Why You Should Always Read With a Pencil in Your Hand

I feel like this blog post should come with a trigger warning, such is the usual emotional response to this subject. So, TRIGGER WARNING: will contain graphic descriptions of annotations in books.

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As a writer, every book I pick up, regardless of genre, is a tool for learning. 

How writers structure their work, build characters, interweave foreshadowing into the early narrative, all of these things are there, within the pages, to be unlocked, noticed and noted. 

Angela Carter - Nights at the Circus

This book is so dense in intertextuality a pencil-drawn map across the pages allows you to find pathways through it… allows you to find your way into it.

It’s all very well getting to the end of a book and saying things like:

It was clever how they subverted the standard story structure at point X.

But after six months, and an ongoing reading list, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to recall where it happened or how. You’ll pick up something by the same author, notice they did something different with story structure there too, but you won’t remember if it was the same this time or not…

This is a loss of analytical potential. It’s a loss of learning. 

If there’s a clever sentence, a poignant quote, a politically relevant passage, it’s beneficial to draw a big eye-catching ring around that section of the text - big enough that when you’re flicking through the pages later, it will leap out at you. 

Perhaps you want to achieve something similar in your own writing. Perhaps you want to avoid writing something that didn’t work for you as a reader. Whatever it is, the act of underlining, commenting and circling makes that moment in the narrative stick in your mind. 

Ursula Le Guin talked about “active reading”, where the reader plays a part in the experience of the book. 

...readers aren’t viewers... reading is active, an act of attention, of absorbed alertness—not all that different from hunting, in fact, or from gathering... To read a story well is to follow it, to act it, to feel it, to become it—everything short of writing it, in fact... reading is actual collaboration with the writer’s mind. 

Staying Awake - Notes on the alleged decline of reading

When I’m reading, I consider myself to be hunting for sustenance and gathering intelligence. 

You might be one of those who annotates non-fiction works. Which is fine. But in drawing a distinction between fiction and non-fiction in the way you read, you’re effectively saying that you’re learning from one and not from the other… or that non-fiction deserves more active attention.

I wholeheartedly believe this to be a flawed assumption for two reasons:

1. Fiction often contains fact

There is truth and historical substance to be found in works of fiction; there’s also authorial interpretation of events. Every author takes in their world and processes it in their own way. The act of writing a book is the act of vomiting the resulting melange onto a page, plus a healthy dose of individual creativity and flare. Every book is a melting pot of intertextuality, of references, of philosophical ideas baked into dramatic plot points.

So yes, there are plenty of facts layered within fiction works, and plenty of relevant commentary on the events that have shaped our lives. Sometimes wrapping a real-life event in a fictional setting simply allows the writer to explore their mental and emotional reaction, and perhaps they got it right. Perhaps they didn’t. The question is why? and how? Sit up and pay attention, you’re holding a treasure map.

2. Non-fiction is not necessarily fact

Every subject under the sun is subject to interpretation.

Historic events are openly debated and the subject of historiography exists just so you can go through the many and varied interpretations of an event, and add your own interpretation of those interpretations to the pile.

Notably, many interpretations can be called into question because of societal assumptions that may have affected the historian’s viewpoint.

Just like the fiction writer, the historian and (in some cases) the scientist are affected by assumptions defined at a societal level. If you want proof of this, just look into the history of the contraceptive pill.*

Combining the two

Spotting a reference is step one. Step two is knowing what to do with them.

Most of the time I don’t know immediately. An idea leaps off the page and I circle it. But it can be a year before I get to a point in my current book when that moment becomes relevant again. When that spark of recognition ignites, a well-placed annotation is like a gift from past me to present me, saying “hey, you’ll find this useful one day!”

Even if all you keep track of is your emotional state while reading, leaving pencil emojis at the corners of the pages can provide a very interesting overview of the journey on which the writer has taken you from start to finish. 

Track that. Pay attention. Know what worked. Perhaps that steady emotional build had something to do with its success… or perhaps that moment of calm in the middle of the action provided you with just the right level of respite, energising you for what was to follow. Get your favourite books out and see if those things align… you’ll be surprised by what you find when you start truly thinking about all the books you’re reading.

But why not make notes in a different place?

Well as Ursula said:

To read a story well is to follow it, to act it, to feel it, to become it—everything short of writing it.

It’s important to avoid breaking your immersion, and the harsh reality is that to achieve truly active reading, plus full appreciation of the story, the margins are the answer. Keep a pencil in your hand and take notes as you go. It’s efficient. You may not like it, but if you use a different notebook, the two will get separated and the level of effort it takes to hunt down that reference will multiply exponentially to the point that you just won’t bother. Make life easy for yourself. Keep your notes and your books in one place… on the same page.

Ursula also said:

Much of civilization now relies on the durability of the bound book—its capacity for keeping memory in solid, physical form.

By annotating your books, you’re keeping your memory in solid, physical form. The books you read are yours to experience. Don’t be afraid to scribble that experience on the pages. That’s your melting pot… your personal melange… and one day you’ll vomit it all onto your own page, along with a healthy dose of your own creativity.

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*A great example of a work of fiction that provides a direct commentary on psychological treatment, tightly interwoven with the gender politics of the time, is Charlotte Perkins-Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. Read it. With a pencil in your hand.