Thread: Some help would be greatly appreciated

Hello, everyone,

I am in need of some assistance, and hope that someone can help me out. Now, before I get started, I should pre-warn everyone, I am absolutely rubbish at describing the issue that I am currently having. I know what I am talking about, but it's often hard for me to get it across, so that others know what I am talking about. However, I am going to try.

The problem I am having is the useage of character's name(s). For example, let's say I have a character called John. I don't always want to start a sentence with 'John did this', 'John did that', 'John went here' and 'John went there'. John's name is being overused, and, in my opinion, makes the writing come across as a bit robotic. Sometimes, I could use 'His' or 'He'. I was just wondering if there were any sort of, I don't know, rules, when using 'he', 'his', 'she', 'her', or the character's name. Are their times when I should always use the character's name, are there advantages of using one over the other? I just need help, because it's bothering me.

I hope someone can help, as it would be appreciated.

Thanks,

D.J.

I don't think there are any such rules. It is common sense to begin with the name at the start of a period, then use 'he' or 'she', although many writers alterate between the two, with 'he' and 'she' being more popular. But don't worry - unless your 'he' is a 'she', you're never wrong to use it instead of the name.

Thank you, Mortimer. I was thinking 'It probably doesn't even matter', but I just wanted to make sure.

Just think of it this way -- paragraphs are units of thought. When you are only talking about one character in the span of that paragraph, it is really only necessary to mention the character's name once or twice. After that, a simple 'he' or 'she' will make it clear who you are talking about.

And sometimes you don't have to introduce the character's name at all, if style dictates. The only time you need to restate the character's name is when another character / place, etc. enters the story, and it becomes necessary, for the sake of the reader, to make clear who is doing what.

The important concept is that the reader understands, always, which character you are talking about.

But the larger issue seems to be that you are perhaps struggling with finding new ways to construct sentences. You don't always have to frontload your sentences by placing the subject at the beginning.

As JohnMG said, you don't have to frontload your sentences.

Like: Panting, John burst into the bar; Hurriedly, John put down his skin mag; Seeing the reflection of his profile in the window, John walked face-first into the power pole; The smells of burning greeted John."Hi Honey, what's for dinner?"; Picking himself up from the floor John realised the door was an illusion. "That was smart" he mumbled to no-one;

By the way, John seems to have issues... and I'm not talking 14 years of skin mags!