New Book: Write with Jane Austen
2025 is Jane Austen’s 250th birthday, and to celebrate, I am releasing a book titled Write with Jane Austen: Masterclasses with the Master Storyteller.
A Description of the Book
It is a truth universally acknowledged that if a writer wishes to write well, she should learn from the very best of writers. In other words, she should study with Jane Austen.
Write with Jane Austen is the definitive guide on how to improve your writing. Its lessons and examples draw from Austen’s six published novels and from her unpublished works. This book will help you craft a character’s internal and external journeys, create effective antagonists and obstacles, construct compelling relationships, capture a setting without disrupting the forward movement of the narrative, improve your style, and compose dialogue which brings the characters and the story to life. Each chapter contains writing exercises which will help you internalize and apply these principles.
Whether you write romance, women’s fiction, historical fiction, mystery, or any other genre, this book will enable you to emulate Jane Austen’s proven techniques and improve your storytelling. This guide will also increase any reader’s appreciation for Austen’s craft.
Background on the Book
From 2020 to 2022, I wrote a blog titled Jane Austen Writing Lessons. For each post, I took a writing topic (for instance, writing sympathetic characters) and explored principles and techniques that could be learned from Jane Austen’s six published novels.
I had a fabulous time writing about sixty-five posts, and the blog was recognized by The Write Life as “one of the best websites for writers in 2021.” A number of readers and friends encouraged me to turn the blog into a book. I played with the idea, but I was working on other projects, so I never pursued it.
Fast forward to the summer of 2024. I realized that this coming year—2025—is Jane Austen’s 250th birthday. And I decided that this was the next project of my heart: to create a book on creative writing through the lens of Jane Austen’s works.
And so I went to work.
I didn’t want the book to read as a series of blog posts—I wanted beautiful chapter arcs. I ended up scrapping about 50,000 words from my blog. Delete. Delete. Delete.
There were also a number of new chapters and sections I wanted to write. And write I did. I added chapters on relationships, rising action, the climax, style, and more. The book is over 50% brand new material that never appeared on my blog, and the chapters taken from the blog have been heavily revised.
I still have a bit more editing to do, and then the book will be copy edited and proofread, but it won’t be long until I can send the book out into the world.
Crowdfunding Write with Jane Austen on Kickstarter
I am really excited to release Write with Jane Austen in an interactive way, through Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a crowdfunding website designed exclusively for creative projects. It has been used extensively by both new and established authors, including bestselling names like Brandon Sanderson.
I’m using Kickstarter because:
- It’s a great platform to run preorders for books.
- It’s interactive and exciting—I’ve personally backed 19 projects on Kickstarter, and as a reader, I love knowing that I can help bring a project to life. I also love the comments section (Kickstarter is the only place where it’s fun to read the comments!), the in-process updates from the creator, and the feeling of community.
- Running a Kickstarter will help cover the production costs for the book (i.e. cover, professional editing, etc.)
- Releasing a book on Kickstarter allows my loyal readers, friends, and fans to get a copy of the book months before it’s available to everyone else.
- Kickstarter allows me to offer other things in addition to the book—like writing workshops and a special edition workbook. (I will tell you more about these in the near future!)
The Kickstarter for the project will go live in March/April—to be the very first to know when it does, visit the book’s pre-launch page and click “Notify me on launch.”
Final Thoughts
I’m really excited to share this book with the world. Reading Jane Austen has changed my life for the better, and studying her craft in depth has transformed my writing. She truly is the master storyteller.
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My regular newsletter contains information about my books, events, giveaways, and my reading recommendations. It will include some updates on the Write with Jane Austen book.
The Write with Jane Austen newslettter will include more updates on the book, exclusive tidbits, and mini-writing lessons to tide you over until the book is available.
