writing | Doorway Between Worlds

Epic fantasy books often have a huge cast of characters. A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin has over two hundred of them. I love this novel, but keeping track of everyone can be hard on the brain!

No, him! That guy! The one with the…oh, never mind.

Luckily, Martin does a fantastic job writing about his characters. (This is why his book has turned into a popular HBO series.)

Even with a smaller number of characters, it can be tough to figure out who’s doing what. This is because writers tend to rely too much on pronouns.

Those Sneaky Pronouns

When you write a lot about the same people, you can get tired of repeating names all the time. This is why you use personal pronouns—like he, she, or they—to take the place of the names. It’s okay to do this, as long as your readers know who the pronoun is replacing (the antecedent of the pronoun). Unfortunately, your readers may not be able to tell. They’ve fallen into the ambiguous antecedent trap!

Two Sentences, Three Ways

I’m going to take a passage from A Game of Thrones to show you what I mean by troublesome pronouns. Here’s the original text:

“Will could see the tightness around Gared’s mouth, the barely suppressed anger in his eyes under the thick black hood of his cloak. Gared had spent forty years in the Night Watch, man and boy, and he was not accustomed to being made light of.”

After reading this passage, we know something about Gared and his history. The meaning is clear. But what if I replace one name with a pronoun?

“Will could see the tightness around Gared’s mouth, the barely suppressed anger in his eyes under the thick black hood of his cloak. He had spent forty years in the Night Watch, man and boy, and he was not accustomed to being made light of.”

Now we have to think. Is “he” referring to Will, or to Gared? We might guess it’s Will because Will is the subject of the first sentence. Eventually, we figure out that it’s grumpy Gared. Meanwhile, we’re grumpy that we had to think about this.

What happens if I replace another name? Uh oh.

“Will could see the tightness around his mouth, the barely suppressed anger in his eyes under the thick black hood of his cloak. He had spent forty years in the Night Watch, man and boy, and he was not accustomed to being made light of.”

Now we have no idea what’s happening. Is Will looking at his reflection? There’s nothing that tells us otherwise. We’ve lost track of Gared altogether.

See what I mean about the dangers of pronouns?

A Call to Arms

The best way to avoid this trap is to pay attention to those sneaky pronouns. Are you sure that your reader is going to know your meaning when you use one? If not, you can try one of these tactics:

Get rid of that pronoun and replace it with the noun. Sometimes this works. Sometimes it can make your sentences feel repetitive. You be the judge.
Change the order of your words so that the pronoun is closer to the original noun (the antecedent). This makes it easier to tell that the two words are related to each other.
Reword your sentence so that you don’t have to use a pronoun. Who needs them, anyway?

Don’t let your readers be ambushed by pronouns. It’s time to fight back!

(P.S. Here’s a bonus link about ebook typos for Game of Thrones fans. Enjoy!)

What’s your favourite line from a movie you love?

One of my favourite lines is from The Matrix, a movie that has generated many famous catchphrases. There are posters all over the net asking us to choose between the red pill or the blue pill. Fans debate the meaning of “There is no spoon.” For me, however, the best line comes when Trinity does a cool move and takes out an Agent: Dodge this.

This is a brilliant visual scene, with great angles and use of “bullet time” camera techniques. But the line itself is equally important. Why is this such a memorable line? I could answer this by talking about character, or plot, or scene context. But here’s an even better reason: it’s short.

Think about your favourite movie line. Is it short, too? Chances are it is. Otherwise you probably wouldn’t remember it.

When we communicate with others, we can choose from different styles. We can weave and dodge and come up with fancy words and meandering sentences. Or we can go for it and cut straight to the chase. Which style do you prefer to listen to? (Yes, this is a trick question.)

Here’s my first tip on communication: Go short. Use short sentences with short words. This is the best way to truly connect with your audience.

You might think that going long will make you sound impressive. Unfortunately, you will likely end up distancing yourself from others. The human brain is constantly bombarded by information, and we don’t have the energy to sift through it all. It’s difficult for us to remember anything, let alone long and wordy sentences. And what’s the point of communicating if what you say won’t be remembered?

Many people find it’s hard to go short. If you cut your teeth writing essays in university (like I did), you may find it especially difficult. After years of trying to get great marks by using long phrases, suddenly you need to shift to a new way of thinking. So how can you do it? Here’s a few tips to get you started:

Make sure each sentence contains only one idea. Every time you start to add on another idea, begin a new sentence.
Aim for sentences of twenty words or less. This doesn’t mean all of your sentences need to be this short—it’s good to break things up with a long sentence once in a while. Just keep in mind that twenty words is the general limit for most audiences. (Academics tend to be an exception, since they are dealing with complex ideas.)
Watch out for connecting words, otherwise known as conjunctions. These words connect ideas together, and are fabulous tools. But connected ideas don’t always have to be in the same sentence. Despite what your English teacher may have told you, it is okay to start a sentence with a conjunction, like “and.” Or “but.” Or “or.” So feel free to break those ideas apart into separate sentences.

If you go short, you’re well on your way to communicating something memorable. Maybe you will even come up with the next catchphrase. And if you’re still not convinced that short is the new black, just think about the scene from The Empire Strikes Back when Han Solo is about to be frozen in carbonite: