Introduction to Analyzing Austen - A Blog for Regency Writers
We are all fools in love. Pride and Prejudice
This blog will attempt to analyze the brilliant Jane Austen in order to understand, glean, possibly adopt, a bit of her brilliance in our own lives and writing.
This blog will not magically endow one with irony and wit, but it will demonstrate how Jane Austen used character relationships, story arcs and the manners of her day to create delightful courtship comedies and dramas read the world around, century after century, by both men and women.
The world of Jane Austen, with its high society, status struggles, lost loves, won loves, beautiful balls, heroines discovering themselves and happy endings, is a world of perfect escapism. It is a world without starvation, car insurance, political campaigns, death of good people or puppies, and wonderfully lacking television. It is a leisurely world of reading books, improving oneself, writing stories, gossiping with neighbors, falling in love, falling out of love, match making, horse riding, carriage hopping, tea drinking, painting, shopping, and letter writing; lots of letter writing. The most sinful crimes are infidelity, seduction, elopement, discussing money, stepping on toes at a dance and poor manners, which can all lead to the ultimate punishment—your card being rejected for a morning call.
It’s always encouraging to know that even in a world where the Waltz was considered scandalous because the man held the woman’s waist, the members of polite society committed some pretty impolite acts and were not burned at the stake. However, before you attempt to find a time portal to Regency, England, remember the most important topic in all of Austen’s books; women had no right to inherit, to work, to vote, or have any general influence in politics or war.
Most women, unless inheriting an estate that was not entailed, had to marry in order to survive and hold a place in society. All of Austen’s novels end with a wedding. In your own novel, you may choose to challenge this idea, and I highly encourage it. But be aware that there were several other female authors that were contemporaries of Austen, but Austen is the only one with such world-renowned fame. Why? She wrote happy endings. Her novels are light, amusing, comic and happy. This blog will focus on writing Regency courtship novels that are probably more comedic than dramatic, but like Austen, will endeavor to make observations of human nature.
I’m writing this blog because after writing ten bad novels in multiple genres, all unpublished, I feel I need to finally sit down and study a master, Jane Austen. An analysis of Austen’s style, structure and character relationships will be turned into usable prompts and questions to help develop a novel.
Answer these questions for yourself:
Why do you write?
Why do you write Regency era stories?
Why do I write?
I write because it makes me happy and the stories I write are unpredictable as I’m writing them. Seeing what a character does is exciting and unexpected.
Why do I write Regency?
Affection is about letting another person affect you and you to affect them. As we see in Austen, if it’s not a two way street, then someone gets smacked with a broken heart. What we also see in Austen is when two people are in love, but an outsider smacks both lovers with broken heart. Stopping love is akin to murder. When writing Regency, one might think the stakes are small, but in my opinion, love is what we live for, thus it is life. Love is the highest stake any story can have. We only live a short time on this planet and much of that time will be in a married union. So as Austen insists, one must only marry with affection.
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