is there such a thing as too much 'I' in first-person?

preyer · Feb 3, 2006

came across this while doing a critique, thought it would make a good topic. my personal feelings are that the first-person stories i do happen to write rarely, i try to limit its use. finding it repetitious to the point of distraction, this is why i don't spend money on first-person stories that often, either.

any opinions?

loquax · Feb 3, 2006

I think its frequency should be as close as possible to the "he"s or "she"s that refer to the protagonist in a 3rd person story.

Jarsto · Feb 3, 2006

While no word should appear more often than necessary it's difficult to really limit "I" in first person. It has to take all of the following jobs (at least):
- Any time you'd normally use the MC's name (outside dialogue)
- Any time you'd normally use he (or she) instead of the MC's name (outside dialogue).
- Any time you'd normally use I (inside dialogue)
So unless you're switching from first to some other POV at points you'll be stuck with "I" a lot of the time. There often isn't a substitute, or at least not a grammatically correct one.

So pure repetition is probably unavoidable. That said too much "I... I... I..." may indicate that the MC isn't letting any other characters in on the story. The same way you'd get annoyed if a story hardly ever mentioned anything other than "Bobby... he... he... Bobby... he...". With most stories you'd probably get an "enough about Bobby already" feeling sooner or later, regardless of first of third person. The pure added repetition, caused by the lack of synonyms, does make first person a place where you have to watch out for any unnecessary dialogue tags that add I's without adding meaning.

veinglory · Feb 3, 2006

I think I gets out of hand in stories where the hero is constantly 'stage-directed' from the outside--c.f. letting us see the rest of the world from their point of view.

maestrowork · Feb 3, 2006

If you can get rid of all the filtering (I hear, I see, I smell, I think, I feel, I believe...) you'll probably cut out half the I's. You can't really get away from the I's in action unless you write something like: "Took a wrong turn. Didn't really know where to go." But that looks weird after a while. Describe others more than describe your MC...: "She walked toward me and smiled. He went the other way..."

My-Immortal · Feb 3, 2006

So using 'me' instead of 'I' isn't a good idea?

.......Me hope you realize me was joking.

ANNIE · Feb 3, 2006

Sometimes if you flip the sentence around you can avoid starting it with I.

for example: I came down the stairs and looked for the keys. Could be_

Coming down the stairs, I looked for my keys. the next one can sart with 'I' and it won't soundso repetitive.

maestrowork · Feb 3, 2006

Be careful about starting a sentence with "-ing" words or "as." They can be misused or overused.

Jamesaritchie · Feb 3, 2006

I

preyer said:
came across this while doing a critique, thought it would make a good topic. my personal feelings are that the first-person stories i do happen to write rarely, i try to limit its use. finding it repetitious to the point of distraction, this is why i don't spend money on first-person stories that often, either.

any opinions?

Yes, "I" can most definitely be overused in first person, but if everything else is great, you can get away with overuse.

Jamesaritchie · Feb 3, 2006

Jarsto said:
While no word should appear more often than necessary it's difficult to really limit "I" in first person. .

It's difficult, but it can still be done. It's possible to do away with "I" almost completely, if you work at it. "I" is almost always used as a filter, and first person fiction can be written so it reads just as third person fiction.

It usually isn't necessary to go to such extreme lengths, but "I" can be as limited as the writer wishes to make it.

Hummingbird · Feb 3, 2006

The Pendragon series by D. J. McHale is usually done in first person POV. He's pretty good at not using 'I's by describing the things going on around him and whenever he's thinking. Of course the character does move, he just flips the sentences around sometimes like ANNIE said, or uses 'I' in the start since it's seperated by the description of actions going on around him.

(grasshopper) · Feb 4, 2006

Hummingbird said:
The Pendragon series by D. J. McHale is usually done in first person POV.

Another great example would be the way Dr. Watson describes his adventures with Sherlock Holmes. It seems like he didn't use "I" more than a dozen times.
(The thing is, he certainly must have, but he did it so cleverly that it went unnoticed.)

maestrowork · Feb 4, 2006

But Sherlock Holmes (or Great Gatsby) is different because it's really a story about Holmes and not Watson. In a regular 1st-person novel in which the narrator is also the main character, sometimes it's just difficult not to say "I" (especially in action) and to try to eliminate all the I's would make the book feel forced and stilted...

(grasshopper) · Feb 4, 2006

Hey Preyer, that's it!

Have your first person guy talk about somebody else!

James D. Macdonald · Feb 4, 2006

In a spirit of scientific but meaningless experimentation, I took the text for three of my first-person stories, and counted.

Number of words: 24,221
Number of "I": 755

%I = 3%

Danger Jane · Feb 4, 2006

This has been bugging me for a while now...but a lot of the time, I can't get rid of all the first-person because the whole story's coming through the narrator's eyes...

Wow, I just did the percent thing and I got 127 I's out of 3001 words for a short story...and that's only 4%. Interesting.

danielmc · Feb 4, 2006

Topical topic for myself, been worried/wondering about the same thing. did the meaningless experiment as James and came up with 3.86% (7265 I's out of 188208 in the WIP). Thought it would be more, and the first task in the list for the editing is making each 'I' worth its place.

As for looking at other authors who have the magic of dusguising the dreaded 'I', try Marcel Proust's Swanns Way, Volume 1 of his 'In Search of Lost time' epic. Turgenev also seems to 'hide' the 'I's', and Hemingway in his first person stories.

preyer · Feb 4, 2006

great replies, all, thanks.

last year, i started (and subquently got bored with and stopped) what would have been a novel in first-person with the idea i would remove every single 'i' i could. i found that, indeed, i could remove them all, but i admit some of it probably (i.e., definitely) sounded stilted as MW warned. knowing that it can be done (without saying it can be done and be worth reading), it pangs me to see an 'i' in every sentence. it's not uncommon to find three 'i's in one line.

in the critique, i pointed out there were, imo, too many 'i's in my sweet, subtle manner which went something like, as i recall, 'hey, jerkass! are you dense or something?' j/k, but i did try to point it out... diplomatically. the story was otherwise very good from a regular poster who i like. i just wanted to bolster my opinion before stating it elsewhere with a bit more authority. i liked the way you guys expressed your opinions on it.

so, for future reference, when i come across this again, can i suggest trying to get their 'i' usage down to about 4% and not come off as being anal about it? well, maybe 4% doesn't work for every story... but why shouldn't it? in other words, is it reasonable to put that number out there and suggest that their odds of publication would be better than having an 'i' in nearly every sentence? i guess i'm asking how best to word that.

(grasshopper) · Feb 4, 2006

If you're feeling depressed about how hard it is
not to overuse "I", consider this:

In 1967 a Frenchman named Georges Perec wrote a 200-page novel without ever once using the letter "e" !!
And what's even more phenomenal, a man named Adair translated it into English without using an "e" himself!

loquax · Feb 4, 2006

(grasshopper) said:
If you're feeling depressed about how hard it is
not to overuse "I", consider this:

In 1967 a Frenchman named Georges Perec wrote a 200-page novel without ever once using the letter "e" !!
And what's even more phenomenal, a man named Adair translated it into English without using an "e" himself!

You can read this one online. It's pretty impressive.

Jamesaritchie · Feb 4, 2006

I

As someone already mentioned, it's amazing how many Is get elimiated just by removing filters such as "I saw," I heard," "I felt," etc. "The" and "IT" are often very good substitues for "I." Instead of writing "I heard the explosion," for example, you write "The explosion ripped through the building," just as you would write it in first person.

There are alls orts of ways of elimitating "I." Instead of writing "I knocked on the door and Chandler answered as if he'd been waiting," just write "Chandler opened the door at the first knock."

But the main thing is to eliminate the times when "I" is used as a filter. The rest are probably just fine. It's the "I did this" and "I did that," "I heard this" and "I felt that" that bring too many "Is" into the writing.

Ken Schneider · Feb 5, 2006

James D. Macdonald said:
In a spirit of scientific but meaningless experimentation, I took the text for three of my first-person stories, and counted.

Number of words: 24,221
Number of "I": 755

%I = 3%

4135 Words

96 instances of "I"

Around 2.5%

I'm happy with that.

zornhau · Feb 5, 2006

Jamesaritchie said:
But the main thing is to eliminate the times when "I" is used as a filter. The rest are probably just fine. It's the "I did this" and "I did that," "I heard this" and "I felt that" that bring too many "Is" into the writing.

Removing "I" from filter means writing most - if not all - external events and descriptions without using I. This way of writing is sometimes called a "Motivation-Reaction-Unit" - search the archives for the thread.

Instead of:

I saw a hundred armed gnomes in the corridor. I drew my sword.

Write

A hundred armed gnomes waited in the corridor. I drew my sword.

We don't need the "I" in the external stuff because, in 1st person, we only see what the character sees.

loquax · Feb 5, 2006

zornhau said:
Removing "I" from filter means writing most - if not all - external events and descriptions without using I. This way of writing is sometimes called a "Motivation-Reaction-Unit" - search the archives for the thread.

Instead of:
I saw a hundred armed gnomes in the corridor. I drew my sword.

Write
A hundred armed gnomes waited in the corridor. I drew my sword.

We don't need the "I" in the external stuff because, in 1st person, we only see what the character sees.

The same can be applied to 3rd person. In your example just replace "I" with "he", and "my" with his.

moblues · Feb 5, 2006

Current WIP which happens to be in 1st person: 2.1%

Mike

is there such a thing as too much 'I' in first-person?

preyer

excessively spartan

loquax

I verb nouns adverbly

Jarsto

veinglory

volitare nequeo

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

My-Immortal

Mr. Invisible

ANNIE

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

Jamesaritchie

Jamesaritchie

Hummingbird

Pen, Paper, Prepared. ...Write!

(grasshopper)

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

(grasshopper)

James D. Macdonald

Your Genial Uncle

Danger Jane

danielmc

preyer

excessively spartan

(grasshopper)

loquax

I verb nouns adverbly

Jamesaritchie

Ken Schneider

Absolute sagebrush

zornhau

Swordsman

loquax

I verb nouns adverbly

moblues