She, Her, Him, He
OMG
Those Pesky Pronouns
Today, I am going
to discuss she, her, him, he, or in other words those pesky pronouns. As a
fledgling writer, I had no idea how those simple two to three letter words
tanked my writing credibility. It was after a scathing editing venture from a
good friend that I learned that the play on words when writing extended to
pronoun usage.
Step One – Take ownership of your faux pas
Hi, my name
is Lachelle Redd and I use excessive pronouns when writing.
Step two – Rip it off like a Band-Aid. One
sentence at a time, evaluate your pronoun usage. If this is too hard for you,
have a friend review your work and see what they have to say. Here is an
snippet from one of my stories.
She opened the door and he pushed his through as she tried
to find words, but he found them for
her.
Step three - Now that you have faced it, fix it
If there
were such a thing as pronoun jail, I would be under it. In writing that
sentence, I have committed a major pronoun felony and confused the reader. Here
is a better take on that sentence:
Amanda opened
the door as the demon forced his way inside. The confused woman tried to find
the words, however David found them for her.
Step four – Celebrate your rehabilitation
Woo hoo- I
have reduced the sentence two pronouns and intrigued the reader with more
definition and feeling of what is happening.
So for the
rest of you excessive pronoun offenders out there, there is hope. Find other
ways to get your point across and excite your reader.
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