Names and pronouns

PastMidnight · Mar 6, 2006

I just finished writing a conversation between a group of women. As everyone in the conversation was female, I was reluctant to use "she" and "her" but I felt that the repeated use of first names was becoming redundant. I don't know that I can eliminate many of the references, as there are more than two women involved in the conversation and it is not always clear from the dialogue itself who is doing the talking. How do you manage this?

blacbird · Mar 6, 2006

This is hard to comment on without seeing an example of the writing itself. Unless one or more of the characters has some particularly vivid speech pattern, or is arguing an obvious point in opposition to the other(s), you simply may need to include the name references. The last thing you want to do is confuse a reader.

caw.

Stew21 · Mar 6, 2006

Have you considered that if each female character was physically doing something different you could avoid dialogue tags and avoid the pronoun?

Perhaps when you set the scene Martha is drinking coffee so throughout when she speaks she is running her finger along the edge of her cup, getting up for a refill, taking a sip, blowing on it to cool it down, etc. Her phyical action is singular to her, so it would "tag" that dialogue as hers.

and if each of the other characters also had a "thing" to do, it would be easy to distinguish who was speaking by their physical actions as you describe them. What if one of them has really long hair, and she flips it over her shoulder, or someone has a cold and sniffles, etc. Of course this would need to be set up in the scene prior to the conversatoin.

And if there really are multiple people, all femal, it is hard to avoid saying their first names to tag their dialogue. I don't think, what would typically be an over use of a proper name comes into play in this case.

reph · Mar 6, 2006

Once in a while, a character can use another's name in addressing her. Or are they all talking to the group as a whole?

Stew21 · Mar 6, 2006

reph said:
Once in a while, a character can use another's name in addressing her. Or are they all talking to the group as a whole?

THis is a good tactic. good idea reph!

Maryn · Mar 6, 2006

Three good answers, bing-bang-boom. Combine them all and the problem is no more.

"She said what?" Alice leaned close for a whispered answer.
"She said she did it all the time." Barbara made sure the families at nearby tables heard.
Carol shook her head. "I don't believe it."
Deborah dripped arsenic-laced Southern charm. "You better believe it, sugar, 'cause it's true."
Edna, quiet until now, spoke softly. "Can you prove it? Barb? Deborah? Because unless you can, it's just common gossip." She drew herself to her full five feet. "You'll excuse me." She stalked from the diner.
"Edna, wait!" Alice hurried after her.

And so on.

Maryn, writing such deathless prose at the drop of a hat (Hey, Poet, you lose this?)

TheIT · Mar 6, 2006

One way or another, make it clear who's doing what. A pronoun will normally refer to the last name mentioned, so you can avoid using the same name in the same sentence more than once through the use of the pronoun (like Edna's line in Maryn's example) (great quick example, by the way). Otherwise, use the character name. Better to have a lot of names mentioned than to confuse the reader.

PastMidnight · Mar 7, 2006

A lot of great ideas. Thanks! I'm sure that I can work some of these ideas into scenes and, when I can't, I won't worry about using all of their first names. I don't notice it as being redundant if it is a conversation involving a large group, like the example that Maryn gave, as the names are more spread out. I guess it is mostly in conversations with 3 people or so that the names tend to come closer together.

In this particular scene, I ended up giving the characters more actions, similar to what Stew21 suggested. I still had to use the names as references, but the lines of dialogue have more action between them, so the names don't come as close together. Two of the characters in the scene are sisters, so I was also able to eliminate some of the references by referring to "her sister," which is very clear as I am writing in 3rd person only from a single character's POV. One of the characters ended up with a very distinct way of talking (this was her conversational debut!), and I think that helped make her dialogue distinct from that of the other characters in the conversation.

You are all right, there are a lot of ways to get around this problem!

Ronda · Mar 7, 2006

Your POV character might have ideas/opinions about the other ladies that could help. "The maven rattled on about...", "Our Grand Dame graced us with her pearls of wisdom." That sort of thing. Hard to say much without seeing the text.
Ronda

veinglory · Mar 7, 2006

TheIT said:
. A pronoun will normally refer to the last name mentioned, .

This is the main technique I use in same gender groups. Also a fair amount of name repitition doesn't stick out as much as you might think. You can then combine that with limited use of other identifiers like appearance, nicknames etc

Euan H. · Mar 7, 2006

PastMidnight said:
I just finished writing a conversation between a group of women. As everyone in the conversation was female, I was reluctant to use "she" and "her" but I felt that the repeated use of first names was becoming redundant. I don't know that I can eliminate many of the references, as there are more than two women involved in the conversation and it is not always clear from the dialogue itself who is doing the talking. How do you manage this?

I would try to rewrite the scene so that only two people are speaking at any one time. As a reader, I get confused easily* when there's more than two people speaking. Even if you've got great dialogue writing skills, it's very difficult to come up with vocies distinct enough for each character to be recognizable by their speech pattern alone, and the alternative suggestions of having people doing actions and so on--while good--mean that every line of dialogue is going to have an action or a tag. IMO, this gets kind of messy and cluttered.

*But then again, I have a very small brain, so there y'go...

Names and pronouns

PastMidnight

Oponionated

blacbird

Stew21

reph

Fig of authority

Stew21

Maryn

I Tried

TheIT

Infuriatingly Theoretical

PastMidnight

Oponionated

Ronda

veinglory

volitare nequeo

Euan H.

Unspeakable