Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A When am I using "I" too much?

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 possib...

2 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by thanby‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T13:14:36Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/48968
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar thanby‭ · 2019-12-08T13:14:36Z (almost 5 years ago)
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.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-11-15T17:47:34Z (almost 5 years ago)
Original score: 5