Why We Read What We Read?

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HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: It happens at every event I attend--someone in the audience asks: What book are you reading? Why is this such a difficult question? My mind instantly goes blank, and I struggle to come up with an answer. It's--ridiculous, because I am reading all the time. 

Sometimes I even plan for it. I think, okay, if one asks, I will say....and then my mind wanders, and I never decide. And then... they ask. Usually, though, I realize what I'm reading is one of two things. A non-fiction true crime or the like. Or a psychological thriller. 
 Do you have an instant answer for this?
And what if someone said--why do you read what you read? AH. Now there's a question. Luckily, author Tracey Phillips (whose terrific BEST KEPT SECRETS is brand new!) is here to help us think about that.

Why Women Read (And Write) Thrillers and Crime Fiction
   by Tracey Phillips

As your gaze skims the words on the page, you curl into yourself. Elbows tuck and your shoulders hunch. Your heart rate climbs from adagio to vivace. A fingernail sneaks between your teeth and you work it till you come to the end of the chapter and. . . “No!” You can’t stop there, the author’s left another cliffhanger!

“Why do so many women read thrillers?” A friend asked me during a discussion of my debut novel: Best Kept Secrets—released on October 8^th by Crooked Lane Books. She asked, “Why are thrillers and suspense novels so popular? Why do women in particular read and watch so much crime fiction and psychological suspense? And why did you write a suspense/thriller?”

Her questions had merit. My good friend, bless her heart, has anxiety. I mean, my little panic attacks pale in comparison to her debilitating ones. Nothing to laugh at, my friend internalizes her fears to a terrifying degree. She won’t—can’t—read Best Kept Secrets or she’ll not sleep for a week. No wonder she needed answers.

Happily-Ever-After? Not So Much

Everyone loves the feeling of a love story. Some crave it. Maybe it replaces the hole in their heart leftover from that lover who jilted them. Maybe it fills a need to be loved. Or maybe readers just need the happily-ever-after. Romance has always been the most popular genre worldwide. For years it has also been the best-selling genre.

I’m no psychologist, but I’ve read that the act of falling in love releases feel-good hormones in our bodies. And don’t we all want to feel good? In reading romance, we live vicariously through the characters and we fall in love again. And again. And it feels good!

So tell me why according to Bookriot.com, in 2015 mystery/suspense outsold every other genre, including romance. And according to the Writing Cooperative, in 2017 crime fiction and suspense became the top genre in the U.S. (Romance was not among the categories in their study.)

Because we love to be thrilled! We love to be sitting on the edge of our seat anticipating the next event. We love it so much, that. . .

Women Buy More Fiction Than Men

In 2017, Sophie Gilbert wrote an article for the Atlantic called Why Men Pretend to be Women to Sell Thrillers. She states that women dominate the fiction market in reading (women book-buyers represent 60% of the market) and in writing. She says that some male writers have chosen to publish with a female pseudonym because women want to read what women have written. Terrence Rafferty says, “women are writing the best crime novels”. Female writers “tell it like it is” rather than fluff it up. This point of view is perhaps what female readers have been craving all along.

Of course, women don’t write better; women write differently than men. Women say it from their perspective. We dig deeply into the emotions of the moment and we feel their feelings. Is that to say we tell it from the perspective of fear and anxiety?

Perhaps. I recently got swept away by Lisa Gardner’s Find Her. She writes her victims and female heroines with such a striking array of senses that I couldn’t put it down.

What Does the Darkness Cost Us? 

We love an unreliable protagonist like Paula Hawkins’ Rachel in Girl on the Train. In an interview with The Guardian, Hawkins said, “Men tend to be attacked by strangers, women tend to be attacked by people they know.” This raises the stakes for us. It drives my imagination to places I’d rather not go. But as Hawkins said, “Most women…are made to think about themselves in terms of what they should be doing to prevent violence happening to them.”

Tracey Phillips

I know this is true for me.

Perhaps in reading a good thriller, we live vicariously through the protagonist (yes, just like in romance) and then when s/he overcomes their fear, when the criminal is caught and the tension successfully abated, we find some release of our own. 

Why I Write Psychological Suspense:

Psychological suspense is my favorite genre. In my debut novel, Best Kept Secrets, Detective Jewell is obsessed with her past. She can’t escape it. I think it’s what makes her human. Her inability to let it go is what drives her to finally solve her best friend’s murder. And when the story ends, we connect with our feelings and let some of the anxiety go. 

Where my anxious friend is concerned, it doesn’t bother me that she’ll never read Best Kept Secrets. I understand. Because I too have a degree of angst and nervousness. But this is where my friend and I part ways. I like it. I like the rush and the climbing heartrate and the hope and the fear that everything will work out. I like to sit up in bed reading, every muscle tense and ready for flight. And I love it when the ending comes with resolution.

And that’s why I write.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Yes yes, when you open a book and the walls fall away and you cannot put it  down and you are in another world--it happens, it does, sometimes.  But not always. (Is it like dating? I refuse to go there.)  And it;s such a joy when you find that book--that one that sends you into storyland.

But interesting,  too, that what transports some of us is NOT what's compelling to others. 

Okay, Reds and readers. Here's a test for you. Can you do it? Tell us ONE terrific book you've read in the past month. ONE. No comments, no explanation, no chit chat. Just: One title. (Okay, and the author.) (And no Reds. We know you love us, and we are SIGNIFICANTLY grateful.)

Can you do it?

And a copy of  BEST KEPT SECRETS to one lucky commenter!

(I'll start. City of Windows, by Robert Pobi. How about you?)
ED. NOTE added later: okay, DUMB idea! What do you think about why women read--and write-- thrillers?

BEST KEPT SECRETS is available where ever books are sold.

Find me on-line at www.traceysphillips.com

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