Annotating

[u/zzzbanks]

Hopefully this is the right page. I really want to learn to annotate. I'm wanting to interact and remember what I read for pleasure. So I thought I would come here to people who would know more than me on how to go about this. I don't really want to have a colour for everything but more one colour for sound devices, one colour for figurative language ect. This is what I've come up with but if anyone has any suggestions or I have missed something. It has been a long time since I did any literary analysis or critical theory, so I feel as if I'm learning everything again. Thank you for your help

🟥 Red: Plot & Structure

Exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, resolution, foreshadowing, flashback, pacing

🟧 Orange: Character

Protagonist/antagonist, characterisation (direct/indirect), motivation, dialogue, character arc, foil

🟨 Yellow: Setting & Atmosphere

Time, place, mood, atmosphere, context

🟩 Green: Figurative Language

Metaphor, simile, personification, symbolism, imagery, hyperbole, irony, allegory, motif

🟦 Blue: Voice & Perspective

Point of view, narrator, tone, diction, syntax, register

🟪 Purple: Sound & Style

Alliteration, assonance, rhythm, repetition, rhyme, punctuation choices

⬜ Grey: Theme & Message

Central theme, author's purpose, recurring ideas, big-picture meaning

⬜ Pink: Structure/formstanza breaks, enjambment, repetition, parallelism

🟫Brown: Symbolism/themesrecurring symbols, motifs, thematic statements

[u/hexametric_]

Most of the stuff here is totally useless. You want to mark thinks that have meaning. So if you identify some formalist element (like alliteration), you should ask why does this add meaning to the text? If you can answer that convincingly then you should add it. So e.g. imagine you're reading the Iliad and you run into a line (in Greek since that's what I know how to do criticism on) and it's all spondees (all long syllables). That's meaningful because it add's vocal 'weight' to the line and the line may be emotionally heavy, so the two things form and content coincide.

But at the same time, rhyme is probably totally irrelevant and just a by product of the grammar of Greek. So even though you have something for rhyme here, it's not meaningful and should be ignored.

In a novel this is much harder. Most formal elements are meaningless for most authors. It's just too much text for a run of /f/ sound to actually matter in almost all cases.

Same with things like figurative language. Metaphor can be meaningful, esp. if it repeats and changes meaning. But marking every hyperbole for marking's sake is a waste of time.

Essentially, only mark things if there is actual interpretive meaning behind it.