For literature, how do you write a critical analysis?

A literary critical analysis includes a discussion of
structure, thesis, language particulars and diction, plot and conflict, characters, and
other literary devices of the literary element and literary technique categories,
including mood and tone, tropes and conventions. In order to amass this information, you
need to pay close attention to the elements and techniques, points and objectives in the
writing as you come across them, paying special attention to subtle (or bold) changes in
tone and mood as well as to words, phrases, or sentences that make, prove, or emphasize
the author's thesis (major point).

To write your critical
analysis, after your Introduction, you'll have a brief description or perhaps summary of
the work you're analyzing followed a discussion of structural points. If you're
analyzing a poem, this would include things like rhyme scheme, stanza construction,
genre, and meter. If a book, this would include things like narrator, point of view,
chronological orientation, overall mood (mood can change), and overall tone (tone can
change). You then discuss literary elements and techniques, authorial style, the
treatment of the work's thesis, and the work's effectiveness as these are
relevant to your particular thesis statement--the point you wish to make
about the literary work.

This may seem like a lot--and it
can be--but it can also be abbreviated to suit the needs of your essay. For example, if
my thesis is that a work is not effective because of faulty language, I may address
structural elements as briefly as follows if I wish--if it serves my purpose to do so:
The first person narrator establishes a despondent tone that matches the gloomy mood
(same as atmosphere) as s/he paces back and forth in time between flashbacks, present
day events, and anticipated future events while telling of the tragedy s/he witnessed on
the slow boat to China two decades earlier.