How to Read a Novel

Get more from your reading

What makes a great novel? How is a novel woven together? How can we best appreciate works of fiction?

Answer these questions and more with this course from The University of Edinburgh.

On the course you’ll discover four of the main building blocks of modern fiction: plot, characterisation, dialogue, and setting using examples from a range of texts including the four novels shortlisted for the 2024 James Tait Black fiction prize. You’ll also explore the formal strategies authors use, how they came to be, and how they affect us as readers.

This course is for anyone who enjoys reading. You don’t need any past experience. You don’t need to have read all four books before you commence the course, but you may find it enhances your learning experience if you have.

Image: John Michael Thomson (2018) CC0

• Plot
• Scene setting
• Framed narratives and unreliable narrators
• Exploring Plot
• Meet the author
• Characterisation
• Introduction to character
• Interiority
• Exploring Characterisation
• Meet the author
• Dialogue
• Introduction to dialogue
• Dialect
• Exploring Dialogue
• Meet the author
• Setting
• Introduction to setting
• Space
• Exploring Setting
• Meet the author