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Q&A How to avoid using "he/she/it" repetitively in action

Ah, I also had this sort of problem, back when I first started writing. It's only natural, especially if English is not your native language. Thankfully, it's not so hard to get past this, after r...

posted 6y ago by Cindered Soul‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T08:21:00Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34533
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Cindered Soul‭ · 2019-12-08T08:21:00Z (almost 5 years ago)
Ah, I also had this sort of problem, back when I first started writing. It's only natural, especially if English is not your native language.

Thankfully, it's not so hard to get past this, after realizing what you should be doing. After writing a paragraph, read it to yourself and look out for these little eyesores:

Try to eliminate all the pronouns _he/she/it/they-said/saw/did something_ and so on, as much as you can. It is impossible to write a book without them, but keeping them to a minimum is definitely a plus.

Just look at it this way - Instead of **telling** the readers what the characters are doing (which gives off the impression that you are just re-telling a story, rather than writing a book), try to **show** them what is happening through the characters actions/observations/surroundings/thoughts ( **this** is what I believe, makes a story come to life, and entices reader attention)

I'll try to give an example, using your paragraph:

> **Will** stood silently in the middle of **his** simplistic abode, and nodded to **himself**. What to do? **He** asked **himself** dumb-founded as to what **he** was going to do with the abundance of time **he** suddenly had on **his** hands. It wasn’t often **he** had a day off, and now **he** did. **Will** walked into the kitchen and poured some cheerios into a bowl, and covered it in milk, making **them** float like water doughnuts. **He** grabbed a spoon and started slurping the the cereal into **him** whilst walking around **his** home. Nothing much was going on outside, **he** thought as **he** looked out of **his** window.

Now, let's try to get rid of some of these annoying buggers:

> Silently standing in the middle of the rather simplistic abode, **Will** nodded to **himself** , and pondered over what to do next. A day off was a rare occurrence, indeed. Suddenly dumb-founded as to what **he** was going to do with the abundance of free time, **he** opted to go into the kitchen and pour **himself** a bowl of cheerios. While adding some milk to the mixture, **he** noticed the cheerios floating. _"Heh... almost like water doughnuts."_ (Italics can be pretty useful for character thoughts) Grabbing a nearby spoon, **he** started slurping the cereal while taking a stroll around the house, stopping only for a moment to look out from one of the windows _"Nothing much going on outside..."_

I wouldn't say, my example is necessarily better (somebody here can definitely pull it off **even better** ), but it is definitely cleaner this way.

My final tip to you is: Try to rearrange some of your sentences every once in a while, and you can pull off a damn miracle, mate :)

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-03-23T14:50:29Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 6