker 3 (10:27):
I think yes, I think it is. I'm I'm really
I think as happy as I've been. You know, I'm
never happy with what I've done, no one, I don't
think writers ever are. But then well, there's always more
that you could go back and do. It's what I mean,
you always, you know, look at the the things you
might improve. But I am really happy with it. And
I did as I said. I really enjoy writing it.
(10:47):
I loved the process. I love the characters, I love
the setting. I love sort of imagining myself in that setting.
I went. I spent a lot of time on the
west coast of Scotland, wandering around, taking photographs and notes
and all that kind of thing. And I spent a
lot of time reading about artists and the lives of artists,
and you know, I just it was a real pleasure
to write. So I do hope that the readers get
(11:08):
similar pleasure, you know, from reading it.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Oh look, I just loved it, I you know, I
good on the train and your name synonymous with each other,
and look, I did it in the introduction. Do you
hope that one day, though, when you're introduced, it will
be something for other than The Girl on the Train.
I mean, you've written other novels as well. We really
altod move that on, shouldn't we? Are you sort of
feed up with that sort of association?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Do you know what? It's funny because I think I'm
less fed up than I once was, and now there's
so much distance between me and it. I'm fond of it,
and I appreciate what The Girl on the Train did
for me, how many doors it opened, the life it's
enabled me to have. I think when I, you know,
the book following that, I was I said it sort
(11:53):
of I bridled against the fact that that's all everyone
seemed to talk about was the last book, not the
book in hand. But now you know, I'm fine with it.
It is the one that people remember a lot of
people really really loved that novel, and so I'm not
going to I'm not going to denigrate it. You know,
Rachel still has a place in my heart.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
You've been successful as a journalist, a romance writer, and
now obviously a crime writer. You found global fame in
your early forties. Is success in later life a good thing?
Do you think?
Speaker 3 (12:28):
I think it's probably easier to deal with when you're
forty than that when you're twenty two or something. You know,
I think you having failed a lot, which I had
in that, you know, before I wrote The Girl on
the Chain, you kind of you know you have something
to compare it to. You know that this is an
unusual thing that's happening to you. You know that this
is not everything is going to be like this. You're
(12:49):
maybe more what I certainly was more kind of grounded
and comfortable in myself as a forty something than I
was as a twenty something. So I mean, I would
have to really ask someone who became very successful in
their twenties. But I think it's possibly more more destabilizing,
in a bit more differ got it to handle when
you're when you're young.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Paula, it's been such a sort of a busy decade
since the release of that book. Our writers supportive. What's
the best advice you've been given when it comes to
writing that you've asked for?
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Oh gosh, that's a really tricky That's a tricky one.
To answer. I mean, I think that generally writing communities
are incredibly supportive. You know, it doesn't feel like a zer.
There is some game. I think one person's success doesn't
mean somebody else's failure. But you know, people tend to write.
If they read a book they like, they then want
(13:47):
to go and read more books, so it's actually it's
good for everyone. In terms of advice, though, gosh, I
can't think of any I mean, there's so much. There
is so much great advice I've had, and I think
probably i've been I've watched writers about me and real
around me and realized that taking your time, not rushing
(14:08):
into things. I think where I've made mistakes, it's been
by trying to do trying to get things done too
fast and not sitting with the characters and letting a
story kind of really percolate. I've read a lot, you know,
I've read really great writing books by Stephen King's Writing Guide,
which I think is just called on Writing, and George
Saunders one as well. I'll just filled with really like
(14:31):
generous advice which I would recommend to any reader, any writer. Sorry, Paula.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I just want to finish by coming back to what
I spoke about at the very beginning that importance of
the hook. And I mean, I started this book and
I literally didn't put it down. I read it till
I've finished it. Do you think, though, do you even
not finish a book? Like I've always felt obliged once
I've started a book to just to finish it, that
I owed the book something. And now I've got to
(14:57):
fifty two and I'm like, I don't. Life's too short.
If I'm not enjoying this book where it's really bay written,
I don't need to read it. Do you ever not
finish your book?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
It's quite rare, but I but I don't think you
should pursue things. If you know, if you're thirty pages
fifty pages in and it's really not work, I say, yeah,
give it's fifty pages. And if you really really don't
feel this is for you, then I then I would say, no, Well,
you know, there are so many books out there. You
don't have to spend your time on something that's not
that's not interesting you were grabbing you. But on the
(15:30):
other hand, I recently read a novel and I won't
give the name because I don't want but I was
reading it and I was thinking, oh, I don't I
didn't know that it was badly written, but I was thinking, no,
I'm not sure this is for me. And then I
ended up really loving it. So there's always that it's true,
that happens, so you don't want to give up too early.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
That is true. Paula Hawkins, thank you so much for
the book. Loved it. Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you, and The Blow Hour is in stores now.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to news Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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