I'm currently working on a book, not gonna spoil very much but all I want to say for now is that it's a Sci-fi/ Romance/ Action/ Drama and there are two main characters. A boy and a girl. Because the book focuses so heavily on them and their relationship, I often use gender pronouns like 'he', 'she', 'him', 'her', etc. This is fine when used lightly, but the paragraphs use those words A LOT. While we're at it, I'm also trying to avoid using words like 'the' as much as possible throughout the book. Any idea what to use instead of these words?
These words don’t really have synonyms you can use to replace them since they’re function words (words essential to the grammar of English), not content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.). If there’s someone doing stuff in your writing, you’re going to have to refer to them, and you only have a few options: their name/nickname (Elizabeth/Lizzy), their pronouns (she/her) and what they are (the girl, the woman, the young lady, the girlfriend, Collin’s cousin). Clearly the more you use option 3 the fewer pronouns you’ll have - but the more instances of ‘the’ you’ll have.
Personally I think pronoun use in a novel is largely ‘invisible’. I cannot think of a time when I’ve read a book and thought, “Man, they really use a lot of pronouns in this.” I’m more often annoyed at characters being referred to by several nicknames, titles and descriptors on the same page. We tend to notice overuse of content words far more often. (For example, I used one very rare verb twice in my 100,000 word novel and when a proofreader got to the second instance of it they told me I had used it too much.)
Could you give us a sample of writing that you feel is too pronoun-heavy? There may be some changes in style that I could suggest.
These words don’t really have synonyms you can use to replace them since they’re function words (words essential to the grammar of English), not content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.). If there’s someone doing stuff in your writing, you’re going to have to refer to them, and you only have a few options: their name/nickname (Elizabeth/Lizzy), their pronouns (she/her) and what they are (the girl, the woman, the young lady, the girlfriend, Collin’s cousin). Clearly the more you use option 3 the fewer pronouns you’ll have - but the more instances of ‘the’ you’ll have.
Personally I think pronoun use in a novel is largely ‘invisible’. I cannot think of a time when I’ve read a book and thought, “Man, they really use a lot of pronouns in this.” I’m more often annoyed at characters being referred to by several nicknames, titles and descriptors on the same page. We tend to notice overuse of content words far more often. (For example, I used one very rare verb twice in my 100,000 word novel and when a proofreader got to the second instance of it they told me I had used it too much.)
Could you give us a sample of writing that you feel is too pronoun-heavy? There may be some changes in style that I could suggest.
Here ya go!
"Nathan was a simple boy. He just wanted to see everything. Every crevice of the galaxy was something he just had to witness before death. He wanted to live life to its fullest potential. Yet there he was, working as a miner in holes called quadrants. Living under his boss. […] His Father, his Mother, his ancestors all did at least once. He had no clue why. His Father always described his great-grandfather, Nathan Bracket, as scrawny and incapable of lifting even a pebble and that ‘he should learn from his great grandfather’s mistakes’. His Mother told him how she met his Father in the mines, just as weak and scrawny as his predecessors, she loved him for his dorkiness."
So, in that excerpt, there aren’t really any pronouns I find unnecessary, but if you want to cut a couple,
- Transform the third sentence using the passive voice: “Every crevice of the galaxy was something that just had to be witnessed before death.” I only recommend this if you’re desperate to cut out any and every possible pronoun - it works just fine as is (in fact I think active voice is better) and in general fiction writers should avoid using the passive voice as it can make a story less personal and vivid.
- After “His father, his mother, his ancestors…” you can simply refer to his parents as Mother and Father respectively (or whatever your character would have called his parents). (Father always described… Mother told him how she met Father…) This will give it a bit more closeness with Nathan’s perspective though.
