Mixing Media in Austenesque Fiction

Painting Pictures to Create Context and World Build

Sit any Austenesque author down and ask them the world’s most difficult question” not “How do you come up with your ideas for a story” but rather “How do you end up writing what you actually write?”

The most accurate answer is, I am sure, that how they tell their story is an accurate description of the person they really are. Now, that is a tad deceptive. In many cases, the surface person willingly (or not) revealed to the public is thoroughly different from the true inner person.

I will not name names. However, like many great comedians and actors, the inner author may be an amazingly expressive person, capable of taking readers on long journeys in far countries. On the outside, that person seemingly would vanish in an assembly room (Yes, I am reading The Other Bennet Daughter.) David Letterman and Meryl Streep are two examples of how the public person differs significantly from the private.

Now, as for this writer: on the surface, I am incredibly voluble. I jabber. I talk. I fill the room with the sound of my voice. In many ways, I am the male equivalent of Mrs. Bennet. I do know why after seven years in therapy. I overcompensated for deep childhood depression with “grandiosity.” In a private setting, that takes the form of me having to have my share of the conversation—not in a Lady Catherine sort of way, puh-leeze.

My inner person is found deeper in that same place, where I fled, like Mary Bennet (which explains why the Wardrobe’s first book is her story), which was a world of vision and words. Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clark, Isaac Asimov, and Larry Niven took me to unseen worlds where my imagination was required to paint the scenery, shape the land, and build incredible technology.

This was my refuge, my safe place to escape the bleak house.

However, I learned (not in a revelatory way, there was no ah-hah moment) that my little bedroom was not a large enough canvas upon which to paint these visions. Thus, I became a sponge watching and learning from great film and television directors. I copied their visual storytelling techniques to build my worlds.

I became rather good at it, good enough that it helped me as I was starting out in the business world.

I recall laying out tradeshow booths in the late 1970s for the company I worked at as Advertising Manager. My job was to look at renderings and decide if this was the way I wanted the company represented. The designers would show me a flat floor plan, full of color and stick figures walking around the forklifts we sold. I would drive the largest forklift that we planned on exhibiting into an empty corner of the warehouse and look into that blank space and my mind would fill it with back walls, products, light, and people.

That facility recently returned when I began writing Austenesque fiction. I wanted readers to build the world in which the stories played out. Thus, I turned to film and video to help me create through the written word the tales to be told.

The largest of my tales is The Bennet Wardrobe series—eight volumes of interlocking stories in a unique universe. Some of the stories ran in the foreground, whilst others ran in the background. Characters saw the same activity from different points of view.

The Wardrobe is, in many ways, photographed/written in homage to the style of one of my favorite cinema trilogies, Le Trois Coleurs, a three-film vision by Krzysztof Kieślowski from the early 2000s. You need to view them in sequence—Bleu, Blanc, Rouge. Stories play on the screen simultaneously with characters interacting with one another but moving into the center of the action in one film while stepping off-stage in another.

Consider these two brief excerpts separated by four volumes.

These excerpts from The Keeper: Mary Bennet’s Extraordinary Journey and The Exile: The Countess Visits Longbourn are © 2016 and 2017 by Donald P. Jacobson

&&&&

From The Keeper, Chapter 12 (V1 of The Wardrobe)

…

Awakening in the early afternoon, Mary noticed just how quiet the house had become. Perhaps Mama was out on calls to allow her to wax poetic about the glories of the double wedding. She was surprised not to have been interrupted earlier by Kitty.

She left her room and walked slowly down the hall to the landing at the top of the stairs. The library door opened, and Papa escorted a sensibly dressed, elegant older woman with graying blond hair to the front door. She was clutching what appeared to be a large, paper-wrapped package to her chest. Mary overheard part of their conversation from her perch on high.

Papa was saying “…and I wish to thank you for coming all this way in response to my advertisement for a companion for my daughter Catherine. I regret that I was unable to stop you from making your journey once I had made the decision to send her to school. I have hired a private carriage to carry her to the seminary in Cornwall. I do appreciate your willingness to escort her. This solves many problems.”

“Oh, Mr. Bennet, ’tis of no consequence.” Her voice betrayed a modest French lilt as if her English was rarely used. “The weather has been very mild this past week. My passage to Dover was accomplished quickly and in comfort. The walk from Meryton was pleasant and the air invigorating. As for accompanying Miss Catherine, I am more than happy to do that. The trip west will be inspiring, and I shall contact you when I return to the area.”

“My daughter will benefit from spending time with someone who demonstrates such refined qualities. She may arrive at the seminary more cultivated than when she left here. I have sent expresses ahead to arrange accommodations for both of you along the way. And please take this purse for your troubles and any expenses on the journey.”

The lady tried to demur, but Mr. Bennet finally wore her down. The conversation ended with the sound of a coach pulling up to the front portico. The gentleman helped her with her cloak that, to Mary’s eye, seemed a bit last year’s style.

Mr. Bennet concluded, “Tell Kitty that her luggage will follow. Although I did tell her of my love, please remind her every day. I hope that you will send an express when you reach your destination.”

Mary started to move down the stairs to rush outside and bid her sister adieu, but something in the older woman’s nature froze her in place, words of farewell left unsaid.

As the lady left, Mr. Bennet waved to the carriage and called out, “Take care, daughter. Have a safe journey.”

Mary was puzzled as she watched her father close the door, heave a deep sigh, and reach up to wipe his eyes. Then he retreated into the book room and closed the door.

&&&&

From The Exile: The Countess Visits Longbourn (V5 of The Wardrobe), Chapter 11

…

Kitty nodded. Then she returned to the chair near the fireplace in which she had been sitting. She bent and picked up the portfolio and again moved to the desk where she proceeded to wrap it in paper like the cigars. She clutched the package to her chest.

She said, “I love you, Papa.” And quickly opened the door and stepped through into the adjacent hallway.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spied movement on the landing of the stairwell dropping down from the upper level. While there was no glint of reflected light off ever-present spectacles, the lithe figure could only be Mary as Kitty doubted that her mother, the only other Bennet remaining unseen, would have left her chambers even by this late hour. After all, yesterday she had managed to marry off not one but two daughters to wealthy gentlemen! Mrs. Bennet would likely keep to her bed until tomorrow. Longbourn’s mistress would need to recuperate from her exertions and marshal the forces needed to remind Lady Lucas, Mrs. Goulding, and Mrs. Long of her family’s good fortune.

However, to Kitty’s relief, the young lady retreated into the shadows, all the better to observe unseen. Why she did not choose to make the acquaintance of her father’s visitor remained a mystery. The countess glanced back at her father who had followed a few paces behind. She flashed her eyes upwards with a subtle head nod pointing toward the stairs. Bennet took his cue.

“I wish to thank you for coming all this way, Madame Robard, in response to my advertisement for a companion for my daughter Catherine. I regret that I was unable to stop you from making your journey once I had determined to send her off to school. I have hired a private carriage to carry her to the seminary in Cornwall. I do appreciate your willingness to escort her. This solves many problems.”

Kitty’s reply was couched in a modest French lilt. “Oh, Mr. Bennet, ’tis of no consequence. The weather has been very mild this past week, and so my passage from Dover was accomplished quickly and in comfort. The walk from Meryton was pleasant and the air invigorating. As for accompanying Miss Kitty, I am more than happy to do that. The trip West will be inspiring, and I will contact you when I return to the area.”

“Well, my daughter will benefit from spending time with someone who demonstrates such refined qualities. She may arrive at the seminary more cultivated than when she left here. I have sent expresses ahead to arrange accommodations for you along the way. Please take this purse for your troubles and any expenses on the journey,” Mr. Bennet added.

Kitty did try to demur, knowing her family’s usual financial condition, but Mr. Bennet finally wore her down. Finances organized, he assisted her out the front door and across the drive to the coach.

His last words to her were fraught with multiple meanings. “Advise Kitty that her luggage will follow. Although I did tell her of my love, please remind her every day. I hope that you will send an express when you reach your destination.”

Handing her into the chaise, the gentleman paused momentarily to squeeze the countess’s hand. Then, with a softened countenance, Bennet bade his child farewell. He closed the door and stepped back toward the front entrance.

As the wheels began to crunch through the gravel, Thomas turned and waved to the carriage, calling out, “Take care, daughter. Have a safe journey.”

&&&&

Here we see Mary as a young woman standing in the shadows watching her father escorting a much older lady of great distinction from Longbourn’s library. That aristocrat is not unseeing. In Volume 1, Mary’s story continues along while Kitty’s vanishes. In Volume 5, Kitty proceeds to London and Madras House to use the Bennet fortune to establish the Bennet family trust. Both storylines are happening simultaneously although readers are only immersed in one at a time. The linear nature of time and the limitations of our consciousness prevent us from considering these in a split-screen Steven Soderbergh manner.

I will not expand beyond this previous, however, I used a similar cinematic inspiration in The Longbourn Quarantine. In that novella, I wanted to examine—influenced as I was by the CV19 lockdown—how our characters would act when forced into confined circumstances. My polestar was Alfred Hitchcock’s 1943 classic Lifeboat.

Most recently, I have again turned to film to paint the world and plotlines of The Sailor’s Rest. There is a multitude of stylistic reference points arising from the television series Mission Impossible, the wonderful 1965 film The Cincinnati Kid, and Master and Commander.

In the end, I find that my writing for the visual allows conversations to be overheard but also placed in the context of my creation rather than using the accepted and understood settings established by Austen. But, that context also explains the characters far beyond what simple words could ever do. In that I stand on other’s shoulders in my efforts to see into that Austenesque far country.

Please enjoy this excerpt from The Sailor’s Rest where we find Elizabeth Bennet and Anne Elliot in close communion as they pondered their loves’ fates.

Links for books mentioned in this article.

The Keeper: Mary Bennet’s Extraordinary Journey (V1 of The Wardrobe)

mybook.to/keeperbennetwardrobe

The Exile: The Countess Visits Longbourn (V5 of The Wardrobe)

mybook.to/CountessVisitsMP

The Longbourn Quarantine

mybook.to/longbournquarantine

&&&&

The excerpt from The Sailor’s Rest is ©2023 by Donald P. Jacobson. Reproduction except for sharing this newsletter is prohibited.

Chapter 18

…

A sniffle dragged Elizabeth away from memories of a broad-shouldered giant atop windswept Oakham Mount.

She dug into a pocket and pressed a handkerchief into Anne’s hand. “Anne, Anne: I know remembering him hurts dreadfully. But reminiscences of the past that bring pleasure may also bring tristesse. That second part took me a great while to learn.

“Pleasure and pain are equal parts of life. We cannot appreciate happiness without sadness, nor can we understand dark times without having known bright ones.”

Elizabeth gathered herself as her beloved’s image framed in brightness played on the plane behind her lids. Her eyes flashed open to look at the rolling terrain, starlight reflecting off wave’s crests. “At the risk of sounding like the admiral, so fond he is of all things nautical, Darcy is an example of still waters running deep.

“He, like your Frederick, fidgets. He, too, plays with his signet. However, Darcy’s actions come not from a surfeit of energy but rather profound uneasiness. This I learned once I set aside my dislike of the man on the surface and allowed him to show me the true man underneath.

“My William is a man of few words. No, that is incorrect. He regulates his emotions beyond what might be natural to protect himself. Darcy is uncomfortable when in the company of those he does not know. The fewer familiar persons, the more taciturn and, some might say, unsociable he becomes.”

Anne stirred beside her. “Not your Mr. Darcy! I have heard you do nothing but sing his praises this past month.”

Elizabeth chuckled. “He is the best of men—now. I have known two Fitzwilliam Darcys. There is the Darcy of the past half year and the one from before. I pray that you will meet the most recent version, but we have no way of knowing how his time on that ship has shaped him.

“The earlier man had more than a few rough edges. Faced with a crowd of the unintroduced, he would stalk the chamber’s perimeter. His inscrutable mask appeared to be full of disdain and hauteur, and his eyes seemed determined to find fault in any- and everything. That was the man I first came to know, and he was intolerable!

“Once he had set a room against him—although of that sublime condition he was invariably and infuriatingly unaware—he would cease his march before a window through which he would stare, back turned, for the balance of the visit. There he would stand with one hand clenched behind his back, the thumb polishing the forefinger. The greater his disquiet the more furious the rubbing, and, I think, the greater the calming.

“’Tis difficult to imagine the master of one of the country’s great estates becoming overwhelmed by strangers. I think it takes him longer than most to understand people. Once that is accomplished, he relaxes.

“Just as your captain feels fear but does not show it, so, too, does Fitzwilliam except if you know what to look for in Darcy, you will find it.”

Anne’s soft reply was almost lost in the rush of noise as the ship’s bows dug deeply into a swell. “Frederick bears up in adversity so well. Me?” she continued after a sigh, “I grow morose and make miserable everyone around me.”

Turning toward Anne, Elizabeth gently gripped her shoulder. “You must be brave. It is nearly finished. Captain Rochet says that if Persephone was following orders, she would have been up north against the Savoyard coast. I think that with the Beast’s flight from Elba her reason for remaining there has vanished. All we know is that she still is between us and France.

“We are closing in on both of them. What I do know is that my William yet lives. I would be aware if it were otherwise. We are tied by an invisible umbilical—heart to heart—that…”

“You feel it, too?” Anne asked. “I know that Frederick, too, is alive in the same manner. I would feel his loss.”

“And here I have been missing Jane. She said the same about her link to Bingley. I can see that you will have to become acquainted with my older, much more beautiful sister.

“It must be a condition common to those deeply and truly in love,” Elizabeth answered as she slid her hand into Anne’s. No further conversation was undertaken, rather an appreciation of the limitless waves vanishing in the distance before them.

Sophie’s voice interrupted their musing. “I realize you have nothing better to do than share lovelorn reminiscences, but Sgt Wilson has a wife. Mrs. Wilson has grown impatient waiting for him in their cabin. The admiral prevailed upon me to leave our own warmth and hurry you two back below so he could snuff the wick.”

Embarrassed chuckles at the modest vulgarity presaged the pair turning away from where they imagined Persephone to be lurking beneath the horizon. They lapsed into companionable silence: two ladies wrapped in and warmed by thoughts of their loves.

###