I Struggle with Analyzing Novels for my English Courses. Any suggestions on how to think analytically?

Hello everybody! (I am new to reddit, I hope I'm posting this in the correct place)

So, I am a creative writer. I love to write books and think of ideas for books. I have so many ideas on books to write about and I'm currently in University and so far on the path to getting an English degree.

For the last few terms I have been taking English courses that aren't exactly my cup of tea. Currently, I am in a Fantasy and Film English course where I have been having to write analytical papers on the narratives we've read/watched and I just can't. Perhaps it's because I have never been taught how to because I mainly take Creative writing courses OR maybe my brain just doesn't work this way.

We have a 2500 word essay coming up and I chose The Lord of the Rings as my narrative to analyze because I decently enjoyed that film compared to everything else, but I am incapable of analyzing it. My other Fantasy class we've had to do the same with one of our books and I did awful. I spent days staring at my book wondering what the heck to 'analyze' about it and only figured it out after 2 weeks of continually thinking about it. I guess I'm a firm believer (being a creative writer) that you should not try to analyze authors reasoning for doing things because you aren't that writer, what if you're wrong regardless of the proof?

Anyways... basically I can't seem to analyze things the way my professors want me to do. My current topic of choice is magical objects being a narrative driver and I chose the ring. But other than that I am stuck. It's a narrative driver because without it the whole book wouldn't be there... That's how I think... I feel like I seriously just can't think in an analytical way or I'm overthinking everything.

I have a month to figure this thing out so I'm going to be sitting here staring at my topic until I get it, but I doubt I'll understand it just like my last analytical essays. I am frustrated, am I the only person who can't think this way? Am I stupid?? Ugh. (Sorry ranting there a bit, I'm just overly-frustrated.)

The sad part is, I LOVE writing and I've been told that I'm very good at it, but it's ALWAYS the ideas that get me messed up because I can't think analytically for all these classes. Does anyone have suggestions?

Submitted February 28, 2021 at 07:43PM by CheetarTheCheetah https://ift.tt/3uGSP3u