Pronoun Usage and Same-Sex Characters

Image courtesy of FreelanceWritingGigs.com
and Comedy Central.

I learned something today. (Cue cheesy end-of-episode South Park music.)

It's probably something obvious, and it's little, but something I hadn't noticed before.

Sometimes it's difficult to decide which pronouns to use. I'm specifically referring to a close 3rd POV narrator in a scene with another character of the same gender. When do you use "he" and "she" (or "it", depending on your genre of choice)?

In this latest draft of Fighting Fate, I followed my linguistics training, adhering to supposed rules of pragmatics to dictate when I used "he/him/his" or "she/her/her" instead of proper names.

An example:

Roger took several steps toward her. Marcus tried to followed, but Roger’s hyper-awareness picked up on it right away. He paused and glanced over his shoulder at Marcus. Even if for a second, it made Marcus stop.

Here's the breakdown. In the second sentence, I used "Marcus" because, according to pragmatics, "He" should refer to Roger as the subject of the previous sentence. After "but" I used "Roger" again, because "he" would refer to Marcus. In the third sentence, "He" is Roger, being the most recent available subject to refer to. Then we get "Marcus" again, BUT it's in a prepositional phrase, so the last sentence repeats "Marcus" because the most recent SUBJECT to refer to is "Roger".

I don't think this is wrong per se, but it's clunky. Do you feel the clunky? I felt the clunkiness even while writing it, though wasn't sure how to fix it.

I sent it off to a crit partner of mine, and this is how it came back (some suggestions hers, others I adapted based on what I'd learned from several of her line-edits). Because it's a little out of context, please note that the close 3rd POV narrator is attached to Marcus in this scene.

Roger took several steps toward her. He tried to followed. Roger paused and glanced over his shoulder, his hyper-awareness tipping him off. Even if for a second, it made Marcus stop.

Less clunky, no?

But is it clear?

So the dilemma continues. I've rewritten it again, because another crit buddy was confused (and I can't say I blame her). I've changed the second "he" back to "Marcus" because pragmatically the reader is going to assume "he" to be "Roger" otherwise. Right? Or not?


So what's most important? Ditching the clunky or maintaining it for the sake of clarity? How do you deal with a close 3rd POV narrator and multiple people of the same gender in one scene? How do you use pronouns? Any advice to the poor, recovering linguist that is moi?

Voice Redux

BLOGFEST ANNOUNCEMENT:

In an effort to promote the HONE YOUR SKILLS Blogfest, Charity and I will be hosting a few different guest posts over the month. Be sure to drop by this Friday for a post from Theresa Milstein, and next week from Hart Johnson.

* * * *

On Thursday, I had a frustrated/frustrating moment, when I revealed to you all my sheer inability to convey voice in 3rd person limited (although I wrote "omniscient", as my frustration overwhelmed the synapses between the cells in my brain).

You were all awesomely supportive, and I thank you all for your thoughts. Through the various comments and thoughts, I realized a few things that might help in developing a 3rd person limited voice. And, well, it would be highly unfair of me to keep it to myself....

So a 3rd person limited narrator whose voice is true both to the personality of the character as well as the narrator itself. I can't tell you which voice is easier to come by, but if you feel like you have a strong voice on your blog—not sure why this never sunk in with me before—then you've got a good start.

Synthesizing your voice with the character's voice is the next step. In order to do this, you need to have a good sense of the character's voice. A good way to do this is to write a few scenes in 1st person, even if those scenes will never see the light of day.

Of course, creating the actual synthesis is another task. Unfortunately it's not one I've had a chance to try my hand at since Thursday (I promise—you don't want to hear about how much work-life exploded into 80-90hr weeks). However, a few good examples:

• Harry Potter: JK Rowling follows Harry through seven years, and the voice is true throughout each book. 
• The Hating Game by Talli Roland. I can't begin to tell you how impressed I am with her skills with voice. I'm barely finding time to sneak in a few minutes with my Kindle App, but I can't wait to read it again. So far, the narrator has been close to three characters. With each character, the voice of the narration adjusts to personality of each character, but the narrator's voice is always there, too.

Does any of that make sense, or is it still too hypothetical?

What books have you read with great 3rd limited voice?

Voice

Yes, I already hear you groaning. Don't worry. I'm groaning, too.

It is the most unexplainable je-ne-sais-quois crucial ingredient to a book getting picked up by an agent or publisher, of a short story getting sold to a journal, or creating a compelling read in general. Yet no one can explain it. You've either got it, or you don't.

*more groaning*

Okay, fine. I'll concede that it's either there or it's not. But there are different ways to develop voice. It does exist, and we all have it, but we have to find a way to get it out there.

Let's start with the 1st person voice. I think it's easier—for me—to accomplish a compelling voice in first person. I imagine the narrator as an actual person, which is far from daunting since the narrator is also a character with a backstory and a personality. In other words, s/he has a voice of her/his own, and this comes out in the narration.

When I started writing again, most of what I wrote was in 1st person. Perhaps this was the path of least resistance—and may also be the reason why writing instructors prefer 3rd person—but it worked, sort of. Maybe the voice wasn't great (trust me, it really wasn't), maybe it was inconsistent, but it was there sometimes. And with some work, I could bring it out more and more.

Here's the problem: I recently decided, for various reasons, that one particular novel should be in 3rd person instead of 1st. I need to be able to track more than just the MC through her travels. (I could, potentially, have two 1st person narrators, though I'm not sure how I feel about that.) So I chose to try my hand at 3rd person and rewrite.

And the voice................. disappeared.

Me--------------->









So my question(s): If a 1st person narrator's voice can be developed through the character his/herself, how does one develop a compelling 3rd person omniscient narrator? These narrators are amorphous, misty creatures, based solely off a voice that comes from the nether-regions of our imaginations. But who ARE they? Are they characters? My HS English teacher would say "yes". How do you define them? How do you create them in such a way to give them that je-ne-sais-quois factor, which is in and of itself amorphous and particularly misty?

I'm clearly missing something, but creating an amorphous, misty narrator with an amorphous, misty, je-ne-sais-quois voice seems... well, nothing is impossible or we'd only ever read 1st person literature.

What am I missing, folks? Please help me uncover the secrets to a compelling, 3rd person voice.