To help fill her time, Bainbridge began to write, primarily based on incidents from her childhood. Her first novel, "Harriet Said...", was rejected by several publishers, one of whom found the central characters "repulsive almost beyond belief". It was eventually published in 1972, four years after her third novel ("Another Part of the Wood"). Her second and third novels were published (1967/68) and were received well by critics although they failed to earn much money. She wrote and published seven more novels during the 1970s, of which the fifth, "Injury Time", was awarded the Whitbread prize for best novel in 1977.