How to stop overusing “I” while writing?

3 Comments on "How to stop overusing “I” while writing?"

1. Brenda

   says:

   January 31, 2013 at 11:10 am

   Don’t make “I” the subject of the sentence. (Instead of saying “I felt the cold floor under my bare feet,” say something like “The marble floor felt like slabs of frozen headstones.”) You can reference a specific body part or emotion (my hand, my heart, etc.), or you can talk about an object in motion (a body, a ball, etc.). You can also talk about something without saying how “I” is involved. (So grammatically incorrect!) Hold on a sec….

   Example 1: I have a work-in-progress with two characters who write a lot of letters. One of them keeps a journal and knows how to write, the other one doesn’t. So, when she writes a letter to her parents, she says, “I never anticipated ‘having a Season’ with Aunt Felicity and Cousin Daphne. Daphne’s companion is not up to the task of shepherding her properly. Hence my invitation to the city.” (she talks about things other than herself) By contrast, when he writes a letter to his parents, he says, “I wish you had warned me Rand and his fellow locusts would be descending on London. I expected him to come to Town. I did not expect him to finagle invitations to every event I must attend.” (he talks about nothing but himself) Over the course of the story, his letters change to reflect that he thinks about other people, but the overuse of “I” is an easy, subtle way to indicate self-centeredness.

   Example 2: I have another manuscript written in first person–all angry chick lit. She balances between explaining her view on other people with talking about herself. I’ll also include a snippet of action so you can see how she talks about what she’s doing.
   Exerpt 1: I looked over at my best friend Rochelle, stringy hair covering her angry dark eyes, and thought about smiling. Except that she had a point about Ben Robertson. He did deserve to die. He was the biggest jock in school, and got a sick satisfaction out of making our lives miserable. Not us, Rochelle and me. Us, pod people. Anybody independent. Anybody different. Anybody capable of thinking for themselves, basically.
   Exerpt 2: I opened my mouth to answer, but I braced myself to sit at the same time and fell. Several hands grabbed me before my face hit the bricks. What had been a funny, crooked ache in my arm turned into a firestorm of pain. My sore wrist wouldn’t support my weight. Trying not to cuss, I shrieked.
   In the first one, she’s thinking. In the second, there’s action going on. She cycles back around to herself, but she doesn’t let herself write completely egocentrically.

   Hope this helps.

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2. A. Thorne says:

   January 31, 2013 at 10:55 am

   Begin sentences with action:

   Instead of… I flew into the room hoping to stop the bomb in time.

   Write… Flying into the room I hoped to stop the bomb in time.

   Show feelings rather than tell:

   Instead of… I was afraid to enter the dark room.

   Write… Dread squeezed my heart keeping me at the threshold of the dark room.

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3. Anÿa says:

   January 31, 2013 at 9:57 am

   I think you just have to practice alternative ways to write the same things.
   Go over one paragraph at the time, and try to find other ways to write the same message without using I so much.
   Writing takes practice, and I believe that it is often easier to practice by rewriting something already written, than by trying to focus on the rephrasing WHILE writing.

   I.e. you can go back to some of your previous work, something that you have written a while ago, and try to set a goal for yourself: Reduce the number of times you use the word “I” by half. Even if you have to rewrite a whole paragraph. It might not get perfect right at once, but it will give you an opportunity to focus solely on the rewriting and alternative ways to phrase what you’re trying to say, without having to focus on the context of what you are writing.

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