alt Hacker NewsJane Austen loved novels, but was also dissatisfied with what she saw as the flaws of a lot of the novels around her
I always got the sense that she disliked the length and pacing of other books of her time. She has absolutely no qualms about moving the story from step to step with very little exposition in between. She’s just really dope, treats the reader in a very accelerated way.
Romance is corny stuff to write but she does it in such a cut throat, sharp and fast way that you don’t really get a chance to not get invested. Before you even realize what you’re reading, she already has you at the ball with the two characters dancing.
To put it shortly, she tells entire love stories in pamphlet sized books. Masterclass in brevity.
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I've recently gotten into T Kingfisher (who writes fantasy, usually with strong romance elements). She is really good at getting me super invested in the characters very early on, and I think it's for similar reasons that Austen does - not so much the pacing of the plot, but how quickly she establishes that (i) this character is very relatable and (ii) there is significant tension between their personality and their living situation, so something has to give, and fast. Then it's just a matter of waiting with bated breath to see what gives and how soon - in some sense the books are very predictable in that you know you're getting your happily-ever-after, but the journey is truly the point.
> She has absolutely no qualms about moving the story from step to step with very little exposition in between. She’s just really dope, treats the reader in a very accelerated way.
I dunno, the pacing I always think was really weird, even though it clearly works. Most of the time, you don't even know who the main characters are until chapter 2 at a minimum. Read the opening lines of Persuasion, all about some arrogant fool of a baronet, and you're like, "Why is this so interesting?"
And then, usually it seems loads of stuff happens in the beginning that sets up the basic tension of the story, then a long middle where almost nothing seems to happen (but for some reason you're not bored), and then suddenly everything resolves at the end.
In Northanger Abbey we get an explicit reference to one of those books, The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, which started the entire Gothic novel craze. Comparing the two is quite informative: Where Radcliffe describes the basic character traits over a page or two, followed by another page how fortunately this added up with the specific situation in life, Austen gives us a one-sentence-or-less description of the social characteristics of a character, maybe followed by a short remark on how this character deviated from what was to be expected from this. And, where Radcliffe's characters break into tears to assert their humanity, over and over again (something that can be still observed in Bram Stoker's Dracula, but thankfully much rarer), Austen's characters just chase their follies, which are more often than not a class marker. (If you thought modern times were car-crazy, just look at those gigs!)
In this sense, where characters are established by just dropping social position and economic status as sort of a blueprint, Jane Austen is a surprisingly materialist author. To paraphrase a well known quote, she turned Radcliffe from the head to the feet. ;-)