A Complete Beginner's Guide to Annotating a Novel

That’s me. I’m the beginner. And here’s a little guide to how I annotated my first novel.

Before last month, I had never annotated a novel. I have annotated nonfiction books before, but those were mostly for my studies. But annotating fiction purely for fun was something I had never done. I couldn’t figure out what it was that I was supposed to annotate and how to do it, probably because we never annotated fiction books in school. However, my bookstagram feed was full of photos of annotated books with beautiful doodles and color-coded sticky tabs, and I was intrigued. So during Jane Austen July, I annotated my all-time favorite book, Pride and Prejudice. Here’s a recap of what I learned from the experiment as well as some tips on how to annotate a novel.

 

1) Choose a Book You’ve Already Read

Like I said, I chose my all-time favorite book for this annotation experiment. I highly recommend you do the same. Annotating a book you already know and love makes the annotation process a lot easier. I knew I would enjoy rereading Pride and Prejudice, so if I didn’t like the experiment, it wouldn’t be the book’s fault. I also had an idea of what I wanted to focus on when annotating the book. It’s easier to note things like foreshadowing, themes, and character development when you’re already familiar with the plot. And finally, even if I didn’t like annotating, I knew I would want to continue reading the book, so I wouldn’t feel like I had wasted time on the experiment. So choose a book you love and want to take a deeper dive into!

 

2) Define Your Goal

Defining your goal helps you to figure out what you want to annotate. What is it that you’re trying to get out of the annotating experience? What are the parts that you will later want to find easily as you flip through the book? Do you want to look at the characters, setting, plot? Do you want to note the symbolism, literary devices, or themes in the book?

If you’re reading a mystery or a detective story, you may want to keep track of clues for what has happened and potential foreshadowing, and if it’s a whodunnit, your guesses about who the culprit is. If you’re reading a romance novel, maybe you simply want to draw hearts around all the swoon-worthy things characters say. Maybe you want to doodle images of the dragons and castles in a fantasy book or note things like worldbuilding and fantasy languages. Maybe you want to see how the author deals with heavy themes. Or your goal may simply be “I want to note all the sentences that make me laugh/cry/think.”

My goals for this experiment came from a writer’s perspective. First of all, I wanted to see how Austen structures her novel and how she builds her scenes. I also wanted to note Austen’s style of writing: how she constructs her sentences, presents her ideas, and uses irony and humor in her story. I wanted to see how Austen used the thematical words “pride” and “prejudice,” as well the times where people made judgements based on first impressions (the initial name of the book and an important theme in the book). I also looked a little at characterization and foreshadowing.

Another reason for annotating Pride and Prejudice was that I have a vague idea for a modern retelling of the book. As I was reading the original, I was also looking for more ideas for my retelling: how I could tweak the characters to fit a modern-day setting, and what little details I could incorporate into my version of the narrative.

 

3) Gather the Tools

The next step is to choose your annotation style and gather the tools. If you watch Youtube videos on how people annotate books, you’ll notice that they focus heavily on tools: what pens to use and which sticky-tabs to get. I didn’t want to buy a caddy full of annotation supplies when I wasn’t even sure if annotating was something that I would enjoy, but I guess I must say a few words about the tools I used for annotating.

I had three: pencil for underlining, ruler to make the lines straight, and a mechanical pencil for marginal notes. Oh, and an eraser. So much eraser. My handwriting simply isn’t the neatest! I used a regular pencil for underlining because the tip is blunter and wouldn’t tear the paper, and mechanical pencil for notes because the tip is narrower, so my writing is (somewhat) more readable with it.

If you don’t want to write in your beloved books, one way of annotating is to use sticky tabs or Post-it notes and not do any highlighting, underlining, or writing in the margins. I’ve used this method before for a few non-fiction books. I didn’t want to use it now, as the method works better when you don’t annotate every page of the book like I knew I would do with Pride and Prejudice. I used sticky tabs when I was reading my gorgeous edition of Jane Austen’s letters. I’m obviously never going to sell that book, but I didn’t want to ruin the reading experience for the future generations of Austen lovers with my scribblings.

You can even come up with a color-coding system for different aspects you want to annotate. I didn’t have a color-coding system for Austen’s letters, since I only wanted to mark a few of the most important letters that I wanted to find easily in the future. There are tons of Youtube videos where people explain their color-coding systems if that’s something that interests you.

Another way of annotating a novel without writing on the book is to use a dedicated reading journal. I use mine for any longer notes and thoughts on the books I read. You can make your own bullet journal style reading journal or buy one ready-made. I use a reading journal that I’ve made myself. You can find the reading journals I have on sale behind this link.

 

Reading Journals

4) Don’t Worry If It’s Not Pretty

If you choose to go with the pen/pencil method of annotating, your next step most likely is getting over the fear of “ruining” a pretty book. One way to overcome that fear is to find an old paperback version of the book from a thrift store. If the book already looks preloved, it’s easier to give yourself a permission to scribble all over it. For my annotating experiment, I chose an old Wordsworth Classics paperback of Pride and Prejudice that I had on my shelf. It doesn’t have the prettiest cover, so I didn’t mind if cracked the spine of that volume or if my annotations didn’t produce the most Instagram-worthy results.

 

5) How to Annotate?

So here’s the big question. Now that you have a preloved copy of your favorite book and your tools next to you, what exactly are you supposed to do with them? The goal you defined in phase 2 should help you answer the question of what you want to annotate, but how to do that? Here are some ideas:

• Underline meaningful sentences
• Circle important words
• Note your reactions in the margins

I used all three methods for my annotations of Pride and Prejudice. I underlined important sentences, wrote marginal comments, and circled the words “pride” and “proud,” as they were important thematic words in the book. I noted in the margins how Austen structured her chapters with scenes and summaries. In Pride and Prejudice, scenes with dialogue were followed by a summary of how people reacted to the information revealed in the scene. As a writer, it was fascinating to see how Austen used the scene-and-summary device throughout her novel.

Not all my notes were strictly from the writer’s perspective. I also had notes that were purely reactions as a reader. I noted sentences that made me laugh or any random thoughts I had while reading. My favorite marginal comments were “mansplaining,” “how little you know your own daughter,” and “says she and continues to talk.”

One of my favorite annotations

The most important thing to remember is that annotations should be fun! If your chosen annotation method or the things that you wanted to annotate don’t work for you, that’s okay. Give yourself permission to change gear in the middle of the book. Maybe you wanted to focus on dialogue but notice that the descriptions are much more interesting. Maybe you realize that you don’t like highlighting and want to use sticky tabs instead. And if you decide that you just don’t like annotating, it’s okay to give up.

 

Final Thoughts

This experiment taught me a few important things. Annotating made me read the book more thoroughly at a much slower pace and to analyze it in a deeper level than I would have otherwise done. There was not a page where I didn’t find something interesting to note, whether it was related to the characters, plot, Austen’s writing style, or simply a funny sentence I loved. I must say that since I was annotating so much (a bit too much, someone might say), I’m glad that I didn’t have color-coordinating system. The book would have looked even messier with multi-colored highlights than with the pencil underlinings and notes.

All in all, I deem the experiment a success. So will I be continuing with annotations in the future? To be honest, I don’t think I will be annotating every single book I read, but I will probably try this again with books that merit a reread.

If you want to see more about what my annotations looked like, check out the video below!