How to read a novel

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 MOOC from the University and the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

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. You’ll also explore the formal strategies authors use, how they came to be, and how they affect us as readers.

Find out more about the 'How to Read a Novel' MOOC, next starting 8 January 2018, and sign up 

Successful beginnings

First launched in July, this four week MOOC gained over 14,500 sign ups.

The course was marketed by both the University and book festival communications and marketing teams, their press releases securing ten clips on online news sites with a readership of 16.3 million (estimated coverage views of 257,000): The Times, The Herald, The National, The Edinburgh Guide, Creative Scotland, Scottish Review of Books, What’s on in Edinburgh, Europe breaking News, Edinburgh International Book Festival News. A social media evaluation by our communications and marketing team calculated the total potential reach for MOOC promotion across University online and social media outlets (website, Twitter and Facebook) to be 668,516.

16 CC BY licensed videos from the course are available on Media Hopper Create 

Find out more about the range of MOOCS the University offers and how you can get involved 

(Ed. this article was originally published on 11 Dec, 2017)