Furry Writers' Guild Forum

Varying subjects

General Writing Discussion
#1

This topic was inspired by some comments that were left on my WotA story by Rechan and his co-editor. At several points through the story, the editor pointed out that I had the same subject doing the same action over and over again, or would just bounce between two subjects. So my paragraphs looked like “He did… He said… He walked… He leaned… He responded…” etc.

So I wanted to open up a very broad discussion of this problem. How do you deal with this when it appears? When do you notice yourself falling into this problem? How do you vary your sentences so that they flow well even when you are using the same subject over and over?

#2

Is it just repetition or are you just not mixing up the subjects between “He, the fox, the vulpine, etc”?

#3

It was a case of always referring to the same person, even if under varying names, although I was mostly switching between his name, the pronoun “he”, and species.

#4

I sometimes find I’m starting sentence after sentence with the the subject. My workarounds are to throw in some conjunctions to reduce the number of samey sentences, or to tweak the tenses so it’s not all X-ed, Y-ed, Z-ed. Present participles are your friend, although now I’m a little paranoid about overusing them.

#5

Usually when I notice that, I see if I can vary the structure from “Person verbed the object.” If the sentence has phrases, try rearranging them a bit.

Ansel motions toward the door, and Agent Squarejaw steps forward to stand in front of it.

could become

When Ansel motions toward the door, Agent Squarejaw steps forward to stand in front of it.

That’s not a huge difference, but it varies the rhythm a bit.

#6

You used He/She a lot. :slight_smile:

To some degree a writer just can’t escape [noun] [verb]; that’s how English works. It’s just more noticeable at the beginning of the sentence. It’s like first person and avoiding I.

To avoid starting sentences with Character Name or The, my bad habit became starting sentences with dependent clauses or prepositional phrases. Using Chipotle’s example:

Motioning towards the door, Ansel stepped aside to let Agent Squarejaw block it.

I’d suggest thumbing through a few books you think are well written to see how they handle the sentence structure.

#7

Let’s take Raven in my WotA/Taboo stories.

I can use:
He turned, baring his teeth.
The panther turned, baring his teeth.
The older male turned, baring his teeth.
The larger male turned, baring his teeth.
The feline turned, baring his teeth.

It helps to cut down on a lot of repetition.

#8

Too much variety in that respect can turn me off a little. I think it’s a similar argument to should you use ‘said’ all the time or should you use different verbs; ‘he/she’ is almost invisible, like ‘said’, so you don’t really notice it. Use a little variety, but don’t feel you need a new alternative for every sentence.

#9

The problem is when either is overly used, it can become as noticeable as a sore thumb or a blotch of black on a white page. I recently critiqued someone’s work that had so many 'said’s that I was about ready to bang my head against the wall. You’re right though in that a balance is needed. Mix it up too much, and it can become just as distracting.

I find this problem quite a bit in my own writing. One way I’ve been trying to defeat it is by looking at switching up cause and effect as well as focus of perspective. You can get quite a few combos between that and using different pronouns. For example:
“He poked her nose.”
“She flinched when he poked her nose.”
“Her nose wrinkled when it was poked by the [species].”
“Her nose wrinkled when it was poked by the blunted claw.”

Etc. and so forth.

#10

I use workarounds that include motions and communicative body language, like:

The man turned his head. “I saw that!”

Or:

Jim smiled at the bearded dragon. “Whassup, big guy?”

#11

I’ve seen people who really dislike this. Because it makes the reader stop and go “Wait, which one is taller again? Which one is older?” because that descriptive detail is mentioned Once in the story, and then these descriptors have to hang on that being remembered.

#12

As a reader, this stands out as overall stronger dialogue; it feels more natural to be read.

#13

Agreed, as a reader AND a writer X3 As a writer, I tend to use that method far more often than ‘said’, ‘replied’, etc.