As I’m working on my own Gothic novel at the moment, I thought I would read Elizabeth Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë for some inspiration, and it instantly re-ignited my admiration for both Brontë and for Gaskell.
Today I thought we could take some prose examples from Charlotte Brontë’s writing, analyse them, see what makes them work, and how we can apply them to our own writing.
In this video, I look at several passages (from Mina Laury, Jane Eyre, and The Professor), and draw from them both stylistic and structural inspiration.
I’m going to be rewriting and imitating Brontë’s style for sections of my own novel, but if you’re not writing fiction, you might like to apply some of these techniques to your journal writing or to personal essays.
☞ You can download a handout that includes all the excerpts, as well as some guiding notes, in the Coterie.
☞ Also, the Naxos audiobook for The Life of Charlotte Brontë is quite brilliant. I recommend listening on Storytel if it’s available in your country.
