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Q&A Is it really necessary to add things like "I thought, I wondered, etc," in first-person narrative?

It's absolutely okay to leave these out. You'll be making the text more concise and the reader will have less work to do. The only time you want to use tags like "I wondered", "I thought", "I worri...

posted 12y ago by Neil‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T02:30:14Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/6253
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T02:30:14Z (about 5 years ago)
It's absolutely okay to leave these out. You'll be making the text more concise and the reader will have less work to do. The only time you want to use tags like "I wondered", "I thought", "I worried", and so on, is when they actually add information, or clarify the situation. For example:

> My friend often wondered about turnips. I wondered why.

Take care to vary your writing; one way of doing this is to stick the occasional "I thought" in the text. However, as a general rule, words that serve no purpose should be omitted.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2012-08-24T20:53:07Z (over 12 years ago)
Original score: 8