pronouns | Live Write Thrive

Tag Archive - pronouns

Personal Shifts

December 25, 2015 in Say What? with 5 Comments

Sadly, this is my last post for Say What? I’ve run this section on Live Write Thrive for four years now, and next year will see a new Friday feature. All 208 or so posts are compiled in the second edition of Say What? The Fiction Writer’s Handy Guide to Grammar, Punctuation, and Word Usage. Be sure to get a copy here!

To celebrate this final post, if you buy the print copy between now and the New Year, you will get the ebook copy for free. I hope my grammar tips have helped you (and continue to help you) become a better writer.

Writing Mechanics: Avoiding the “I” Trap and Other Irritants

December 9, 2015 in The Fatal Flaws of Fiction Writing with 7 Comments

In today’s post editor Linda Clare continues our look at Fatal Flaw #12: Flawed Writing Mechanics. We’ve taken a look at scene structure, and now we’ll cover some of the smaller bits that jam up the gears of writing mechanics.

This week we’re discussing how poor writing mechanics can lead to dull writing. Let’s examine how repetitive pronoun/proper name use and other small mistakes can weaken fiction and what we can do to strengthen our work.

Get Out of the “I” Trap

In the Julia Roberts/Brad Pitt movie The Mexican, Roberts leans out a window, hurling all Pitt’s possessions on him. He protests, “But I . . . I . . . ”

She yells back. “I, I, I, I, I. It’s always about you, Jerry.” She then throws something else onto his head.

When writers overuse pronouns in their fiction, I think of this scene. Every writer faces the same challenge: how to communicate the story without boring readers by repeating pronouns at the beginning of sentences. Continue Reading…

Getting Possessive with Gerunds

June 26, 2015 in Say What? with 3 Comments

Let’s talk about the use of possessive pronouns with a gerund (word ending in ing). It sounds more complicated and technical than it is. If you can answer this question about the following sentence, you can master this.

Is the verb (action/feeling) directed at the person or their action?

I resented my mother-in-law being late for dinner.
I resented my mother-in-law’s being late for dinner.

Forget my relationship with my mother-in-law. I didn’t resent her. I resented her lateness for the meal I’d prepared. The possessive (mother-in-law’s) precedes the gerund (being) and makes clear it’s my mother-in-law’s action, not her, that I resent. However, if you want to point out that it’s she who is late rather than someone else, the first example would be the one you want to use. You would not use a possessive in that instance. Continue Reading…