Can Too Many Pronouns Spoil The Story?

There will be times when you suspect you have too many pronouns in your story. I, I, I or he, she, he, she. And as soon as you become conscious of this problem you will start seeing them everywhere and it will feel like a big problem.

First thing to realise is that it’s not a big problem. Pronouns are part of writing stories, you’re just being hyper-sensitive. A good way to calm yourself down is to pick up a book by a good writer and look through it. You’ll find pronouns packed to the rafters and pouring off the page. It’s normal.

However, there are times when you genuinely need to reduce pronouns, and that’s what this post is going to be about.

The two main issues are these:

1) In first person POV, even though you will definitely end up with I, I, I all over the place — which is to be expected — sometimes you will have a paragraph, maybe only a few lines long, where the letter 'I' appears stacked up against itself so it becomes very noticeable. And you may also find that as you look down the left hand side of the page, every paragraph seems to begin with I. This needs to be dealt with because it's distracting to the eye.

2) In all POVs, but particularly in third person, there will be times when there are multiple characters in a scene, two or more of whom will be of the same sex. When you start using pronouns it won’t always be clear which person you’re referring to. And having to keep using their names feels clunky.

To deal with the question of the ubiquitous 'I' first, in order to reduce all the self reference in first person POV takes a lot of tedious reworking of sentences. And it requires a good knowledge of grammar and syntax. Wait, come back...

I held up my hand to ward off the photographers. I closed my eyes against the blinding flashes of light. When I opened them again, I realised I was trapped and I would have to go back the way I had come.

What you don’t want to do is change the writing into passive language, or have body parts or inanimate objects take on a life of their own.

So changes like ...realisation dawned on me.... or ....my eyes closed.... is just going to read awkwardly. Unless the action is truly involuntary (e.g. My stomach churned at the sight of her mangled corpse...), this kind of phrasing makes the story read passive and makes the characters feel distant. Realisation moves like a separate entitiy. Eyes close independent of the person.

What you have to do is look at the scene as a whole, not line-by-line, and shift things round. 

As I said above, pronouns don’t trouble readers, but what is distracting is when similar words are all bunched up together. If you can fit in description, add small details, give actions to other characters, all these things can create space between words, which reduces the negative effects. 

But to do this you need a strong idea of the purpose and emotion of the scene, an understanding of what is passive writing and what isn’t, and a willingness to rewrite in a fairly drastic way.

The photographers rushed forward. I closed my eyes against the blinding flashes of light. When I opened them again, photographers blocked every exit. The only escape route was behind me, back to the car.

By shifting the emphasis onto experience (what’s happening) rather than the narrator’s reactions, you can cut down a lot of pronoun usage, and at the same time keep the reader within the character’s experience. It’s very easy to lose the meaning of the scene in convoluted syntax, so if you show it to a reader and they get confused, don't bother trying to explain it to them, you need to go back and clarify events on the page.

The second situation, where two or more characters of the same sex are present, is a lot simpler to sort out. Basically, clarity trumps brevity. You need to use character names, identifying features and new paragraphs to help the reader follow what’s happening.

Just having it be technically correct is not good enough. It’s always going to be easier for the writer to be able to tell which pronoun refers to whom because they have an understanding of the scene already. The reader doesn’t. 

Even if you have to use the same names again and again, that’s perfectly fine.  Readers want to know who’s doing what, they’ll go with the flow, so make sure there’s a  flow to go with.

It also helps if you structure the scene so not everybody is involved simultaneously. You may think you can have people do whatever they want whenever they want, as they do in real life, but you can’t. Not if you want to keep the reader engaged. You have to choreograph it like a dance.

Breaking up a scene with twelve characters in such a way that only two or three are active at any one time, and then switching between groups, makes it much easier to follow. This is a very technical thing, and the reason why you don’t often read a scene with twelve characters.

It also helps to give people things to do. It may sound a bit simplistic, but if one character is flipping burgers and another is watering the flowerbed, it becomes much easier to use their actions to help identify them. Sitting around a table all mirroring each other’s actions very quickly becomes a mess. Often choosing the right setting can make all the difference, and that choice is always up to you. A meeting can be held anywhere you damn well say.

And allow the focus to stay with each character a little longer. Don’t jump between characters too quickly. Allowing the reader to see what a character is doing helps them work out the geography of a scene, who is where relative to each other. 

In a fast paced scene, you can use actions to pinpoint characters.


Mike fell from the ledge. Dave leaned over and saw him hit the ground far below. He hit the ledge with his fists and cried out in despair.


Even though it could be debated, technically speaking, who hit the ledge with their fists, because I've placed people geographically it is much more likely Dave than Mike. And more importantly, it can be read at speed without losing the flow. And that's the most important part. There's no point being right if the reader has to go back and reread to check, they're no longer immersed in the story.

I realise this can be very technical to sort out, and not everyone has the aptitude for it (not naturally anyway). But if you are struggling with this problem, feel free to post a sample in the comments and I’ll be happy to help if I can (and if I can’t I’m sure some of the other writers who visit this blog will be able to).

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