Is it possible to use the word "it" too much?
I'm describing a creature in my story, and I'm worried I'm using the word "it" too much. Is there a substitute I can use for the word? Can I keep using it?
Beady eyes look back at him, inky and devoid of any emotion. The creature’s head is small and round, flesh green and sickly-looking. Its ears are long and thin, and its nose is nothing more than two penny-sized holes. Its mouth is open, sharp yellow teeth bared in a ferocious growl.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/38279. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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You are not overusing "it" or "its", the only thing to worry about with pronouns is ambiguous reference; which I don't see in your example.
An ambiguous pronoun reference: Normally a pronoun refers to whichever the previous noun was. A noun is a person, place or thing, and it gets confusing when a single pronoun might refer to more than one such noun.
This is particularly prevalent in same-sex interactions, multiple girls having a conversation or multiple boys having a conversation. While it may be clear in the author's mind that despite the lack of nouns, the first "her" refers to Linda, the second "her" refers to Gina, and the third "her" refers to Barbara, don't count on your readers being able to read your mind!
He hit him in the face, and he responded by kicking him in the knee, which caused him to fall ...
(Wait, who fell?)
When confronted with a slew of pronouns you have written, particularly in same-sex interactions, make a point of checking each one and seeing if it is ambiguous which character it refers to. If not, leave it alone; pronouns are processed almost subconsciously by readers; as long as they aren't ambiguous.
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It is possible to use 'it' too much, though you don't seem to have trouble with this in this instance. Instead, I would recommend varying your sentence structure. If you are worried about using a pronoun too much, just go back and read how many times you used it in the paragraph. If you are using it more than two times per sentence for several sentences in a row, you could try replacing the pronoun with some of these: https://www.powerthesaurus.org/creatures/synonyms
You may have to pick and choose from that list, but some of the options are really good and may help you in future instances.
In general, if you feel you are using a word too much, just try a quick synonym search. It really doesn't take that long, and it can really pay off.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38329. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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