Barny

Is it worth having a look at how you’ve used ‘I’, Doug? If you’re using it frequently, then yes, definitely worth looking up psychic distance. There’s a big difference between ‘I sit at the table near the window. Outside, I see a man fighting to keep his brolly up in the wind and rain’, and ‘I sit at the table near the window and watch the man…[Read more]

Having written an entire novel in colloquial first person a la Catcher in the Rye, having made a conscious effort to break through my inhibitions about departing from Oxford (or Queen’s, or formal – call it what you will) English to do so, and having found the process liberating and rather fun, I’ll give a heartfelt ‘Hear, hear!’ to that. Okay,…[Read more]

Oh, it has worked!

I’ll go back to my quill and parchment.

Thanks, Richard. I tried to copy the link first of all and couldn’t make it work. Thank you for a working link to Emma Darwin.

BTW have you seen this on the BBC news website today?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55937512

Blast, link not working. BBC news website, go to the Wales tab. “Station reopening at Bow Street brings first trains for…[Read more]

Well bugger me. Apparently, if you just copy and paste a URL into here, without bothering with that ‘link’ button, it links automatically. You live and learn.

It occurs to me that one reason for over-use of ‘I’, or any other pronoun come to that, is filtering. This is another cause of the ‘frustrating distance’ Libby mentions, and Emma Darwin (Who else?) explains it far better than I could.

As Richard says, this is seems more about style, and a rigid editor, than about the rich possibilities of first-person narrators.

I’m the first to agree that repetition of ‘I’ can be a problem, just as repetition of any word can trip up the reader. And the over-repeated ‘I’ can be hard to get rid of, as I know from my own efforts.

It can also…[Read more]

My immediate and visceral reaction to both criticisms was ‘Bollocks!’ If writing in first person, what other pronoun is there for you to use? How are you going to avoid the pronoun? If writing in third person, does the same criticism apply to ‘he, ‘she’ or ‘they?’ I suspect the real problem is not with the pronoun itself but with the style. As for…[Read more]

RETRIBUTION 373 words (not including explanation)

‘Sire, if I may plead caution…’ James’s face was hidden from me as he stared out of the window across the city, and I began to wonder if, indeed, he had heard my quietly spoken words. But then he turned, and I saw in his eyes the haunted look I knew so well and had come to dread.
‘You may plead…[Read more]

Interesting. I would have said it is perfectly acceptable to use contractions such as I’m, He’d, don’t etc in narrative writing. In fact I think it’s fine to use anything you want provided it doesn’t obscure the meaning. It’s all down to what the voice and style require.

Congratulations! Fab news!