 Dear later wrote that Persuasion was superficially " a love story in the Cinderella mould " but it was also one of " realism and truthfulness " , particularly in telling the story of two people separated and then reunited . He spent two years working on a script , and found this task difficult for several reasons . First , he needed to find a structure that would be faithful to the novel . Second , his protagonist barely spoke for the first half , and " therefore can 't motor the action along as a central character conventionally does " . Adapting Austen 's wit was another challenge ; much could not be used " because it 's almost all in the author 's voice telling us about characters , with a certain wit or lightness that came from the characters themselves . It 's a craft job , interpreting the novel for oneself and then finding a film language for it " . 
