How to Succeed as a Nineteenth-Century Novelist
Want to write like the wordy Victorian pros? Here are some not-so-serious tips.
Are you dreaming of syndicated fame between the pages of a closely printed literary magazine? Is your handwriting stellar, your imagination limitless, and your mental health somewhat suspect? Congratulations — you might have what it takes to succeed as a Victorian novelist. Here are some tips to grace the nineteenth century with purple prose.
More is more
Future scholars may claim you were paid by the word, but ignore them. Whether you’re making bank on it or not, your responsibility is to be as verbose as possible. Dig out that dictionary and search for as many ways to say the same thing as you possibly can. Don’t be afraid to be redundant. Repeat that repetition. Then do it again.
Use ALL the characters
Your stories need to be peppered with people, rife with relatives, fruitful with folks who pop in for one scene and then are never heard from again. And we’ll need those one-timers’ entire backstory, please. Remember, you’re getting paid by the word (maybe).
Make your heroes brooding
Master the art of the sulking, hulking dreamboat. Can your main man’s general expression be described as a “thundercloud”? Does he stare off into the middle distance to contemplate his own existence, humanity’s existence, and the tragedy of his father’s untimely death? Sprinkle that introspective melancholia with a heavy hand.
Make your heroines fair of face
Beauty means goodness and purity, and that will never change. Readers are dumb; let them know who to root for via outward appearance.
Marry off everyone, even the baddies
How else are you going to prop up the cult of domestic bliss if you don’t wrap everything up at least two or three times with a good old-fashioned wedding? Don’t save the nuptials for the heroes. Marry the lecherous creep to the damsel in distress so that you can have a satisfying just-deserts death scene. Or bring the two worst people in the world together in holy matrimony so they can annoy each other for the rest of their lives. Ah, poetic justice.
Know your game with names
Unless you’re Charles Dickens and able to come up with names like Poll Sweedlepipe and Wackford Squeers while in the bathtub, stick to what you know. Even if what you know is the same six names. Use them over and over. Don’t be afraid to call three different men Henry, even if they are all related to each other and live in the same house.
Kill off the parents
I’m only going to say this once: Exploit. Those. Orphans.
Insert plenty of descriptive prose
Listen to Jules Verne — you’re writing for readers who haven’t left their country estate in sixty years, after all! Will they ever plumb the depths of the ocean, twenty thousand leagues under the sea? Probably not. It’s up to you to make them feel like they are there. Describe the submarine they’re traveling in. Describe every fish that swims past the window. Describe the seaweed. Describe the sand. Leave no stone unturned, so you can describe what’s under it.
When in doubt, pile on the brain fever
Sickness sells! Plus since germ theory hasn’t been invented yet, much less antibiotics, inexplicable lingering illness with a knuckle-biting will-they-won’t-they recovery arc is just the ticket for a good suspenseful plot twist.
When in more doubt, pile on the death
Should you find you have too many characters to handle, start killing them off. Succumbing to disease, being squashed in revolutions, it doesn’t matter. It’s not like they are the brooding hero. In the case of a main character’s death, milk it for all it’s worth.
Your untimely death is the key here
Sorry to break this to you, but all of this advice won’t do you much good while you’re still alive. Your fame and fortune will mostly come along after you’ve perished yourself. But chin up — your work will be the stuff that college syllabuses are made of, and if you are truly lucky, a nerdy teenager may make you into a meme.
This piece originally appeared in Jane Austen’s Wastebasket in 2020.
I love Victorian authors. I was born too late.