[written on request; if anyone else has any requests, feel free to send them my way!]

When I'm reviewing work, one of my frequent comments on Wattpad (and off it, believe it or not!) goes something like this:

"A lot of your sentences sound robotic/choppy/like a list/etc. You're using a ton of pronouns and/or character names to start every sentence. Try varying the way you start your sentences to help the story flow."

Sometimes it isn't pronouns that take center stage. Sometimes I see a lot of "ADVERB-LY, sentence." and "GERUND-ING, sentence." in a row. The same sort of advice applies. If you do it a lot, it starts to get noticeable and you may benefit from a change-up.

But that's not usually the issue, so I'm focusing on what I'm constantly pointing out.

Let's go over a basic note first.

PRONOUNS ARE FANTASTIC AND ESSENTIAL TO STORYTELLING. You're going to use them. You're going to need them. Just be mindful of where you put them.

He

She

It

They

We

I

[There are many more types of pronouns, but these tend to be the problematic ones.]

Using the same pronoun too many times in a row at the start of your sentences.

For example:

Susan grabbed her bag off the counter. She finished her orange juice and said goodbye. She didn't want to be late for school. She knew her friends would be waiting for her. She couldn't wait to see them. She had a lot to tell them.

"Stay safe," Mom said.

"I will," she said. She shut the door.

Not horrible, right? You won't be winning awards for this exchange, but it's serviceable. Technically there isn't anything wrong with how the seven she's are used. In some circumstances, you might even leave that as-is! But multiply that down an entire chapter, or change it to "I" (which makes 9 "I"pronouns vs 7 "she") and all of a sudden things start getting tiresome.

That's the kind of repetition I'm talking about today. You encounter it a lot with writers who haven't found their footing yet, less so with the seasoned pros.

1. People might say your sentences all sound the same/basic.

2. Your action scene where Jessie slays a Balrog sounds the same as her school morning which sounds the same as her sorrow at her Dad's funeral.

3. Filtering may also be an issue. By changing up your sentences, this can quietly remove some [ex. 'She saw the bucket sitting on the shelf' becomes 'The bucket sat on the shelf'].

4. Uniform sentence length may also be an issue. When sentences sound the same, it's usually due to a couple elements, like starting with the same word or setup (ex. Adverbly, sentence) or having sentences all be (approximately) the same length. Variety helps blend information and can make those pronouns less noticeable.

5. Depending on how well you break paragraphs and tag characters, readers may get confused about which "he/she" you're referring to.

You can test yourself by circling/highlighting the starts of all your sentences in a chapter and comparing them.

You could also run a search for how many times you use a pronoun, and see how many/where you used them. It's just as easy to check your sentence starts that way.

Some programs will check for you.

You can also just keep it in mind when you're editing, and note wherever you might have included a lot.

You can do this to check for gerunds and adverbs, too!

There are plenty of reasons to have one and they should be used a lot! That's why it's important to introduce variety and break them up here and there. If you aren't going for a special effect and you have five "She verbed" in a row, for example, consider re-phrasing a couple.

If you're using it for effect, or it's just one small paragraph, it's probably alright.

(or an article+noun combo) Yup. It's as simple as that. There are so many nouns out there and chances are that your story has a lot of nouns waiting to be interacted with.

A fox ran down the sidewalk. Cats scattered.

The widow clutched her tissue and smiled at her grandchild.

Again, it's not super difficult to do, though it may require some thinking on your end. Adverbs, gerunds, and prepositions can help you here.

Three days ago, a fox ran down the sidewalk. Ever since then I haven't let my cats outside.

Dabbing her eyes, the widow smiled at her grandchild. In time he'd understand.

My cats had scattered. No one had seen them for over an hour. I paced the sidewalk, peering down the empty street. Which way to go?

Sometimes you just need to put a little distance between your pronouns. Changing up how long the sentence is can help. Have a short one. Place it next to a longer sentence that maybe contains a phrase or two. Perhaps consider a comma. Or a broken sentence.

Nails scrape against shuttered windows. Casey frowned. The horde had finally crossed the barricades then. With a resigned sigh, she checked her revolver. Two rounds left.

"Oh, Jason," the widow murmured into her grandson's ear. She couldn't bring herself to break his tiny heart by telling him the truth. There wasn't any kind of heaven that would let Grandpa in. Not a man like him. Never.

If you're having trouble with filtering, this is usually the one that can help because it often takes the focus off the pronoun and onto a noun or other object.

"Sometimes I wonder if ghosts- sometimes I wonder if they're hanging on because they haven't realized they aren't what they once were. Sometimes I wonder if that's us."

Charred logs sank into glowing embers. "To tell you the truth, Nik, I don't know."

Generally, more of a dialogue-bound tactic.

"Wash the dishes, Judy." Mom's voice echoed down the hall.

"Coming," I lied, pressing the mouse faster. Why wouldn't this stupid orc die already?

"Judy? Judy. Judy! Don't you dare keep playing that stupid game."

There are tons of ways to start a sentence, and it's not too difficult to do once you get going! One of the quickest ways you can help yourself is to look at some of your favorite writers or famous ones (you can often read a lot of chapters for free online, like the start of Harry Potter or Huck Finn, etc.). See what they do. Pay attention to how they write and how often they pair things up.

I did that to show you how different scenes can sound when you look for other ways to say something. You'll notice that they weren't always the same. When I used different words, I didn't just plug in a substitute. I let the rest of the sentence relax and go where it wanted to.

When you're writing, that's something to consider. Sometimes thinking about ways to reword sentences can bring out the best in your story! You don't always have the right sentence down on paper on your first try. Heck, sometimes writers don't even have the right scene!

At first, she's just got some tissues and a grandson. Great. The next time I re-wrote, now she's got a bit more specific and thoughtful. Then I re-wrote it again, and she's given a specific reaction and she's hinting at something more specific (grandpa isn't getting into heaven; we don't know why, but based on her reaction to Jason, we can guess it's probably dark).

You could also reasonably decide that the widow in scene one might be less important than the widow in scene three. If you came back after a week and were asked to remember one, you'd probably also remember the third widow more than the first two. Her sentences are more engaging.

^--- This is what I was talking about when I mentioned story and sentence needs earlier.

The third widow feels like she's part of a story. The first widow sounds like she's an observation. If you've got a detective working a murder case, you might just need a quick "she sat and cried"and that pronoun needs to stay even though you used a "she' right before. If you've got the widow as our lead in close third POV, maybe you need a reaction like the third one. If you need something a little more mysterious but need to make sure it's a surprise, you might prefer something like option two, where what Jason will 'understand' is a mystery and can easily fool most readers into thinking of the obvious (Jason doesn't understand death vs Grandpa is a bad man).