This is an article I wrote for the Historical Novel Society (see links page for more details) about my Jane Austen retellings.

How to revisit Jane Austen without offending the purists.

Q: After writing ten historical romances, why did you decide to revisit Jane Austen for your eleventh novel?

The idea of writing Darcy's Diary came to me by accident.

I was re-reading Pride and Prejudice and, as always, I found myself intrigued by Darcy's thoughts and feelings. Jane Austen reveals very little of them and, like Lizzy, I found myself wondering when he fell in love with her.

At the same time, I found myself wondering about the year in which the book was set. There are two specific dates in the book: the Netherfield Ball takes place on Tuesday, 26th November.(Tuesday from the end of Chapter 17 and 26th November from Chapter 44) and Mr Gardiner writes to Mr Bennet on Monday August 2nd in the following year.

Unfortunately, those two dates are not compatible, so I wondered which of the two was most likely to be wrong.

I drew up a calendar on which to mark the other dates in an effort to decide, but I came to the conclusion that there can't be a definitive answer to the problem of year, because of various contradictions in the text (although, for reasons given fully elsewhere on my website, I favour the idea of Pride and Prejudice being set in 1799/80.)

There was an unexpected side effect to the drawing up of the calendar, because it gave me the idea of writing Darcy's Diary. I had already done much of the groundwork by making the calendar, and the more I thought about it, the more the idea appealed to me. I knew it would give me an opportunity to explore Darcy's thoughts and feelings throughout his relationship with Elizabeth, something which attracted me both as a Jane Austen fan and as a writer, and I liked the idea of revisiting Pride and Prejudice from a different point of view, as it would give a new slant to the story.

How did you keep the tone true to the original?

I read Pride and Prejudice several times before starting work, once because I happened to be reading it again for pleasure, once to make detailed notes on names, places, events etc, and once so that I could ask myself, 'How would Darcy view this scene? What would he be thinking and feeling here?'

I then started writing. To keep the tone true to the original, I looked at the kind of vocabulary Jane Austen used and I made sure I used her vocabulary in Darcy's Diary. For example Bingley often says 'Upon my honour', and Lydia is fond of saying 'Lord!'.

I rarely used contractions - it's, he's etc - because Austen very rarely uses them, and I often deliberately mimicked her sentence structure in order to provide a similar flow. At the same time, I bore in mind that I was writing Darcy's Diary, and that Darcy is not as lively as either Lizzy - whose point of view we mainly see in Pride and Prejudice - or Austen herself, so I tried to make the writing a little stiffer than in Pride and Prejudice, particularly on occasions when Darcy was feeling especially proud or arrogant.

How did you keep the characterization true to the original?

I spent a lot of time thinking about the characters' personalities, and maintained each character's preoccupations: Mrs Bennet talks about her daughters, men and marriage, no matter what topic is being discussed; Lydia is entirely self centred, and talks about nothing but pleasure in various forms; Mary moralises; Lizzy loves to tease; Bingley is pleased with everything; and Darcy, of course, thinks he is above everyone else. This was particularly important in the new scenes, where plot, character and motivations needed to match the existing novel.

I knew that Georgiana had planned to elope with Wickham, but she was no Lydia Bennet, fearless and noisy, she was a shy young girl who adored her brother, and it was important that the new scenes reflected this. Although Jane Austen gave some insight into the episode, for example that Wickham knew Georgiana's companion, and that the two of them worked on her together, I still had to think of a convincing way in which such a shy young girl could be persuaded to run away.

I decided that Wickham must have played on her naivete and youth, building on her fond childhood memories of him, as well as reassuring her that he and Darcy were friends again. As the scene began to take shape, it revealed new insights into Darcy's character, and I realised how difficult it must have been for a twenty-eight year old man to tell a fifteen year old girl that her lover was a fortune hunter. I also realized how difficult it would be for a formal man like Darcy to comfort his sister, but because of the way he treats her when we see them together in Pride and Prejudice, I was sure he would try. I enjoyed showing a softer side to Darcy, as in this scene he is very much the loving older brother.

Again, when I wrote the new scenes in London, where Darcy follows Wickham and Lydia after their elopement, I had to keep the characters' personalities very much in mind. Jane Austen mentioned in Pride and Prejudice that Wickham and Lydia were unrepentant, and I made sure I wrote them this way when Darcy tracked them down.

In the final chapter of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen mentions a Christmas house party at Pemberley, after Lizzy and Darcy's marriage, and I wanted to bring the party to life. As this took place after the close of Pride and Prejudice, I had to extrapolate the characters and their preoccupations, so that I could present them convincingly.

Mrs Bennet's preoccupation throughout Pride and Prejudice was marrying off her daughters, and, as she still had two unmarried daughters, I continued this trait. Her immediate reaction, on seeing Colonel Fitzwilliam - a fine, upstanding bachelor, and a son of an earl, no less! - was to say to him, about Mary: 'She will make some lucky soldier an excellent wife.' Lydia is still Lydia, completely unashamed and unabashed; Mr Bennet is still fond of the library, Mary is still fond of moralising, whilst Kitty exhibits some change as she has spent more time with her sensible sisters. As for Lizzy and Darcy, I was sure they would still be very much in love.

With regard to Anne de Bourgh, however, I gave myself a much freer rein. I had always felt sorry for Anne, and it gave me a great deal of pleasure to imagine a happy ending for her. It doesn't contradict anything in Pride and Prejudice, but neither does it directly follow on from it. Readers who like Anne will have to read Darcy's Diary to find out what kind of future I gave her!

How much Austen did you include in your work?

I didn't have any set ideas on how much of the original novel to include, I took the decision scene by scene. In the new scenes, of course, it's only the outline that comes from Austen, but in the big scenes, for example the first proposal scene, I used mainly Austen's dialogue, because it seemed pointless to replace it with my own. I trimmed it, however, and interspersed it with Darcy's thoughts and feelings, to keep it fresh for those who know Pride and Prejudice very well.

Do you plan to revisit any other Austen novels?

Yes. I've already written Mr Knightley's Diary, which is a retelling of Emma, and it will be out in August 2006. I have also written Cpt Wentworth's Diary, which will be out in 2007. I hope that readers who enjoyed Darcy's Diary will enjoy Mr Knightley's Diary and Cpt Wentworth's Diary, too.

Darcy's Diary is published by Robert Hale, ISBN 07090 7860 9

Mr Knightley's Diary is published by Robert Hale (August 2006)