Lessons From Jane Eyre: 5 Ways to Bring Minor Characters to Life

Article from helpingwritersbecomeauthors:

 

Just for fun, today I’d thought I’d give you a sneak peek of my upcoming book Jane Eyre: The Writer’s Digest Annotated Classic. The book, available in late July (release date coming soon!), finds the method behind the magic of Charlotte Brontë’s enduring novel. Via annotations to the original text, I have analyzed the storytelling techniques Brontë used to create this literary masterpiece—so you can put these same techniques to use in creating the next great classic! Today, I’d like to share an excerpt from Chapter 10, in which Brontë masterfully presents an insignificant minor character in a way that brings her to life without leading readers to believe she’s more important to the story than she really is.

Excerpt from Jane Eyre

My ostensible errand on this occasion was to get measured for a pair of shoes; so I discharged that business first, and when it was done, I stepped across the clean and quiet little street from the shoemaker’s to the post-office: it was kept by an old dame, who wore horn spectacles on her nose, and black mittens on her hands.

“Are there any letters for J.E.?” I asked.

She peered at me over her spectacles, and then she opened a drawer and fumbled among its contents for a long time, so long that my hopes began to falter. At last, having held a document before her glasses for nearly five minutes, she presented it across the counter, accompanying the act by another inquisitive and mistrustful glance–it was for J.E.
 

Bringing Minor Characters to Life

In some ways, minor characters are like settings: they’re background “filler,” used to flesh out your story world and provide interactions for your protagonist. However, wielded with a deft hand, minor characters offer the possibility of being so much more. As we’ve already discussed in Chapter 6, they can be a mirror in which the protagonist compares and contrasts her own strengths and weaknesses. But they can also provide everything from comic relief to conflict to communication. A minor character can appear throughout the story, as does Rochester, or only once, a does our unnamed post lady in this scene.
Whatever the importance or length of their roles, minor characters should never be taken for granted. If you’re going to raise your story into a convincing facsimile of realism and, as a result, suspend your readers’ disbelief, every minor character needs to be treated just a seriously as the protagonist. Brontë’s postal lady appears only once. She is given a grand total of five paragraphs and one line of dialogue and isn’t even introduced by name. Brontë tells readers just three things about her: she’s old, she wears glasses, and she wears mittens. But these details are more than enough to give readers the paints they need to finish the character’s portrait. Let’s take a closer look at how Brontë accomplished this:

1. The length of the description indicates the character’s role in the story.

A more prominent character would deserve a much more complete description, but any more than we find here would have given readers an incorrect sense of the postal lady’s importance within the story.

2. The details are vivid and specific.

The old woman’s spectacles are “horn” and her mittens are “black.” Because textures and colors immediately establish visual images in the readers’ imagination, they can be extremely efficient adjectives

3. The “rule of three” achieves a sense of balance.

The human brain, whether through inherent tendency or just ingrained association, finds a sense of wholeness in lists of three. The result is a catalog of details that presents a rounded picture without lapsing into a “grocery list.”

4. The readers are trusted to fill in the blanks.

Say “apple,” and readers see a shiny red apple with a green leaf and a friendly worm. Say “nerd,” and they see a guy in black glasses and a loaded pocket protector. Readers don’t need much to be able to visualize a character. Less description is often more.

5. The character acts uniquely and realistically.

When the old woman peers and fumbles, and then stares at the letter for five minutes before “suspiciously” handing it over, she becomes a personage in her own right. She’s the heroine of her own story, whatever it may be, and she acts like it.

 

The British Library

I received an email from The British Library:

I notice that you’ve mentioned The British Library’s new Discovering Literature resource in an article on your site – http://kleurrijkbrontesisters.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/discovering-literature.html – and I’d like to thank you for this coverage; we really appreciate it.

I was wondering, would it be possible for you to link back to our Discovering Literature site – http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians – from where it’s mentioned? I think your readers might really appreciate the resources we’ve put together.

Well, I am happy to do so. bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians

Battell......

Bronte Parsonage Museum

On this day in 1826, Patrick Brontë returned from a visit to Leeds with a box of twelve wooden soldiers for Branwell. Each child picked a soldier for their own, and named it, and they began to record the games they played and the battles they fought with their toys. The world of Angria (and, later, Gondal) was born from these soldiers.

 

 

Emily’s coffee shop

A historic Thornton building, famous for being the birthplace of the Bronte sisters, re-opens its doors later this month, and one of its first visitors will be someone who is no stranger to history. Last year the future of the Bronte birthplace on Market Street seemed uncertain after it was put up for auction, with no guarantee it would not be bought for use as a private house. But it was purchased by Mark and Michelle De Luca, who own De Luca’s hair salon in the village, and in a few weeks it will open as Emily’s coffee shop. But before its official opening it will receive a visit from Sir Tony Robinson, star of Blackadder and Time Team, who is filming for a show on the Bronte sisters later this week. He will be delving into the history of Thornton and the house where the writers came into the world. The Rev Patrick Bronte occupied the home during his tenure at Thornton Chapel in 1815, known as the Bronte Bell Chapel.

The cafe will retain many of the grade II-listed house’s features, including the fireplace that Emily, Charlotte and Anne were born in front of. However, Mr De Luca said the building was not a museum and, although they would cultivate the building’s heritage with walls adorned with Bronte artwork by local artists, he hopes it will become a successful business in its own right. When the building was sold last year there had been disappointment that Bradford Council could not take it on to turn it into a museum. But Mr De Luca believes that such a venture would constantly be in the shadow of Haworth – where the family moved and grew up and home of the Bronte Parsonage Museum.
He said: “We are going to work with the parsonage to try and make this a Bronte trail, but the main aim is to make a place that locals want to come and use as well as people who love the Brontes.
“We can’t be solely reliant on tourism.”

The cafe will open in late June. thetelegraphandargus

Elizabeth Gaskells’ House at 84 Plymouth Grove, Manchester

Elizabeth Gaskells’ House at 84 Plymouth Grove, Manchester, was the home of the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, one of the nineteenth century’s most important women writers, from 1850 until her death in 1865. During this time she wrote most of her famous novels including ‘Cranford’ (1853), ‘Ruth’ (1853), ‘North and South’ (1855) and the unfinished ‘Wives and Daughters’. Visitors to the House during this time included Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, John Ruskin, Harriet Beecher Stowe and conductor Charles Hallé. Charlotte Brontë described it as “a large, cheerful, airy house, quite out of Manchester smoke”. Her husband Reverend William Gaskell was a Unitarian minister and a pioneer in the education of the working class who was also notable for his many charitable works. The House itself was built between 1835 and 1841 and is a rare surviving example of a suburban villa and is listed Grade II*. elizabethgaskellhouse

Sandlebridge and Elizabeth Gaskell

 

Sandlebridge Farm, also known as Colthurst House, was owned by the Holland family, one of whom, Samuel Holland, was the grandfather of the novelist, Elizabeth Gaskell.
She spent some of her childhood at Sandlebridge and the farm features in her novels, Cranford and Cousin Phillis.

A letter written by Gaskell to a family member in 1836, whilst staying at Sandlebridge, also paints an incredibly vivid picture, as she invites the recipient to imagine the place she is sitting as she composes the note:
 

 “My dearest Lizzy,
 I wish I could paint my present situation to you. Fancy me sitting in an old fashioned parlour, ‘doors & windows opened wide’, with casement window opening into a sunny court all filled with flowers which scent the air with their fragrance – in the very depth of the country – 5 miles from the least approach to a town – the song of birds, the hum of insects the lowing of cattle the only sounds – and such pretty fields & woods all round. .. I do so wish you were here to revel in flowers, & such through country We are up with the birds, and sitting out on the old flag steps in the very middle of fragrance, far from the busy hum of men, but not far from the busy hum of bees…
There are chickens, and little childish pigs, and cows and calves and horses, and baby horses and fish in the pond and ducks in the lane, and the mill and the smithy, and sheep and baby sheep and flowers …
I sat in a shady corner of a field gay with bright spring flowers -daisies, primroses, wild anenomes and the lesser celandine, and with lambs all around me, and the air so full of sweet sounds…”  

Taken from The Letters of Mrs Gaskell, Manchester University Press, 1997, Letter 4, 12 May 1836 More on: warfordhistory

The Brontës in Brussels

A new book by Helen MacEwan, founder and active member of the Brussels Brontë Group, about the Brussels experience by the Brontë sisters. Helen MacEwan is also the author of Down the Belliard Steps.

The Brontës in Brussels
Helen MacEwan
Peter Owen Publishers
ISBN 978 0 7206 1588 3

In 1842 Charlotte Brontë (1816–55) and her sister Emily (1818–48) arrived in Brussels to improve their languages, five years before becoming best-selling authors. Emily stayed for a year, Charlotte for two. Although this is a little-known episode of their lives, it is a fascinating one. Two of Charlotte’s four novels – Villette and The Professor – were based on her time in Belgium, which was pivotal for her both as a writer and personally, since she fell in love with her married teacher Constantin Heger. This book describes the sisters’ life in Brussels and provides information on places with Brontë connections. Although the Pensionnat Heger school where they stayed has gone, there is still much to be seen of the city they knew.
In 1913 Charlotte’s highly emotional letters to her teacher were donated by his descendants to the British Museum and on publication caused something of a scandal. Since then those with an interest in the Brontës’ literary achievements have been intrigued by this influential period in their lives.
The book includes a wealth of illustrations and maps, extracts from Villette demonstrating how the novel reflects Charlotte’s experiences in Brussels, translations of four of the sisters’ French essays and of Charlotte’s moving letters to her teacher and a Brontë walk around the city with maps and historical information on places and people especially associated with the sisters’ stay. For anyone who takes an interest in the life and work of the Brontës or who appreciates the literary associations of places, this is a compelling read. 

HELEN MACEWAN is a translator and former teacher who lives in Brussels. Her experiences as the founder of the Brussels Brontë Group, the Belgian branch of the Brontë Society, which organizes guided literary walks and conferences in the city, are related in her previous book Down the Belliard Steps.The book will be presented by the author next June 26 at the Waterstones Brussels store. Here you can find the author herself talking about her book.  

bronteblog