When you’re reading, you may just want to enjoy the book — without regard to what is happening, or who is making all the actions. But, you’ll often find that you need to remember very specific details about the characters. Either, you want to track the characters for your own personal reasons, or you need to know those essential facts for your literature class: a research paper, essay, test, etc.
Whatever the reason for tracking characters, there are a number of tools you can use (or ways you can accomplish it)… Here are a few ideas:
- Evernote: It’s an easy-to-use tool for your Smart phone and Desktop computer, but it really is powerful. You can also add the character description and details in a number of different ways: text, photo, or audio. It’s also quick-and-easy to reference and use the character’s quotes, annotations and descriptive for later study (you can use tags, but also sort and search the notes).
- Google Drive: Here’s another tool that’s easily accessible from your Smart phone, laptop or Desktop computer. It’s easy to add notes as you read along; and you can also easily incorporate the digital quotes by outputting them from your Kindle ebook.
- Book Journal: If you prefer to go without the electronic tools, you can keep track of characters via a blank book or notebook. When you write the notes, descriptives and quotes — it’s often a great way to “drill” those content details into your memory.
- Underline & Marginalia: Sometimes, it’s the tried-and-true methods that still work great. You can use a different highlighter colors to track each character, and then take notes in the margins of the book. If you prefer ebooks, you can also highlight and make notes via many of the readers.
Whatever method of character tracking you select, it’s important that you’re consistent.