Capitalize 'it' when referring to a strange being?
I have a being with a name. I capitalize its name when I mention it. But mostly, I refer to it as "it". I use "it" a lot in dialogue, as characters talk about this being. Should I capitalize "it", in these cases?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/25375. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
Capitalizing a pronoun gives it proper noun status or deity status. So writing It means either that the thing's name is literally It, like Stephen King's monster, or you're referring to a god the way the Abrahamic religions refer to Yahweh as Him even in the middle of a sentence.
Therefore, if the creature has an actual name, like Gormenghast or Voldemort or Donnie, use either the name or the third-person-neutral pronoun it, lowercase. If the creature had a gender, you'd have no problem referring to he or she, right? So it is no different.
0 comment threads