Emma Claire Sweeney

And she says she has very little sympathy for someone who's suffering from that kind of cold.

And there are a few other references that make this seem as if it wasn't a one-off occurrence.

And hypochondriacs' parents do appear quite regularly in Austen's novels.

So I'm not saying...

in any way that Mr. Woodhouse is Mrs. Austen, but perhaps there were elements of her experience with her parents that she might have drawn on and transformed.

And I think when novelists are writing well and when their work is taking flight, often there's a kernel of experience that is then transformed into fiction.

They really do, I know.

I guess I'm wondering though, when you've

put it on the page something changes if you put the demands of the story first then you have someone who is very very closely based on your sister but you're getting her to interact with somebody who's fictionalized or in a place your sister's never been to a situation your sister herself has never experienced then

Perhaps they're not quite your sister anymore.