Author Mhairi McFarlane on crafting rom-coms and finding inspiration in Nottingham
Author Mhairi McFarlane on crafting rom-coms and finding inspiration in Nottingham
We talk to Sunday Times bestselling rom-com writer about her writing process and using the area for inspiration
Nottingham and Nottinghamshire have seen many authors come through in its time, with greats such as D.H. Lawrence and Alan Sillitoe being from our area. The passion for literature is still alive and well, with numerous authors still penning away even today.
We sat down for a chat with Sunday Times bestselling rom-com author Mhairi McFarlane who lives in Sherwood, to find out how she got started, how she writes here, and her top tips for getting words on paper…
“Write the story that grips you in the stomach and that wakes you up in the middle of the night” — Sherwood-based author Mhairi McFarlane on writing in Notts
By Eve Smallman
Before I begin, I have to admit that I’m a huge fan of Mhairi McFarlane’s books. She has nine rom-coms, which are all relatable stories, with plenty of gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, and belly-aching moments. When I read her books and noticed a few Nottingham settings and references, I did my research and realised that she was locally based, although originally hailing from Scotland — hence her name, pronounced Vah-Ree.
McFarlane originally began her writing career as a journalist at the Nottingham Evening Post, where she became a features writer. “I got to my late 20s, looking down the barrel of 30,” she says. “The plan was never really to stay at the local paper, but inconveniently somewhere along the line, I had lost my appetite to go to the nationals.” This, along with her partner living in London but being keen to move back to Nottingham, made it a crunch time moment for her.
She was then nudged in the right direction by two signs. “I went on holiday, and at the airport shop there was only a particular kind of rom-com book which were all about high-flying characters with lots of money,” she tells me. “The other catalyst was that I was given an ad feature to write and they asked me to do it in the style of Bridget Jones, but as a girl living in Nottingham.” At the time she thought it was so cheesy, but it ended up being a useful writing exercise for her, This all came together to make her think that she could write a romantic comedy novel. “I was on the number 58, and I suddenly realised that the next big challenge for me was fiction, not journalism.”
After going for a pint with her friend and chatting through ideas (as you do), she decided to write her first novel about a court reporter. “I knew enough of it to make it very convincing, and I had this revelation that it would be both brilliant and wrong,” McFarlane tells me. “She couldn’t make decisions about her own life, but she spent every day in court hearing verdicts handed down.” This became You Had Me at Hello, which was published in 2012, but she started writing it from 2006 onwards.
As with what happens with everyone's first novel, McFarlane says that she sat there tinkering with it for five years. “The first attempt at my first book was far more serious and more about ‘Is it ever justified to husband steal?’ I got feedback from a woman who worked at a publishers who said that she liked something in my writing, but that my main character was a real bitch,” says McFarlane. “At first I wailed and said that she clearly didn't understand my big art… and then when I went to the pub and healed a few wounds, I went back to the manuscript and could see she was totally right.”
After that, she dropped trying to be anything else but herself in her writing. “I'd made a classic mistake of trying to write a novel and sound posh, serious and impressive. That’s the hardest thing to drop, but part of the craft is finding a voice that sounds real,” she tells me. She did this by injecting her signature humour and bringing elements of things she knew well.
While with her first book she picked a profession she was familiar with, with others she brought the area she knows best into them. “My fourth book was the first time I had not used a gimmick — or what my publisher calls it, an interesting concept.” In her first few books, she’d done this by using differing timelines and perspectives. “Who's That Girl? was the first of my novels where I just went, ‘I'm going to tell you a story, in my authorial voice, from beginning to end.’ That was intimidating to me, so I used Nottingham. It was such a good fit, and it continues to be a good fit.”
She also says that many rom-coms are set in glamorous places like London and New York, and she found that distancing when reading these. “Nottingham is really good because it has got its own personality, but it does not come with being swaggy, rich, or overly-confident.” As a romantic comedy author, she feels that people don't expect it and love the unexpectedness of the location. “One of the really nice things people say about my books, which is not something I intended to do at the outset but has been developed that way, is that they say that I’m writing something you actually believe is happening to people.”
In Who’s That Girl?, the Nottingham-based character falls for a famous actor. “With that element, you’re asking for a buy-in from the reader, but then she’s living in Forest Fields. Nottingham feels like a place I can make my own as a romantic comedy author — I don't think I'm going to be seeing lots of other novels on the shelves trying to set romantic comedies here,” she smiles.
As well as using it as a backdrop for her novels, she also loves using the area as part of her creative process. “I live in Sherwood, which I particularly love as it has got loads of independent shops and has a real personality and energy to it — but it's not super posh and it hasn't become white Range Rover-y, so you get the best of both worlds.” In terms of the city centre, she loves the friendliness and openness of it.
The Arboretum is on the edge of Forest Fields, the main character’s home in Who’s That Girl? — credit Korng Sok
McFarlane also enjoys the walkability between the two. “A huge part of my creative process is walking — I don't think I could keep writing if I didn't walk,” she tells me. She also says that she always tells her other half that she could never live in a village or a place too far out to walk to the centre because every single day, she gets to a point with her writing where she'll put her music on and just walk for an hour. “When I'm in the zone, I can all but guarantee that on the walk from Sherwood to town, I will either fix a plot problem or realise a new plot thing that should happen.” Walking and turning off is one of her favourite ways to gather ideas.
If you’re feeling inspired to write your own novel or story — whether that be for National Novel Writing Month or otherwise — she has a few pieces of advice for you. “If you are entertaining yourself when thinking about characters and writing stories, something's going right, as if it’s provoking that emotion in you, it's got a real chance of provoking somebody else,” she says. “Write the story that grips you in the stomach and that wakes you up in the middle of the night because you're like, ‘I’ve just thought of this and this is what I have to say.’”
From a practical perspective, she suggests not jumping on book trends. “If you try and write into the market as they say, it won’t be the hot trend by the time the book comes out,” she says. “I think the one thing that readers can tell is if you're just going through the motions and you don't have true enthusiasm.”
Once you’ve found something that interests you, you can then begin to find your voice. “The best way you will do that is by trying to find something that's closest to where you are like, what interests you, and what drives you.” Whether you’re working on a rom-com like McFarlane’s bestsellers or a tale about merry men, clearly Nottingham is a brilliant place to start writing.