Diana’s self-image supplied her a path to make her daydream real.

Evidence

Even in childhood photos Diana seems to pose, as if watching her own show. Her gaze flits sideways, as if to check everyone is looking at her. One “friend” told a TV crew that as a teenager, “whenever you saw her alone she would have picked up some trashy romantic novel.” Leave aside the casual denigration of women’s taste: if Diana imagined herself—the least and youngest daughter—as magnificent, all-conquering, a queen, she had a means of turning her daydream into fact. — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 286

Categorization

• QUESTION: Mantel hints that ‘trashy romantic novel’ reading taught Diana the script she enacted — worth examining that mechanism further.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 286