Jane Austen Writing Lessons

Jane Austen Writing Lessons. With an image of the original cover page of Pride and Prejudice; a color image of Jane Austen; an image of tea and pastries with an open book, and an early cover of Sense and Sensiblity.

One of the best ways to learn to write well is to learn from the examples of great writers. Jane Austen Writing Lessons is a series of blog posts about creative writing principles from plot structure to character development to dialogue. This blog was selected by “The Write Life” as one of the 100 Best Websites for Writers in 2021.

New Posts 2x a Month

New Jane Austen Writing Lessons will be posted 2 times a month. Sign up for the newsletter to get a notification in your inbox anytime there’s a new lesson. Links to the previous lessons can be found below.

Examples from Jane Austen

Each lesson looks to Jane Austen’s novels and her other works for examples of excellent writing. Quotes from her six published novels and an analysis of her craft–and how we can apply it to our own writing–is included in each lesson.

Writing Exercises

Writing Exercises - Jane Austen Writing Lessons

Each lesson includes 2-3 writing exercises that will help you practice the creative writing principle and apply it to your own writing.

Most Recent Jane Austen Writing Lessons

Jane Austen Writing Lessons #68: Establishing Relationships and Character Connections in Fiction
Jane Austen Writing Lessons 67. Creating an Emotional Map: Making Interconnected Emotions
Jane Austen Writing Lessons. #66: Evoking Emotions through Objective Correlative (External Objects)
Mary Bennet and Mr. Collins. Why didn't they marry? Would they have made a good match?
Jane Austen Writing Lessons. #65: Different Character Approaches to Dealing with and Expressing Emotions
Jane Austen Writing Lessons. #64: The Size or Degree of Character Emotions
Jane Austen Writing Lessons. #63: Four More Internal Emotion Techniques
Jane Austen Writing Lessons. #62: Conveying Emotion Through Character Thoughts and Free Indirect Speech
Jane Austen Writing Lessons. #61: How to Convey Emotion. Planting Clues to What Characters Feel

Jane Austen Writing Lessons by Category

Overarching Principles - Jane Austen Writing Lessons

#1: Make Your Character Want Something
#2: Combine Multiple Elements to Create an Engaging Premise
#3: Use an Inciting Incident to Set the Plot in Motion
#4: Create an External Journey for your Character
#5: Make Things Hard for Your Character
#6: Use a Character Arc to Make Your Character Change and Grow
#7: Create Multiple Relationship Arcs to Show Your Character’s Journey in Relation to Those Around Them
#8: Use Setting to Influence Plot and Character
#9: Use Dialogue to Create Dynamic Interactions Between Characters
#10: Use the Reader-Writer Contract to Create a Satisfying Resolution for Your Readers

Recognition for Jane Austen Writing Lessons

Jane Austen Writing Lessons: one of the

Jane Austen Writing Lessons was selected by The Write Life as one of the “100 Best Websites for Writers in 2021.” They wrote:

“[Jane Austen Writing Lessons] is filled with blog posts about creative writing that use Jane Austen’s novels and other related stories to share what good writing looks and sounds like. Whether you’re interested in plot structure or character development to dialogue, each Jane Austen writing lesson focuses on one principle of writing at a time.”

About the Author

In addition to writing Jane Austen Writing Lessons, Katherine Cowley is the author of the novels The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet, The True Confessions of a London Spy, and The Lady’s Guide to Death and Deception. She teaches writing classes at Western Michigan University.

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Jane Austen Writing Lessons. #35: Establish the Character of a Setting

#35: Establish the Character of a Setting

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Jane Austen Writing Lessons. #35: Establish the Character of a Setting

We’ve talked a lot about characters—the people who are part of a story—but places can also have character.

One of the definitions that the Oxford English Dictionary provides for the word character is:

The aggregate of the distinctive features of something; essential peculiarity; distinctive nature, style, or quality; sort, kind, description.

The character of a setting is its essence, its overall nature which is experienced by those who interact with it (both the characters within a story and the readers of the story).

The character of a setting is its essence, its overall nature which is experienced by those who interact with it.

Jane Austen masterfully captures the character of a setting—its essence—regardless of whether she uses large or small amounts of description. Here are a few examples of the character of a setting from her novels:

Emma

In Emma, a shop is the setting for several key scenes, including Harriet running into Robert Martin, and a key interaction between Emma and Frank Churchill.

The essence of the shop, Ford’s, is described by the narrator:

Ford’s was the principal woollen-draper, linen-draper, and haberdasher’s shop united; the shop first in size and fashion in the place.

We see this essence again when Frank Churchill proposes that he and Emma visit it:

At this moment they were approaching Ford’s, and he hastily exclaimed, “Ha! this must be the very shop that every body attends every day of their lives, as my father informs me. He comes to Highbury himself, he says, six days out of the seven, and has always business at Ford’s. If it be not inconvenient to you, pray let us go in, that I may prove myself to belong to the place, to be a true citizen of Highbury. I must buy something at Ford’s. It will be taking out my freedom.—I dare say they sell gloves.”

Pride and Prejudice

In Pride and Prejudice, Rosings is the estate of Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Its essence has less to do with its buildings and land than with the fact that it is owned by Lady Catherine. In a previous post, I described Elizabeth’s approach to Rosings and the way in which description is used, but I’d like to offer one further quote:

The palings of Rosings Park was their boundary on one side. Elizabeth smiled at the recollection of all that she had heard of its inhabitants.

Rosings itself does not actually matter; rather, it is Rosings in the imagination that is of import, it is Rosings and its various associations that impacts all the characters that come in contact with it.

Persuasion

In Persuasion, the Elliot family is in rough financial straits and as a result is forced to rent out their estate. They go to stay in Bath, a bustling community that is known for being a center of society and health (while being a little cheaper on the pocketbook).

This is its core essence, but different characters, such as Lady Russell and Anne, interact with this core essence differently:

Everybody has their taste in noises as well as in other matters; and sounds are quite innoxious, or most distressing, by their sort rather than their quantity. When Lady Russell not long afterwards, was entering Bath on a wet afternoon, and driving through the long course of streets from the Old Bridge to Camden Place, amidst the dash of other carriages, the heavy rumble of carts and drays, the bawling of newspapermen, muffin-men and milkmen, and the ceaseless clink of pattens, she made no complaint. No, these were noises which belonged to the winter pleasures; her spirits rose under their influence; and like Mrs Musgrove, she was feeling, though not saying, that after being long in the country, nothing could be so good for her as a little quiet cheerfulness.

Anne did not share these feelings. She persisted in a very determined, though very silent disinclination for Bath; caught the first dim view of the extensive buildings, smoking in rain, without any wish of seeing them better; felt their progress through the streets to be, however disagreeable, yet too rapid; for who would be glad to see her when she arrived? And looked back, with fond regret, to the bustles of Uppercross and the seclusion of Kellynch.

As an interesting note, to me personally, the character of Bath feels different in Austen’s novel Northanger Abbey. In Northanger Abbey, Bath’s essence or defining characteristic seems to be as a place of possibility and discovery, both good and bad. The character of a particular setting can be represented differently depending on the needs of the story.

Establishing the Character of a Setting

While Jane Austen does not directly address the character of every single one of her settings, most of the time it is still implied. For important settings, it is especially useful to consider the overall character of the setting.

As seen in the above examples, the character could relate to its physical characteristics and mood, the people that reside in a setting, how the setting is used, a person who owns or is associated with a space. This is not an exhaustive list: a multitude of things could be contribute to the essence of a place.

Writing Exercises - Jane Austen Writing Lessons

Exercise 1: Choose five settings from your life. These can be very specific/focused settings (a particular room) or much larger/broader (a city or a region) or anything in between. For each of the settings, write a single sentence in which you capture the essence or character of the setting.

Exercise 2: As you watch a film, make a list of every single setting in the film. Afterwards, in a word or a phrase, describe the character of each setting, as represented in the film. What sorts of things determine the character of each setting? Is it the physical characteristics? How people use the setting? What the setting represents? The people in the setting and their behavior? Etc.

Exercise 3: Revise a scene you have written to better capture the essence or character of the setting. As you do so, consider how different characters might feel differently about the setting and its character.

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Jane Austen Writing Lessons. #33: Use Familiar and Invisible Settings

#33: Use Familiar and Invisible Settings

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Jane Austen Writing Lessons. #33: Use Familiar and Invisible Settings

Jane Austen is not afraid to describe settings: a few posts back, I discussed the pages of setting description she uses when Elizabeth arrives at Pemberley. She also tends to focus more on setting when it’s relevant to a major plot turn or serves to reveal a character’s emotions.

Yet other times, Austen hardly describes the setting at all. Take, for instance, the Meryton Assembly, the ball where Jane meets Mr. Bingley for the first time and Elizabeth meets Mr. Darcy. It’s a crucial scene in Pride and Prejudice, yet the assembly room is not described:

When the party entered the assembly room, it consisted of only five altogether.

Never, at any point, does Austen describe the assembly room, its size or arrangement, its features. She does give a few other clues to the setting:

The report which was in general circulation within five minutes of his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year.

This gives the sense that people are talking to each other and spreading information. Also:

Mr. Bingley had soon made himself acquainted with the principal people in the room; he was lively and unreserved, danced every dance, was angry that the ball closed so early, and talked of giving one himself at Netherfield.

We know now that not everyone at this sort of setting is considered “principal,” or of a class where Mr. Bingley would be expected to meet them. Perhaps the most important part of the chapter is when Elizabeth overhears Mr. Darcy insulting her: “She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me.” Every single adaptation arranges this moment quite differently, in part because Austen does not give copious details about the setting:

Elizabeth Bennet had been obliged, by the scarcity of gentlemen, to sit down for two dances, and during part of that time Mr. Darcy had been standing near enough for her to overhear a conversation between him and Mr. Bingley.

Most often it is for familiar settings that Austen employs a minimal amount of description.

A familiar setting is one which is familiar to the characters. It is a place where they have spent much time and often (though not always) feel comfortable. Because of its familiarity, the characters do not pay much attention to the setting. As a result of this the narrator, who is focalizing the perspective of a character, does not pay much attention to the setting.

In addition to mirroring the main character’s experience, providing a minimal description of a familiar setting does three things.

  • A minimal description of a familiar setting relies on common knowledge.

    There is a certain knowledge that an author can assume that both her characters and her readers will know. While a reader today does not have the same depth of “common knowledge” about an assembly room, Austen’s contemporary readers did share this common knowledge. And even without this same common knowledge, there is still enough detail to orient a modern reader unfamiliar with the setting.

  • A minimal description of a familiar setting prevents the story from getting bogged down or distracted by unnecessary details.

    Writers have a certain set of tools, and the temptation is to make sure we use all of the tools. But just because describing the setting can be a useful tool, it doesn’t mean it is always useful. Writers sometimes fall into the trap of feeling the need to describe everything, but this can bog down the story so we’re treading water in a sea of unnecessary details without going anywhere.

  • A minimal description of a familiar setting forces the focus to be on something else.

    If the setting is only minimally described, it increases the focus on other things, such as a character’s internal thoughts or an intense interaction between two characters.

Invisible Settings

There are also times when Jane Austen uses an invisible setting—a setting that is not described or delineated in any concrete way.

An example of this is after the Meryton Assembly. The family has returned home, and Mrs. Bennet is describing the ball to Mr. Bennet (who did not attend). And then, we have a new chapter, which begins:

When Jane and Elizabeth were alone, the former, who had been cautious in her praise of Mr. Bingley before, expressed to her sister how very much she admired him.

From the previous chapter, it is safe to assume that they are probably at home. But are they in the library, a parlor, a bedroom? Is it still the same night or is it the next morning? Could they have gone to the garden? Are they still in their ball gowns or have they changed? None of this information is delineated: we only know that Jane and Elizabeth are alone.

Jane and Elizabeth have a beautiful, insightful conversation, throughout which we do not receive a single additional piece of information on the setting.

Invisible settings are not common—personally, I can’t think of a single piece of recently published fiction that has a truly invisible setting. And I don’t know if I could get away with writing an invisible setting—my critique partners and editors would probably call me out on it, and force me to at least give a few details to orient the reader and ground the scene. Yet Austen does it quite effectively, without leaving the reader disoriented.

To use a cinematography metaphor, when Austen employs an invisible setting, is it like she is filming a scene entirely using close ups and extreme close-ups, where we are seeing only the characters faces and expressions. It is an approach to point of view which keeps it so very fixed on a character or characters that there is never a chance to have a medium shot, long shot, or establishing shot which would place the characters in their surroundings.

Using Description within a Familiar Setting

At times, Jane Austen does give more detailed descriptions for familiar settings. Often this is to demonstrate emotion or to give deeper insight into a situation and character, such as when Elizabeth receives a letter from her aunt about Mr. Darcy:

Elizabeth had the satisfaction of receiving an answer to her letter, as soon as she possibly could. She was no sooner in possession of it, than hurrying into the little copse, where she was least likely to be interrupted, she sat down on one of the benches, and prepared to be happy; for the length of the letter convinced her that it did not contain a denial.

While only a paragraph, this description of a familiar setting provides a wealth of details that set the stage for a pivotal point in the novel. We not only see Elizabeth’s anticipation, but we see how she is consciously choosing a particular setting, what she sees as an ideal setting, for reading this letter.

At other times, details are given for familiar settings because something has made the setting less familiar or less comfortable.

When Lydia comes home with Mr. Wickham after their patched-up marriage, Wickham’s presence transforms the house from a familiar place to an unfamiliar one, with new rules and relationship negotiations. Suddenly, we receive descriptions of rooms and hallways and entryways which have never been described over the hundreds of pages that came before:

They came. The family were assembled in the breakfast room, to receive them. Smiles decked the face of Mrs. Bennet, as the carriage drove up to the door; her husband looked impenetrably grave; her daughters, alarmed, anxious, uneasy.

Lydia’s voice was heard in the vestibule; the door was thrown open, and she ran into the room.

And then, a little later in the scene we read:

Elizabeth could bear it no longer. She got up, and ran out of the room; and returned no more, till she heard them passing through the hall to the dining parlour. She then joined them soon enough to see Lydia, with anxious parade, walk up to her mother’s right hand, and hear her say to her eldest sister, “Ah! Jane, I take your place now, and you must go lower, because I am a married woman.

Jane Austen is a master of not over-describing her settings, and she often uses very minimal descriptions when it is a setting which is a familiar to her characters; as a result, when she does provide description of a familiar setting, it is often a powerful tool which impacts the reading experience.

Writing Exercises - Jane Austen Writing Lessons

Exercise 1: Write a short scene in a dynamic setting (one that has lots of movement or people or interest or many events). While the setting should be dynamic, it should also be one that you can expect modern readers to share some common knowledge of (for example, an amusement park, a casino, a bar, a city bus/train, a busy museum). As you write the scene, restrict yourself to giving only two or three details about the setting, which can only be described briefly (ideally one sentence or phrase).

Exercise 2: Create a new outline of a story, or do a post-draft outline of a story that you have written a complete draft for. For each scene or chapter, write down the setting and label it either “familiar setting or “unfamiliar setting.” If you’d like, you can become even more specific: “setting that is now familiar but was originally unfamiliar,” “familiar setting that feels unfamiliar/uncomfortable,” etc.

Analyze the results, and if you’d like, use this to help you write or revise your story.

Pollute the Shades of Pemberley: A Writing Exercise. Jane Austen Writing Lessons

Exercise 3: Let’s pollute the shades of Pemberley! How do we do that? By deigning to alter Jane Austen’s words. First you’ll add description of setting to one of Austen’s scenes, and then you’ll subtract or condense the description of setting from another one of her scenes.

The point of this exercise to examine how things change when you have more or less description, and consider why a lot of description might be useful in a certain context and why minimal description might be useful in another context.

Part 1: Add Details About Setting

Spend 5-10 minutes adding details about the setting to the Meryton assembly scene:

A report soon followed that Mr. Bingley was to bring twelve ladies and seven gentlemen with him to the assembly. The girls grieved over such a number of ladies, but were comforted the day before the ball by hearing, that instead of twelve he brought only six with him from London—his five sisters and a cousin. And when the party entered the assembly room it consisted of only five altogether—Mr. Bingley, his two sisters, the husband of the eldest, and another young man.

Mr. Bingley was good-looking and gentlemanlike; he had a pleasant countenance, and easy, unaffected manners. His sisters were fine women, with an air of decided fashion. His brother-in-law, Mr. Hurst, merely looked the gentleman; but his friend Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud; to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend.

Mr. Bingley had soon made himself acquainted with all the principal people in the room; he was lively and unreserved, danced every dance, was angry that the ball closed so early, and talked of giving one himself at Netherfield. Such amiable qualities must speak for themselves. What a contrast between him and his friend! Mr. Darcy danced only once with Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, declined being introduced to any other lady, and spent the rest of the evening in walking about the room, speaking occasionally to one of his own party. His character was decided. He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and everybody hoped that he would never come there again. Amongst the most violent against him was Mrs. Bennet, whose dislike of his general behaviour was sharpened into particular resentment by his having slighted one of her daughters.

Elizabeth Bennet had been obliged, by the scarcity of gentlemen, to sit down for two dances; and during part of that time, Mr. Darcy had been standing near enough for her to hear a conversation between him and Mr. Bingley, who came from the dance for a few minutes, to press his friend to join it.

“Come, Darcy,” said he, “I must have you dance. I hate to see you standing about by yourself in this stupid manner. You had much better dance.”

“I certainly shall not. You know how I detest it, unless I am particularly acquainted with my partner. At such an assembly as this it would be insupportable. Your sisters are engaged, and there is not another woman in the room whom it would not be a punishment to me to stand up with.”

“I would not be so fastidious as you are,” cried Mr. Bingley, “for a kingdom! Upon my honour, I never met with so many pleasant girls in my life as I have this evening; and there are several of them you see uncommonly pretty.”

“You are dancing with the only handsome girl in the room,” said Mr. Darcy, looking at the eldest Miss Bennet.

“Oh! She is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld! But there is one of her sisters sitting down just behind you, who is very pretty, and I dare say very agreeable. Do let me ask my partner to introduce you.”

“Which do you mean?” and turning round he looked for a moment at Elizabeth, till catching her eye, he withdrew his own and coldly said: “She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me; I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me.”

Mr. Bingley followed his advice. Mr. Darcy walked off; and Elizabeth remained with no very cordial feelings toward him. She told the story, however, with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous.

Part 2: Subtract Details About Setting

Spend 5-10 minutes subtracting or condensing details about the setting from the scene when Elizabeth first sees Pemberley:

Elizabeth, as they drove along, watched for the first appearance of Pemberley Woods with some perturbation; and when at length they turned in at the lodge, her spirits were in a high flutter.

The park was very large, and contained great variety of ground. They entered it in one of its lowest points, and drove for some time through a beautiful wood stretching over a wide extent.

Elizabeth’s mind was too full for conversation, but she saw and admired every remarkable spot and point of view. They gradually ascended for half-a-mile, and then found themselves at the top of a considerable eminence, where the wood ceased, and the eye was instantly caught by Pemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which the road with some abruptness wound. It was a large, handsome stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills; and in front, a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. Its banks were neither formal nor falsely adorned. Elizabeth was delighted. She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. They were all of them warm in their admiration; and at that moment she felt that to be mistress of Pemberley might be something!

They descended the hill, crossed the bridge, and drove to the door; and, while examining the nearer aspect of the house, all her apprehension of meeting its owner returned. She dreaded lest the chambermaid had been mistaken. On applying to see the place, they were admitted into the hall; and Elizabeth, as they waited for the housekeeper, had leisure to wonder at her being where she was.

The housekeeper came; a respectable-looking elderly woman, much less fine, and more civil, than she had any notion of finding her. They followed her into the dining-parlour. It was a large, well proportioned room, handsomely fitted up. Elizabeth, after slightly surveying it, went to a window to enjoy its prospect. The hill, crowned with wood, which they had descended, receiving increased abruptness from the distance, was a beautiful object. Every disposition of the ground was good; and she looked on the whole scene, the river, the trees scattered on its banks and the winding of the valley, as far as she could trace it, with delight. As they passed into other rooms these objects were taking different positions; but from every window there were beauties to be seen. The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to the fortune of its proprietor; but Elizabeth saw, with admiration of his taste, that it was neither gaudy nor uselessly fine; with less of splendour, and more real elegance, than the furniture of Rosings.

“And of this place,” thought she, “I might have been mistress! With these rooms I might now have been familiarly acquainted! Instead of viewing them as a stranger, I might have rejoiced in them as my own, and welcomed to them as visitors my uncle and aunt. But no,”—recollecting herself—“that could never be; my uncle and aunt would have been lost to me; I should not have been allowed to invite them.”

This was a lucky recollection—it saved her from something very like regret.

She longed to enquire of the housekeeper whether her master was really absent, but had not the courage for it. At length however, the question was asked by her uncle; and she turned away with alarm, while Mrs. Reynolds replied that he was, adding, “But we expect him to-morrow, with a large party of friends.” How rejoiced was Elizabeth that their own journey had not by any circumstance been delayed a day!

Part 3: Reflection

Now reflect! What did you learn about what Austen was doing and why? Are there other effective ways that these scenes could be written?

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Jane Austen Writing Lessons. #32: Use Setting to Complement or Contrast Emotion

#32: Use Setting to Complement or Contrast Emotion

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Jane Austen Writing Lessons. #32: Use Setting to Complement or Contrast Emotion

In the last lesson, I discussed the advantages of using a distinctive setting in a major plot turn. In addition to assisting the plot, a setting is one of the most powerful ways to reveal a character’s emotions.

In Jane Austen’s novel Mansfield Park, the main character, Fanny Price, lives with her aunt and uncle and cousins. Fanny is often mistreated and ignored, but when her cousin Maria is married, both of Fanny’s female cousins—Maria and Julia—travel to London. Everyone’s treatment of Fanny improves, and she becomes a more essential and more valued part of the household.

Her friendship with a neighbor, Miss Crawford, also increases. One day, while Fanny is visiting Miss Crawford, the two are walking around the shrubbery at the parsonage, and they stop to sit on a bench. They are both in the exact same setting at the exact same time, but they both engage with it differently, and how they engage and interact with the setting provides insight into their emotions:

“This is pretty—very pretty,” said Fanny, looking around her as they were thus sitting together one day: “Every time I come into this shrubbery I am more struck with its growth and beauty. Three years ago, this was nothing but a rough hedgerow along the upper side of the field, never thought of as any thing, or capable of becoming any thing; and now it is converted into a walk, and it would be difficult to say whether most valuable as a convenience or an ornament; and perhaps in another three years we may be forgetting—almost forgetting what it was before. How wonderful, how very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind!”

Fanny not only notices the growth and development of the setting, but she also eloquently expresses her observations. For the reader, Fanny’s musings on the shrubbery are not just a matter of an improved landscape: her musings reflect on how Fanny prefers her new role within the world. Previously, her family “never thought of [her] as any thing, or capable of becoming any thing,” but like the shrubbery, she is now flourishing. And because she is flourishing, she notices the shrubbery.

On the contrary, this is Miss Crawford’s reaction:

Miss Crawford, untouched and inattentive, had nothing to say.

Miss Crawford is naturally less interested in nature, but this character difference is not the full story. In the subsequent paragraphs, it begins to become clear that Miss Crawford is wrapped up in her own thoughts and reflections, as she tries to figure out what her future will look like. She is not a viewpoint character in this scene, yet still we glimpse her emotions by the very fact that she does not notice the setting and is unable to respond to Fanny’s enthusiasm.

Complements and Contrasts

When using setting to reveal emotion, the writer can:

  • Use a setting which complements the character’s emotions.

  • Use a setting which contrasts with the character’s emotions.

  • Use a setting which both complements and contrasts the character’s emotion.

In the above example, the emotion was revealed through speech, action, inaction, and awareness, all of which related or were in reference to the setting. Another effective method of revealing emotion is through the description of setting within the narrative.

Using the Setting to Complement Emotions

In Mansfield Park, Fanny’s uncle Lord Bertram becomes angry with her when she refuses an offer of marriage. He sends her back to her parents, which puts her in a setting that she has not interacted with since she was a young girl. How she feels about this is made clear by the narrator’s insights into her perception of the setting:

She was then taken into a parlour, so small that her first conviction was of its being only a passage-room to something better, and she stood for a moment expecting to be invited on; but when she saw there was no other door, and that there were signs of habitation before her, she called back her thoughts, reproved herself, and grieved lest they should have been suspected.

Several chapters focus almost entirely on Fanny’s interaction with the setting. The setting is not just her parents’ house; the setting is also the people in it (all of her many siblings, most of who she has no connection to), as well as and the behaviors and expectations associated with the house. In one passage, we read:

But though she had seen all the members of the family, she had not yet heard all the noise they could make.

Austen goes on to describe, in great detail, the hustle and bustle and the yelling and the arguing,

the whole of which, as almost every door in the house was open, could be plainly distinguished in the parlour, except when drowned at intervals by the superior noise of Sam, Tom, and Charles chasing each other up and down stairs, and tumbling about and hallooing.

Fanny was almost stunned. The smallness of the house, and thinness of the walls, brought every thing so close to her, that, added to the fatigue of her journey, and all her recent agitation, she hardly knew how to bear it.

There is never a need for Austen to state, “Fanny was not happy with this move and did not feel comfortable with her family. She felt unloved and unwanted.” None of these things need to be said, because we experience through it as Fanny experiences the setting. At the end of one of the chapters, the narrator does state Fanny’s emotions more directly:

In a review of the two houses, as they appeared to her before the end of a week, Fanny was tempted to apply to them Dr. Johnson’s celebrated judgment as to matrimony and celibacy, and say, that though Mansfield Park might have some pains, Portsmouth could have no pleasures.

However, this more direct statement of emotion works because of the artistry of it, because it is a direct revelation of Fanny’s internal thoughts, and because this direct statement of emotion has been earned. We have already experienced the emotion with Fanny by experiencing the setting with her. And so when this statement is made, we agree with her and we feel for her.

Using the Setting to Contrast Emotions

At other times, it can be effective to use the setting to provide a contrast to the character’s emotions. A good, beautiful day could be contrasted with a character’s depressions, just as a terrifying storm could contrast with a character’s happiness.

Near the beginning of the novel, when a young Fanny arrives at Mansfield Park, the wonderful, grand house provides a clear contrast to her emotions, actually serving to make her feel worse:

The grandeur of the house astonished, but could not console her. The rooms were too large for her to move in with ease; whatever she touched she expected to injure, and she crept about in constant terror of something or other; often retreating towards her own chamber to cry.

When a positive setting contrasts with a negative emotion, it can serve to alienate the character from their surroundings, as occurs in this example. This can make the character’s negative emotions feel even weightier to the reader. When a negative setting contrasts with a positive emotion, the character seems to transcend their setting. This can make the character’s positive emotions seem greater or more powerful to the reader.

Using the Setting Both to Complement and Contrast Emotions

Some settings both complement and contrast emotions. This can occur over the course of a novel, as a character’s relationship with the setting changes.

This can also occur within a single scene. When a setting both complements and contrasts emotions in a single scene, it often serves to highlight the complexity of human emotion as well as our nuanced experiences with our surroundings.

The following passage in Mansfield Park occurs when Fanny is still at her parents’ home. She is dreading receiving bad news in the mail. Note how the narrator calls attention to the fact of what the bright sunlight should do versus what it actually does, and how this transitions to Fanny noticing aspects of the setting which reflect her discomfort (such as the low-quality blue milk with motes and the increasingly greasy butter and bread):

The sun was yet an hour and half above the horizon. She felt that she had, indeed, been three months there; and the sun’s rays falling strongly into the parlour, instead of cheering, made her still more melancholy, for sunshine appeared to her a totally different thing in a town and in the country. Here, its power was only a glare: a stifling, sickly glare, serving but to bring forward stains and dirt that might otherwise have slept. There was neither health nor gaiety in sunshine in a town. She sat in a blaze of oppressive heat, in a cloud of moving dust, and her eyes could only wander from the walls, marked by her father’s head, to the table cut and notched by her brothers, where stood the tea-board never thoroughly cleaned, the cups and saucers wiped in streaks, the milk a mixture of motes floating in thin blue, and the bread and butter growing every minute more greasy than even Rebecca’s hands had first produced it.

A bright cheery day is now a curse for Fanny—she normally loves the sun, but not now. Not in this context of this setting, and not in this context of her own emotional agony. The sun contrasts with her emotions until it is subverted into complementing her negative emotions.

In Conclusion

Just as Jane Austen does, we can use the setting to reflect or contrast with a character’s emotions. Often, this is more effective than just stating the emotion, and it allows the setting to perform work on multiple levels of the novel.

Writing Exercises - Jane Austen Writing Lessons

Exercise 1: One Setting, a Multitude of Possible Emotions

Woman in Rain by Mario Cuadros. Displays a woman in a city, walking along the sidewalk. She wears a long brown coat and a backpack. We see her walking away from us with a black umbrella over her head.

Photo by Mario Cuadros from Pexels

A single setting could be described in very different ways, depending on the character’s emotion. Consider the above photograph. Now write three short descriptions of the character within this setting, each which conveys a different emotion. Aim for a one to four sentence description, and choose from the following emotions:

  • Fear
  • Excitement
  • Resignation
  • Love
  • Fatigue
  • Concern for someone else

Exercise 2:

Choose a novel. Now find three different points in the novel which describe the setting while providing insight into emotion. Does the setting complement or contrast the emotion? Does it do both? What specific word choice and sentence structure helps produce the desired emotion?

Exercise 3:

Option 1: As you write a scene, consciously include details about the setting which either complement or contrast with the character’s emotions.

Option 2: Take an early draft of a scene you have written and revise it, focusing on using the setting to shine a light on the character’s emotions.

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Jane Austen Writing Lessons #31: Use a Distinctive Setting for Major Plot Turns

#31: Use a Distinctive Setting for Major Plot Turns

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Jane Austen Writing Lessons #31: Use a Distinctive Setting for Major Plot Turns

Many of the scenes in Jane Austen’s novels occur in what, for her characters, would be ordinary settings—drawing rooms and walks where they had been many times before. We’ll talk, in a few weeks, about how to use familiar settings.

But sometimes Austen uses very distinctive settings for her scenes, and this often happens when there is a major plot turn in the story.

A major plot turn is when both the story and the characters undergo a large shift. Something happens which irrevocably changes the future direction of the plot, and has a profound impact on character and relationship arcs.

In her novel Persuasion, Jane Austen gives her characters a distinctive setting, unlike the rest in the book, when a number of the characters take a trip to the town of Lyme Regis.

Lyme Regis by Alison Day -- a city with a rocky shore and a hint of the ocean.

A modern view of Lyme Regis by Alison Day (limited Creative Commons license)

Three of the characters who travel to Lyme Regis are our main character, Anne Elliot, the man she turned down years before, Captain Wentworth, and his current love interest, Louisa Musgrove.

I previously talked about the Anne-Wentworth-Louisa trio in a post about making things hard for your character. In sum, when Anne and Captain Wentworth became engaged, Anne was persuaded by family members and friends to break off the engagement. Wentworth still has not forgiven her for this. One of the things Wentworth values about Louisa is that she is not easily persuadable—she will go her own way.

Fast forward to Lyme Regis. Bringing the characters to this new, distinctive setting first allows them to meet or encounter new characters who will be key to the story, including Captain Benwick and Anne’s cousin, Mr. Elliot.

Distinctive settings are unfamiliar to characters, which heightens the awareness of the setting for both the characters and the reader. When in a distinctive setting, the characters have a whole additional layer of things to navigate: new physical objects, new or unfamiliar expectations, and as a result…

Distinctive settings often draw out peoples strengths and weaknesses, demonstrate who they really are, and provide opportunities for characters to transform in either a positive or a negative direction.

At Lyme Regis, a number of the characters take a walk along the Cobb, which is a wall near the harbor. There is a heightened awareness of the setting, which is distinctive enough to bring to Anne’s mind the poetry of Byron as she walks with Captain Benwick:

Lord Byron’s ‘dark blue seas’ could not fail of being brought forward by their present view, and she gladly gave him all her attention as long as attention was possible.

In the following paragraph, which is one of the biggest, most dramatic events in Persuasion, we see how the setting draws out Louisa’s firmness of character and the way she is unyielding to persuasion. While Captain Wentworth has always seen this characteristic as a virtue, the negative side of it is made clear.

There was too much wind to make the high part of the new Cobb pleasant for the ladies, and they agreed to get down the steps to the lower, and all were contented to pass quietly and carefully down the steep flight, excepting Louisa; she must be jumped down them by Captain Wentworth. In all their walks, he had had to jump her from the stiles; the sensation was delightful to her. The hardness of the pavement for her feet, made him less willing upon the present occasion; he did it, however; she was safely down, and instantly, to shew her enjoyment, ran up the steps to be jumped down again. He advised her against it, thought the jar too great; but no, he reasoned and talked in vain; she smiled and said, ‘I am determined I will:’ he put out his hands; she was too precipitate by half a second, she fell on the pavement on the Lower Cobb, and was taken up lifeless!

A picture of steps on the Cobb, which is one of the sets of steps that Austen may have been describing in the novel. Image by Chris Talbot, Creative Commons license.

Almost all of the characters completely panic and are rather useless in this sort of situation. Except for Anne. Here we see her kindness, her perceptiveness, her rationality, and her ability to act in the face of challenge.

“Go to him, go to him,” cried Anne, “for heaven’s sake go to him….Rub her hands, rub her temples; here are salts,–take them, take them.”

Captain Benwick obeyed, and Charles at the same moment, disengaging himself from his wife, they were both with him; and Louisa was raised up and supported more firmly between them, and every thing was done that Anne had prompted, but in vain; while Captain Wentworth, staggering against the wall for his support, exclaimed in the bitterest agony,

“Oh God! her father and mother!”

“A surgeon!” said Anne.

He caught the word; it seemed to rouse him at once, and saying only, “True, true, a surgeon this instant,” was darting away, when Anne eagerly suggested,

“Captain Benwick, would not I be better for Captain Benwick? He knows where a surgeon is to be found.”

Every one capable of thinking felt the advantage of the idea[.]

Jane Austen uses a number of techniques in this passage to create emotional intensity. After Louisa’s fall, descriptions of the setting and people and people’s behavior are very short and concise. Her use of punctuation changes, paragraphs not ending with full stops before leaping into the next paragraph. And short snippets of dialogue are stacked on each other with almost no interruption.

A distinctive setting, like the Cobb at Lyme Regis, seems a fitting backdrop for such a pivotal event that impacts the entire trajectory of the novel.

Making an Ordinary Setting Distinctive

Sometimes distinctive settings are big and new and grand and different. Yet at other times, Jane Austen takes an ordinary setting and makes it distinctive in some way, and then uses this ordinary yet distinctive setting for a major plot turn.

An example of this is Mr. Elton’s proposal to Emma, in the book Emma. This proposal is key, not just because it is a proposal which she rejects, but because it is the start of Emma’s awareness that her judgment can be faulty (she thought Mr. Elton was in love with her friend Harriet, but he is actually in love with her).

The proposal occurs in a carriage, a very ordinary setting for an Austen character, yet what makes it distinctive is that Emma and Mr. Elton were never meant to be in a carriage alone together, and they only are because of a mix-up caused by other characters.

It is not common for a man and a woman to be in a carriage by themselves. This suddenly distinctive setting puts these two characters alone and unsupervised, when they would not normally be so. Mr. Elton decides to seize this opportunity to propose. The setting also serves to trap the characters: they are stuck in a moving box together, which adds to the pressure. During the proposal Emma feels trapped, and then after he is denied, Mr. Elton is also trapped both literally and figuratively.

A distinctive setting—whether it is grand and full of danger like the Cobb, or a familiar setting made distinctive like Emma’s carriage—is a powerful place to set a major plot turn, as it can make the plot possible, heighten awareness and tension, and draw out characters’ strengths and weaknesses.

Writing Exercises - Jane Austen Writing Lessons

Exercise 1: Choose a key scene from a story you have written, and revise the scene either by:

  1. Editing the setting to make it more distinctive (which will impact your description as well as how your character interact with and within the setting).
  2. Rewriting the scene with a new setting that can do more to assist with this major plot point.

Exercise 2:

Choose a book or a film, and find a scene with a distinctive setting in terms of landscape, architecture, cultural/historical significance, etc.

How does the use of this setting impact the plot and the character? What strengths and weaknesses of the characters does it manifest? How does this setting fit within the context of the other settings used in the story?

Exercise 3:

Consider the following list of ordinary places. Add a description to each to show how you could make them distinctive, in a way that might open up storytelling possibilities. (This could be anything, for example, something happening within the place, who is inside, how this place differs from other places like it, etc.)

  • A grocery store
  • A school bus
  • A bar
  • A movie theater
  • A kitchen

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