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Comments on When am I using "I" too much?

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When am I using "I" too much?

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Chuck Palahniuk is an author quite well known for writing first-person stories. He has a simple piece of advice for others who wish to do so as well: "Have your narrator say 'I' as little as possible." To my knowledge he doesn't elaborate on the quantity of "I" that is allowable.

After diving into a first-person story, I'm having difficulty writing narration without using "I" very often. In some situations, it just seems impossible to reformulate a passage to use it any less.

So how much is too much? Is it okay to use it often in some situations where it's just unavoidable? Should I worry less about it? Is Chuck totally wrong?

The biggest problem comes from narrating actions:

"I stood up and walked across the room, but even as I did so, she turned away."

It just seems hard to reformulate some sentences like that.

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This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/48968. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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General comments (1 comment)
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Kevin‭ wrote almost 5 years ago

I can't say I've ever heard this rule of thumb before. Do you know why Mr. Palahniuk avoids using "I"? As with any other rule of thumb, I think it's less about grading yourself on a scorecard by counting how many times you say "I" and more about critically understanding why the rule of thumb is helpful and then doing the hard work of deciding whether your work holds up to that deeper reason.