The Thing about Jane Austen, One of Them Anyway

I'm not obsessed with everything Jane Austen. Writing fiction comes more naturally to me than non-fiction. And those are two statements that go together quite well, as one certainly proves the other, and makes me not a liar, but a writer. I just cannot get enough of Austen's characters. They are so darn clear in my mind, so fully developed and wonderfully flawed. I feel I know them better than most flesh and blood people around me. And truth be told, I am not only completely head-over-heals in love with Jane Austen's work, but I am also quite smitten with the search and discovery of sequels written by other Austen admirers. Sure, some of these sequels can be a bit sappy and not remotely up to par with Miss Austen, but one must do what one must to get a glimpse into the continuing lives of characters whose stories were ended much, much too soon. When I read Pride and Prejudice or Northanger Abbey, it's the characters, not necessarily the stories, that pull me in towards another night of squinty eye reading and sleeplessness. And ain't it kind of funny that the thing I adore most about Austen's novels is the thing that has twisted around into an issue for me in my own writing? Character development just pours out of me when I write, which could be a good thing...BUT, it is often the only thing that pours out of me when I write.



Story development. Plot. That is stinking hard for me. It's just about as slow as a pesky little algebra equation. Thankfully though, I don't despise developing a story as much as I do algebra, but still...it can be tough to actually make things happen. I can sketch a character all day...100 pages of character sketch...all in a day's work. Fifteen pages of plot development, now that's a day's work, real work. It is a wonderful thing though, when I see these characters from my mind, whom I really do care about, in a scene with things happening around them and to them. They're not just sketches any more, not just word pictures, but they're active and tested, and this makes a writer, and a reader, really get them on a new level. Maybe this whole process is an itty bitty glimpse of what I'll experience when I send my kids to kindergarten or send them out in the world. I mean, I have my little ones home with me, in this protected, controlled environment, and they are just precious here. They have funny little personalities and are so special and clever and enchanting, but when they will go outside their home and experience new and different things, then I'll see them in a new light as they make friends and help people and decide what matters to them in the outside world. So there it is, the thing about Jane Austen, well one of the many, many things, is not only did she give us girls Mr. Darcy to dream of and Miss Eliza Bennet to admire, but she can reach straight out of the 1800's and make me get all dreamy and emotional just thinking about my kids going outside of my house. Now that's something. The ability of a writer to create characters who live on for centuries, and who attach themselves to a reader's mind, even when that reader is a twenty-something country girl from across the pond. I cannot even fathom what that sort of creation would feel like. I think it's pretty great to simply create a character who is real to my own mind. That simple creation is really all the power a writer needs, of course, what a writer may want for her characters is a different thing.





And here's a little fact about this ridiculous mom here: I read Northanger Abbey to my toddlers. The whole thing. And you know, they actually listened intently to at least a fifth or so of it. My little troopers.