I decided almost immediately when I started reading through the rewrite that I wanted to focus on the lighter elements of this story. The tone of the way that Elizabeth thinks about herself, in that grand third person is (in my humble view) funny and adorable, with just enough pathos for flavor. I liked that tone, and the sort of novel that fit cohesively with that tone a great deal more than I liked the idea of those bitter arguments.
My storyteller brain consistently makes up stories where things go horribly wrong, and that I wouldn’t personally want to read. Part of this is in the name of conflict and high drama — which if you read any creative writing book, you will be told that you must have death overhanging every scene, and have the potential for disaster always being present.
Creative writing books, at least the ones that I’ve stumbled across, tend to be written by thriller writers, not romantic comedy writers.
Having said that, I on occasion like a bit of angst as much as the next reader, it just needs to work right, and be balanced and fit. Also, I had an additional crass and mercenary reason to prefer to turn this story into a romantic comedy rather than a drama.
As I write this afterword I do not know how well you, my reading public, shall collectively like this novel. Nota bene: If you do like this book, I would love it if you left a review telling the rest of the reading world that you liked it and why. Also leave a review if you hated the book — either with specifics or that always entertaining, “A stain upon the name of the fair Jane Austen, and the worst crime against English usage I have ever read”.
Your author in his dim and distant college days was a math major who planned to figure out how much you should be charged for health insurance as a profession. Drawing upon that rather scandalous past, I recently made a spreadsheet where I compared the data on how all of my books have sold. I found to my surprise both that shorter books have made more money per book than longer books, and that comedies usually found a bigger audience than sad drama stories.
Apparently on average, the audience of us who like novels written by one of the greatest comic writers of all time, prefer novels that are more comic than tragic.
Singular.
This particular book is not fun all the way through at all, even with the changes I have made. The first half of the book is mostly funny or lighthearted, but then Jane’s husband died. This book is rather like A Dishonorable Offer which had a couple of quite delightfully funny scenes, but also some very painful moments for the characters.
In any case, I decided that I didn’t want to publish and finish editing a story with a bitter Elizabeth who is really angry at her father, while pretending not to be. So all the Mr. Bennet scenes were rewritten to mostly just include bantering.
And I also pulled out the tools from the book I’d been reading when I edited A Compromised Compromise and made a great deal of effort to stick lots of alliteration and polyptotons, which is a fancy word for using a word as two different parts of speech right next to each other, like from Shakespeare: “Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle: I am no traitor’s uncle.” Or from the Beatles, “Nothing you can do that can’t be done, nothing you can sing that can’t be sung.”
On which topic, my book recommendation right now is not another Pride and Prejudice book but Mark Forsythe’s Elements of Eloquence. It is engaging, entertaining, and enlightening.
I will also note I often am drawing little fragments of lines and images from Hungarian poems and music. In studying the language I created a bunch of flash cards with the text from my wife’s favorite songs or from famous poems, and as a result some bits have been read by me five to ten times.
One of the clearest examples of this that I recall is Elizabeth saying that “Life is not like a novel for girls,” which is basically a paraphrasing of a line from one of my wife’s favorite songs. Another case which is unrecognizably distorted if you don’t know the source is a line in the first Elizabeth POV chapter which refers to “The great sinful city, whose name is London.”
There is a song titled Budapest by a famous Hungarian singer, Cseh Tamás (the family name first, Hungarian style) that had a line “and it has a name too, Budapest.”
I have a new Pride and Prejudice novel mostly done that should come out about two months after I publish this novel. I am really excited about that one. The working title is Overhearings Less to the Purpose, and the premise is that at Rosings Darcy overhears Elizabeth telling Charlotte what she really thinks about Darcy. And Darcy then decides that even though he of course no longer wants to marry her, he must charm Elizabeth into thinking more kindly upon him.
Darcy discovers that he is bad at charming women.
Several of the scenes in this book are in my view the funniest things I’ve ever written, and when I started doing the second draft edit, I could not stop laughing. Of course I find my own books particularly funny, because they happen to be written by someone who has exactly my sense of humor, but Overhearings Less to the Purpose transcends simple jokes to create several really good farcical situations.
Currently I have 45,000 words done, and I need to write three or four new scenes that should leave it at a short novel length 55,000 words or so.
Sign up for my mailing list or follow me on Amazon (or wherever you are finding this) if you want to find out when Overhearings Less to the Purpose and my other future books come out.
And now this is the part of the afterword where I ask you to donate to people who are very poor and need help. Rather than writing a new argument, I’m going to copy out what I wrote in several of my earliest books three or four years ago on the subject of donating:
I hope you do not mind if I finish this book by suggesting you donate to Doctors Without Borders. Let me explain why it is extremely important to me to interrupt your book, a book you paid for, with a fundraising appeal.
Last summer my brother graduated from college. For the ceremony they sat a thousand relatives of the happy escapees into the real world on folding chairs in the beating sun and made them wait. And wait. And wait. On hard plastic chairs.
While we waited for the long march of engineering students to their seats to begin, so we could listen to the speeches the college had arranged for the grads to be sent off with, a projector cycled through photos of the graduating class. Each photo had a sentence where the student said what they wanted to do now that they had graduated. Make money appeared once or twice. Make Mom and Dad proud was far more common. Find a job was occasional.
By far the most common response, however, what around a third of the students said, was some variant of, “I want to make the world a better place.”
Do you?
I do; I hope you do too.
I, like most of you, improve the world directly through my work. My best guess is that you collectively have spent at least a hundred times as many hours reading my first books as I spent writing them. I have changed literally years of lived human experience. That is a great reward for an author, but we all improve the world by being part of it. Someone’s life is certainly better because of what you do.
But I want to do more. We can do more.
Donations save lives. We can literally do what superheroes do. So help me make the world a better place by supporting Doctors Without Borders, and make yourself a little bit more like Superman.
You are at least vaguely aware of the statistics about preventable death. You have heard touching stories that end with the child living because of a lifesaving donation. You don’t need to be told why you should donate to Doctors Without Borders or another organization that alleviates suffering. You already know.
So just do it.
Please, please, please. Be the change you want to see in the world. Do something which will make your children proud. Make the world a better place. Donate something: one percent of your income or ten dollars a month; something. Act to make a world where everyone has basic medical care.
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/
Thank you,
everyone, for reading, and I hope you loved the book.
Timothy Underwood
Budapest, November 2019
About the Author
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I am from California, but currently I am living in Budapest with my wife. I first discovered Pride and Prejudice on a long day of travel out of Mexico as a teenager. I recall being very impressed with myself for getting the jokes. I read a lot of nineteenth century literature that year, of which Austen and Charlotte Bronte, of course, were my favorites. It was years later that I discovered and repeatedly binge read Pride and Prejudice fanfiction.
Now I get to add to the pile of fanfiction able to binge – and I love it when I get messages from people telling me that they are binging on my books.
If you liked this book, leave a review. It is a way of helping other people find books they liked.
Send an email to me if you want me to send you an email back at [email protected].
My Other Books:
A Compromised Compromise: Elizabeth tripped and Mr. Darcy caught her in his strong arms, and as he set her back on her feet, they looked deep into each other’s eyes. They kissed. Unfortunately, they were seen in this passionate embrace before they returned to their senses. US UK AU CA DE FR
The Missing Prince: Pride and Prejudice with magic. Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth always have been bound together through a mysterious magic, even though they have never met. When he mysteriously disappears, Elizabeth is the only one who can save him. US – UK – AU – CA – DE -- FR
Too Gentlemanly: My most recent book. After Georgiana had Wickham’s child, Darcy avoided society for years and never went to Netherfield until now, years later. When he meets the still unmarried Elizabeth Bennet they clash and attract. Will they kill each other or marry? US – UK – AU – CA – DE – FR
Colonel Darcy: My most popular book! Fitzwilliam Darcy never forgot his promise to write Elizabeth, but when he is released from prison after the war, it might be too late, because Elizabeth's family is forcing her to marry a baronet. US – UK – Australia – Canada – Germany – France
Mr. Darcy and Mr. Collins’s Widow: My first book, and probably my most popular. Will Elizabeth’s memories of her horrible first marriage to the man who inherited the estate from her father when she was fifteen keep her from finding happiness with Darcy? US - UK - Australia - Canada - Germany - France
A Dishonorable Offer: Elizabeth is very poor and socially disgraced after Lydia married a muscular blacksmith. Darcy likes her very much and wants to help and have her, but there is only one sort of offer he can make a girl whose status has fallen so low. US - UK - Australia - Canada - Germany - France
The Return is another romantic comedy: What if Mr. Bingley ignored Darcy and married Jane immediately? Obviously, Elizabeth and Darcy would argue at the wedding once Jane and Bingley were safely away for the honeymoon. US - UK - Australia - Canada - Germany - France
The Trials: After Mr. Bennet dies, Elizabeth becomes the governess of Lady Catherine’s unwanted ward. One day she collides with Mr. Darcy in the halls of Rosings. But it is too late for her: Mr. Darcy is engaged to his cousin, Anne... US – UK – Australia – Canada – Germany – France
Mr. Darcy’s Vow: Darcy’s spendthrift father left Pemberley deeply in debt, so Darcy swore to never indulge himself. He could not marry a penniless girl. US - UK - Australia - Canada - Germany - France
Writerly Ambitions Page 21