and Sensibility is arranged with other books and dried flowers.” class=”wp-image-70059″ srcset=”https://janefriedman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/henry_austen_sense_structure-blogpost-1000×667.png 1000w, https://janefriedman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/henry_austen_sense_structure-blogpost-450×300.png 450w, https://janefriedman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/henry_austen_sense_structure-blogpost-768×512.png 768w, https://janefriedman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/henry_austen_sense_structure-blogpost.png 1200w” sizes=”(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px”/>Photo by Book Hut
Today’s post is by book coach Robin Henry.
As noted in a previous post, 2025 is the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. It’s worth taking a moment to think about what makes her novels stand the test of time.
In my work with writers who are revising, we focus on six pillars of revision: Story Question, Structure, Cause and Effect, Character, Curiosity, and Language. In the first part of this series, we looked at how Austen used story questions in Northanger Abbey. Now, we will focus on the second pillar by dissecting the structure of Sense and Sensibility.
Sense and Sensibility was the first novel Austen published and straddles the Romantic Period and the Enlightenment. The story questions in the novel have to do with whether feeling or reason is best, leading the reader to the conclusion that perhaps some balance of the two is the answer.
Originally published in 1811, Sense and Sensibility was begun by Austen in 1795 and titled Elinor and Marianne. She wrote it in the epistolary form, but discarded that form later when she revised it and changed the title to Sense and Sensibility. The Romantic wave, which brought with it, among other things, Frankenstein and the Shelleys, was on the rise in England. The Sorrow of Young Werther by Goethe, considered a major influence on Romanticism, was published in 1774, and made its way to England in translation in 1779. Almost immediately, it was considered a bad influence and an apology for suicide, even though as Goethe himself pointed out, English poets were already writing about melancholy.
Within this context, Sense and Sensibility arrived on the scene and offered readers a novel with what modern readers would recognize as plot structure. For the purposes of this article, structure will refer to plot structure, though in some contexts it may also refer to the way a writer chooses to tell the story, or form.
Austen chose to use many letters in the narrative, but the form of the novel is a linear telling in third person POV, with an occasionally intrusive narrator. Austen pioneered “free indirect discourse,” which is a form of third-person narrative in which the narrator’s voice is “mixed” with the character’s thoughts and speech. Austen’s use of this style marked the beginning of what modern writers would consider third-person limited POV.
In addition to being in the vanguard of writers who were developing new styles for telling stories, Austen also gave her plots shape, while many of her contemporaries were still writing episodic adventures steeped in coincidence and deus ex machina. Now, gentle reader, we will see how Sense and Sensibility uses plot structure.
In this analysis, the plot structure will include the following plot points: Stasis, Inciting Incident, Complications, Midpoint, Crisis, Climax, and Resolution.
It is, of course, possible to break down the plot in further detail or to use other naming conventions, but our intent is to discuss what a writer may learn from Austen about how to place the major plot events and decision points in a narrative. Because the narrative is a parallel story, with two almost equal protagonists, some parts of the plot structure are joined for them and some parts are split. It is also important to note that the stakes continue to rise and the complications to accumulate in the chapters between these events.
- Chapter 1—Stasis, or life before the inciting incident. In this chapter, the reader meets all the players and the main conflict of the novel: women have no power when they have no money; male relatives control what their life choices will be. The story question, feeling v. reason, is hinted at by character reactions to the main conflict. The antagonist of the novel, Fanny Dashwood, is brought on stage to cause immediate conflict for our heroines. Notice that the main conflict appears early in the novel. The reader does not have to wade through a lot of backstory to find out what it is.
- Chapters 4 and 5—Inciting Incident, or that which leads the characters to make a decision that will determine the rest of the action in the novel. In chapter 4, the Dashwood ladies decide to move to Devon in reaction to their apparent unwelcomeness in the home of Fanny, wife of the heir to the estate. They have been offered a cottage. In chapter 5, the move takes place. This move leads to all of what happens next. Because they have moved to Barton Cottage, they meet Willoughby. Because they have moved to Barton Cottage, they will meet the Steele sisters. The wheels are in motion, the dominoes are tipping.
- Chapters 22 through 25—The Midpoint, with run up. In 22, Elinor learns of Lucy and Edward’s secret engagement, which she decides to keep a secret at Lucy’s request, in the next chapter. This decision leads to additional consequences, including Marianne’s misunderstanding of her. In chapter 25, the sisters are invited to London, and it is clear that each has her own motivation. Marianne wants to go in hopes of seeing Willoughby, Elinor doesn’t want to go, as she is nursing a broken heart, but she decides to go. Elinor is aware that Marianne will not cope well with being denied the trip and cannot be trusted to go alone, not least because without Elinor as a buffer, Marianne will not pay enough respect to their hostess, Mrs. Jennings. Chapter 25, therefore, offers a big change in the story—a change of location, a change of situation for both sisters, one of whom is on a down arc and the other on an up arc at the time of the change. It is also the exact middle of the chapters, since there are 50 chapters in the novel, a fact both interesting and enlightening for students of story structure.
- Chapters 28 and 34—Crises for both Elinor and Marianne. Two party scenes provide the backdrop for the sisters’ crises. If you are keeping score in the Romantics v. Reason department, notice that Marianne’s crisis is public. Her humiliation is public when Willoughby basically gives her the cut direct in chapter 28; her reaction is public, the consequences are public. By contrast, Elinor’s crisis in chapter 34 takes place at a private dinner party. All the players have been gathered—Fanny and John, Brandon, the Ferrars, the Steele sisters. Elinor has to be careful; she cannot show her true feelings or risk giving away Edward’s secret. In bold Romantic fashion, Marianne speaks without knowing all, inadvertently adding to Elinor’s pain. In the chapter after this party, Elinor decides to “get over” Edward and let it go.
- Chapters 42 and 48—Climax, by turns. After continuing complications and revelations—Willoughby is just as big a cad as Elinor suspected, but wished him not to be—the sisters are on their way home. Marianne indulges herself in some grief wallowing by walking in a storm while they stay with the Palmers in chapter 42. Shocker, she becomes ill with a raging fever. Again, her actions are public and bombastic. In chapter 48, the reader experiences one of the most satisfying twists in all of fiction, when Edward comes to visit at the cottage and disabuses the whole family of the notion that he and Lucy have been married. Lucy is indeed Mrs. Ferrars, Mrs. Robert Ferrars. Cue tears. Elinor’s moment is private.
- Chapter 50—Resolution by the slightly intrusive narrator. All’s well that ends well. Edward and Elinor are married by the Autumn, and no less than two years later, Marianne finds herself doing the opposite of what all her opinions had been at the beginning of the novel, and in so doing, making Brandon the happiest of men, as everyone around him knew he deserved. Perhaps it is because Brandon, as the reader knows from his history, is actually the Romantic hero Marianne was searching for, despite wearing a flannel vest. The sisters settle not too far from their mother and the elder Mrs. Ferrars has been spellbound by Lucy, getting the daughter-in-law she so richly deserves.
As one may see from this, Austen places the “big” plot events at the places where readers, even modern readers, expect them to be. She also balances the opening and closing. The break into Act II happens in chapter 5, when the Dashwood ladies move to Barton Cottage, 10% into the novel. At chapter 45, 10% from the end of the novel, Elinor and Marianne are back at Barton Cottage after their adventures for the climax and resolution, arguably Act III.
It is not a rule that all novels should follow this exact pattern. In writing, as in any art, there is subjectivity and fluidity in the model. But there are clear turning points in the novel at the chapters identified. Act I and Act III are balanced. A big decision with consequences happens at the midpoint. The other decisions, as well as the Crises and Climaxes for Elinor and Marianne, are spaced to provide rising stakes and continuing complications as the reader approaches the final big twist.
Some writers object to applying quantitative measures to writing, because art is creative, and should not be bound by such limits. I would submit that all great art has an underlying structure. The ability to use the structure creatively to engage with and ask questions of the consumer of the artwork—that is the mark of a great artist.
Writing exercise: Write the synopsis for your work in progress using the plot points outlined in this post. Is the shape of the story clear? Do you have the necessary decision points? Are the dominoes tipping? If yes, great! If not, how can you make adjustments to tell your story?
Robin Henry is a lifelong Jane Austen fan and Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach. Writers work with her to craft compelling fiction that readers crave.
See more of her writing about Jane Austen here and here.
Find more book reviews and posts about writing at https://readerly.net
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