The Vertical Pronoun
By Tom Carney
The Vertical Pronoun
By Tom Carney
The most important lesson I learned as a writer has now become the single-most important piece of advice I, as an editor, can give to writers looking to improve. To develop a writing style that rises above the mundane, minimize the use of I (the “vertical pronoun”) and other self-references.
How many are too many?
1. Be honest here: when someone finishes reading a passage or an article, will he or she have read more about the subject matter or about you?
2. Count the words. If your self-references go much above 5 percent, that’s probably too many.
3. Compare the self-references to the number of times you mention the topic. If you say you’re writing about woodcock hunting in northern Wisconsin and you have 63 references to yourself and 13 to “woodcock,” “bird” or “birds,” you’ve got yourself a problem. The writer has become the subject of the story.
Tips for avoiding
1. Massage the word I from the first paragraph. Articles that tend to be “I heavy” usually have it in there.
2. During rewriting, check any self-references to see if they are necessary or if they take the focus from your subject and put it onto you instead.
3. Print a copy of your story and use a highlighter on all the self-referencing words (I, me, my, myself,). If there’s a bevy of highlighted spots, go back and see if they are necessary.
4. “If I’m writing about my hunt experience, then I have to write about myself.” This is not 100 percent correct. Write about the elements of the experience and not about you having the experience.
5. “I have to refer to myself because I was there.” If the article is not about you, you don’t need to prove you were there.
6. The above five tips have to do with the actual composing of the stories. The real effort begins, of course, in the field. Try training yourself to take more notes about the scenes and actions than about your own reactions to them. That way, you’ll have more to write about than just memories of your personal experiences.
—Tom Carney has been a freelancer writer for 30 years. He is also editor of The Upland Almanac.