I didn’t realise (or rather, had forgotten) that July was Jane Austen July when I picked up this book but look at what nice timing it was! The Jane Austen Writers’ Club was an impulse purchase made because the book promised to be about Austen and you know what? It seems to be more practical than I expected.
As someone who enjoys Austen’s works, I’m always interested in finding out more about how she writes. I do not, however, expect to be able to master the free indirect style she used or her characterisations just by learning about it. Because of that, I approached this book hoping for an analysis of how Austen wrote her stories rather than as a handbook of how to write.
Like the title indicates, The Jane Austen Writer’s Club is all about writing based on the works on Jane Austen. Smith looks at character, style, setting, journeys, and various elements that make up a novel through the lens of Austen’s works. If you’re a fan of Austen (and you should be if you picked up this book), you’ll appreciate that the book really does what it says, and does it with a lot of quotes from Austen. In fact, reading this made me want to go back and reread Austen’s novels!
Apart from analysing how Austen wrote, Smith also includes plenty of writing exercises in the chapters. Most of them require you to already know your story or at least your characters, so I would think these exercises are more suited for people who are in the process of revising or rewriting. If you’re a discovery writer who isn’t sure what is going to happen or are at the very early stages of plotting and writing, you may not find these exercises as helpful.
Overall, this was a delightful treat for fans of Austen who also enjoy writing. I don’t think it’s for everyone; Austen is a great writer but some people will prefer more general writing advice or just want to learn more about Austen and less about writing, but I think the target audience for this book will enjoy it.
If you would like to read more about Austen, I have a list of Austen-related books here (from academic works to fanfiction). It’s been updated this month to coincide with Jane Austen in July, so I hope you enjoy!
I just finished off Austen’s bibliography this month so this looks super interesting!
This one was fun! If you’re ever planning to write a novel, it’s worth checking it out!
This does sound very specific and I can’t imagine I’d be able to apply the advice- but at the same time I’m a huge austen fan, so this has definitely got me curious! I feel like I need to check it out! Excellent review!
Smith does try to make the advice more generic but having all your examples from Austen does skew the feel of the book quite a bit! It’s worth borrowing to see if you’ll find the exercises useful (or grab a cheap copy, which is what I did haha)