When someone leaves you, apart from missing them, apart from the fact that the whole little world you've created together collapses, and that everything you see or do reminds you of them, the worst is the thought that they tried you out and, in the end, the whole sum of parts adds up to you got stamped REJECT by the one you love. How can you not be left with the personal confidence of a passed over British Rail sandwich?

Fielding rejected this idea as too embarrassing[citation needed] and exposing and offered instead to create an imaginary exaggerated comic character. She studied English at St Anne's College Oxford and was part of the Oxford revue at the 1978 Edinburgh Festival forming a continuing friendship with a group of comic performers and writers including Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson. Directed by Sharon McGuire.

The two films of the same name have achieved worldwide success. Bridget Jones’s Diary was named as one of the ten novels that best defined the 20th century in a survey conducted by The Guardian newspaper.