Online Course That Deeply Explain Novels

Are there any YouTube videos or free online college courses that go through the entirety of a literary fiction novel and discuss how it works? Like going over its structure, narrative and creative decisions, character progression, etc etc

I realize I don't know how a novel "works". The few times I've attempted a solo concentrated study of a novel, I just forget to pay attention to the mechanics of it all and just enjoy it.

The only reason I can write poetry and short fiction with some non-zero degree of confidence is because I've taken uni electives on it and have had profs teach the rules and mechanics behind shorter prose and poetry. So I wanna do the same thing with novels

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  1. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    why would anyone do that, novels are read to be enjoyed not to be explained, if you want deep discussions then enroll on a university course, or read literary reviews, but you don't seem to like or understand reading very well, do you zoomer?

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      2/10, terrible reading comprehension, didn't even make it to the fourth sentence

      this is moronic. there is no right or wrong way to write a novel. you'll have better luck figuring things out yourself.

      >there is no right or wrong way to write a novel
      i know mate. i just want to see any well-read persons deep dive into a literary fiction novel. if I can understand how a great writer approaches it, i can adapt and improvise it for my own writing needs

      >you'll have better luck figuring things out yourself
      second para. I've tried but I just end up enjoying the story and forgetting to read it as a writer. I want to understand it from a writers perspective so I can potentially utilize it in my own novel project

      • 2 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        you are right, you should read more zoomer, will help with your terrible reading comprehension before you can start tackling novels, nobody will spoonfeed you here with 3 minute explainer videos

        • 2 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          wow! sick burn bro!

          lol suck it, boomer. your time is long gone. your wife is mine so is your bussy. open wide

          • 2 weeks ago
            Anonymous

            imagine giving reading advice to people with such juvenile attitudes, you are on your way to becoming a troony zoomer, reading will not save you

          • 2 weeks ago
            Anonymous

            you have to go back, buddy. im here asking for ways to improve my writing. you're here to be a gay.

          • 2 weeks ago
            Anonymous

            no you are here to ask for shortcuts, i am here to tell you. there aren't any, and i am not going back

          • 2 weeks ago
            Anonymous

            there are no rules to writing and you will never write anything of worth
            read plato's ion and realize that what you're looking for does not exist

            yap yap yap, boomer can't stop yapping

          • 2 weeks ago
            Anonymous

            lazy zoomer thinks he is the next great thing when he can barely concentrate for 5 minutes, what use is watching those lectures zoomer if your brain is tailored to tiktok content

          • 2 weeks ago
            Anonymous

            i am a zoomer, though

          • 2 weeks ago
            Anonymous

            I was wondering when you would start using pictures, when your words would start failing, what's next, tiktok webms?

          • 2 weeks ago
            read ion

            i am a zoomer, though

          • 2 weeks ago
            Anonymous

            there are no rules to writing and you will never write anything of worth
            read plato's ion and realize that what you're looking for does not exist

          • 2 weeks ago
            Anonymous

            you have to go back, buddy. im here asking for ways to improve my writing. you're here to be a gay.

            no you are here to ask for shortcuts, i am here to tell you. there aren't any, and i am not going back

            [...]
            yap yap yap, boomer can't stop yapping

            This love afair should take place in private.
            (the boomer saying "get a room")

  2. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    this is moronic. there is no right or wrong way to write a novel. you'll have better luck figuring things out yourself.

  3. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Professor who delves into contemporary books
    https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcWAPGREP_3HxT6P0zrz-4GgK1hDlxDxh&si=eDavourg_KVk-OWO

    Haven't watched any of these lectures, but it's Harvard, so it's probably great
    https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD00D35CBC75941BD&si=_RtdHALyhOga0Pre

    This professor is amazing. Highly recommend
    https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9156A37193921175&si=44-4QSe1TOMVloZM

    Authors' insights that can be useful for writing a novel
    https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIZqvqbtz9I30kDK7RrKXxtLK9WxA33-T&si=E9zyzfABvgumkMPA

    Good luck anon, and happy watching

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      Not OP but thanks for the non-moronic reply.

      • 2 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        you are unfathomable based, anon
        this is exactly what I was looking for

        [...]
        that's a shame

        You're welcome.

        OP, ignore the guy, saying the Yale lectures are awful. They're not useful for learning how to make literature in a traditional sense, but they do provide a lot of worthwhile information. Just like any good book/video on a theory or a criticism, it inadverntly teaches how to add depth in your literary work and what not to do

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      you are unfathomable based, anon
      this is exactly what I was looking for

      Yale has some lectures on books like Blood Meridian but they're all fricking awful and don't deepen your knowledge of the text at all.

      that's a shame

  4. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Yale has some lectures on books like Blood Meridian but they're all fricking awful and don't deepen your knowledge of the text at all.

  5. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Read Plato's Ion

  6. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    >The few times I've attempted a solo concentrated study of a novel, I just forget to pay attention to the mechanics of it all and just enjoy it.
    the books where concepts like these "mechanics" apply are not books you want to write (I hope)
    the stories which carry meaning have incidental structure and you cannot learn to write them by understanding the structure which is something that can be recognized only post-factum

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      >not books you want to write (I hope)
      I don't mean book with gimmicky concept. I just meant I want to understand what makes a "great" novel tick and whether there's anything I can learn from that as a developing writer

      >something that can be recognized only post-factum
      so do you mean to say that none of history's greatest writers of literary fiction have written with a predetermined structure and were just winging it for the first go?

  7. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    I want my Novels penetrated and turned out, spitshined and explained! Man i bet there's a whole new novel to be found with the magic of deep explaining!

  8. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Serious answer: you will never come to know a novel deeply until you literally copy it out by hand. I know, I know: a large request! But you should do it because (a) novel-writing is a physical habit, a matter of sitting in a chair and writing something on a given topic day in and day out, and this will drive that habit into you, and (b) writing something out brings you extremely close to the text while at the same time putting you at a distance. You don't get 'absorbed' by the book. Nicholson Baker got started writing doing this.
    Don't be a jerk and try to do this with War and Peace. Pick something short--Lot 49, or Notes From Underground. You'll learn more than you'll learn from any Youtube video, trust me.

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      Wait, are you seriously recommending copying an entire novel by hand? Interesting. Do you have any personal experience with it?

      • 2 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        Well, no.

        • 2 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          bruh

  9. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Obviously no, literary theory is a huge subject with many conflicting schools of thought.

    Frye, Gadamer, Lukács, Jameson, de Saussure and Bloom are probably the most influential literary theorists today and should be a good primer.

  10. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    >online course
    lol
    there's plenty of books that teach you this stuff.
    what are you illiterate?

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      okay which books then? I don't want book that "teach" writing. I want books that dive deep into what makes great fiction "work"

      • 2 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        I bought "the anatomy of genres" but haven't read it yet. It might have something for you. There's the "Complete Handbook Guide to Novel Writing" and I used that for revision, read the stuff about revision. Handbook has interviews from famous authors whether you think they're hacks or not.

        Writing novels is a shit prospect now. It's a great mental exercise with it's own benefits, and an accomplishment, but novels fall into 3 categories
        >normal human bullshit about feelings written to pad a literary career
        >schlock fantasy action built for money with an off chance for redeeming elements
        >shit that's never going to ever get published because agents and publishers want to eat aioli, not printing costs

  11. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    something called books that do that or you can watch a 19 year old explain Moby Dick to you with memes spliced in every 3 seconds.

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      name some books boomer. Preferably on moby dick since it's my favorite novel of all time

  12. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    >This is an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition[...]Our author must be henceforth numbered in the company of the incorrigibles who occasionally tantalize us with indications of genius, while they constantly summon us to endure monstrosities, carelessnesses, and other such harassing manifestations of bad taste as daring or disordered ingenuity can devise…
    - London Athenaeum, October 25 1851

    >High philosophy, liberal feeling, abstruse metaphysics popularly phrased, soaring speculation, a style as many-coloured as the theme, yet always good, and often admirable; fertile fancy, ingenious construction, playful learning, and an unusual power of enchaining the interest, and rising to the verge of the sublime, without overpassing that narrow boundary which plunges the ambitious penman into the ridiculous; all these are possessed by Herman Melville, and exemplified in these volumes.
    - London Morning Advertiser, October 24 1851

    >The flashes of truth, too, which sparkle on the surface of the foaming sea of thought through which the author pulls his readers in the wake of the whale-ship,—the profound reflections uttered by the actors in the wild watery chase in their own quaint forms of thought and speech,—and the graphic representations of human nature in the startling disguises under which it appears on the deck of the Pequod,—all these things combine to raise The Whale far beyond the level of an ordinary work of fiction. It is not a mere tale of adventures, but a whole philosophy of life, that it unfolds.
    - London John Bull, October 25, 1851

    Read 19th century reviews before the morons got an education. If you want to learn about the craft of writing, read the ancient manuals by Libanius or Aphthonius instead of NYT bestsellers MFA profs.

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      Great advice.

  13. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    You know the art you see now from students? It's not chiaroscuro or photorealism. It's just abstract shit that looks like a middle-school child could draw it, or a really shitty self-portrait, often both. If you search far and wide you'll find the oddball that knows what he's doing and his paintings will sell for $3000 instead of $300. Anyway novels are like that. "I'm gay and I frick children in Las Angeles" the Novel is like the modern art stuff. I haven't read "the Wagerer" yet but anything with pirates is probably good, and it won awards. I would suspect that's the upper echelon but sadly it sells for the same amount of money.
    Also: Self-publishing would be better if you didn't have to deal with Amazon. Nobody should have to deal with Amazon.

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