On Writing

When Jane Austen wrote her novels, she was writing contemporary fiction. A present-day writer faces all kinds of problems in recreating those times in a historical novel. First, there’s research. Which can be fun, is always interesting, and sometimes frustrating. I’m lucky in that I’m familiar with many of the places where Jane Austen lived and set her books.
I’ve lived in a Georgian house in Bath, and know the streets and walks described in Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, and in Dorset, where I used to go to Lyme Regis for a swim and stroll along the Cobb, just as the characters do in Persuasion (although I take care not to fall off!)

I’ve lived in London, as well, and walked the eighteenth and nineteenth century streets. I know Winchester and Derbyshire and Kent – and I spent part of my childhood in Hertfordshire, where the Bennets’ house, Longbourn, is situated

One of my most prized possessions is an 1814 guide to London, a small, shabby, leather-bound book with browned pages. It’s packed full of information, and lives on my desk.
Milsom Steet, Bath, in 1820
Other contemporary sources are letters and diaries from the period, which also help with the language: Jane Austen’s own letters, Byron’s Letters and Journals or Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs are a pleasure to read, others less so. And I read the poets who more than anyone else give a glimpse into the imaginative landscape of their time: Keats and Coleridge and Wordsworth, Cowper and Crabbe. Not to forget novelists like Thomas Love Peacock, always a joy because he makes me laugh; Mary Wollstonecraft, who doesn’t; and Sir Walter Scott.

For clothes, Ackermann’s plates are unbeatable, as is the Bath Costume Museum, and the collection at the Victoria & Albert in London. Pictures of the time are indeed worth a thousand words, from the paintings of Reynolds and Turner to cartoons and caricatures. I’ve spent many happy hours in the National Portrait Gallery looking at faces – and often come out with a new character fresh in my mind.


Engraving of Godmersham House in Kent, where Jane Austen’s brother lived, and she used to stay.
Then there are all the modern books on the period: social and political history, works on sex and gender, detailed accounts of London and country life, biographies, and the fascinating accounts of the meticulous research that goes into making TV dramatisations and films of Jane Austen’s novels.

Phew. So it’s on with the writing, time to put in the hours at the computer. I’m an outliner and a planner, although I haven’t always been. I used to launch into Chapter One, with no more to guide me than my characters, a situation and an idea of how the story might end. That can be revealing, but it can also make for hard writing. Now I do a lot more in my head and put a lot more on paper before I start a book.
How do I write? I’m a firm believer in getting my rational mind out of the way once I’m on the page, and writing fast and unthinkingly. I know where I’m going, and I want it to roll. Then, when I’ve drafted the whole book, I begin the detailed, painstaking work of cutting and enhancing, correcting and refining, checking and rewriting.

I’m a morning writer, although when a book’s nearing the end I often write all day, and get very snappy if anyone interrupts me. My husband and son and daughter recognise the signs, and keep out of my way!

A Walking Dress, 1819