When "I feel" Feels Distant

One of the great things about first person POV is its immediacy. First person takes the reader right into a character's brain, right into the middle of whatever they're experiencing. But sometimes, the very thing that's supposed to pull us into the scene, takes us out.

I think it's easy when writing in first person, to slip into a rhythm where, particularly when we're describing action we're constantly making "I" statements like, I feel, I see, I hear.

These "I" statements can be distancing to your reader. (Not to mention they get pretty tedious when almost every sentence in a paragraph starts out with I.)

Think about it. When I read:

Cold water trickles down my back.

I shiver because I feel cold water trickling down my own back. It's subliminal. We think to ourselves this way, so when reading a sentence that is something we would say in our own mind, we react as if it's happening to us.

Now, when I read:

I feel cold water trickle down my back.

I am forced to take a step back. I picture the narrator shivering as she feels the cold water. Because it's her experience. She's telling me what's happening and I have to picture it. So suddenly, I am sympathetic, and I'm still interested to know what happens next, but I'm not right there in the moment with her.

See the difference?

Of course there are times when you want to create that bit of distance, or an I statement is really the only way to drive your point home, but don't forget to pull your reader as close to the action as possible whenever you can.

"So" Unnecessary

I've come to form the opinion that there is almost no need for the word so. In narration anyway.

Why? Well I'll tell you!

SO makes for wordy complicated sentences. Also, it's explain-y.

He knew he was in trouble so he hid in the bathroom so the teacher wouldn't see him.

Um... yeah. See? Wordy. Long. Complicated. Telling. You could say all this much more actively and with less explanation.

Footsteps in the hall. This was it, if the teacher saw him he was busted. He jumped into the nearest doorway, the girl's bathroom, just as she rounded the corner.


SO frequently states the obvious. It strings together two sentences that are often better left apart.

It was raining out so I grabbed my umbrella on my way out the door.

Since we were just told that it's raining, we KNOW WHY she grabs the umbrella. So makes the sentence almost feel condescending. And it would be better said in two short sentences.

Rain pounded on the roof. I grabbed my umbrella on my way out the door.

When you juxtapose two things together, (it's raining, grabbed umbrella) readers make the connection on their own. It doesn't need to be spelled out.


SO is lazy. It's like "and then".

Chances are good that if you're using so somewhere other than dialogue (where it can make for lovely, awkward conversation), you're telling. Which is lazy. Also, whatever you're telling about is probably boring and unnecessary.

He was tired so he went upstairs and took a shower so he wouldn't smell like french fries when he woke up.

This is just a list of things he did with explanations about why. It's not particularly interesting and the purpose of it is really just to say that he went to bed so that we can move on to the next scene where something actually happens. Boring and unnecessary.

I was hungry, so I went downstairs to get a snack. Then I was attacked by a ninja!

Is it really necessary for us to know why he went downstairs? Isn't being attacked by a ninja the important part here? In this case the so sentence is being used as set up and that's exactly what it feels like. Like we're being lead to something rather than experiencing it as it happens.

I was staring into the fridge trying to find something that wasn't expired when out of nowhere, ninja attack!

So... the next time you find yourself using SO stop and ask yourself, is it really necessary here? Am I telling? Can I say this more succinctly? Can I say this more actively? I bet you'll find a better way to get your point across!

Good Telling The J.K. Rowling Way

Not long ago, I did a post on Telling When You Think You're Showing which I hope was helpful in highlighting some of the common mistakes we make when it comes to showing emotions.

Since Show Don't Tell is the bane of most writers' existence I figure you can never get enough info on it.

So today I direct you to Andrea Brown agent Mary Kole's blog and her post When To Tell Instead of Show because it's done way better than I ever could.

I highly recommend that you also check out A Few Things Writers Can Learn from Harry Potter which is referenced in her post, as well. It's a really clear and amazingly insightful piece!

Telling When You Think You're Showing

You've heard it time and time again, SHOW, DON'T TELL. If you have crit partners you've probably gone cross-eyed from reading it in your ms at one time or another. But you're past that now. You've worked hard on your prose, you're showing all over the place. Or are you?

Using internal physical reactions is a quick way to show a character's emotions. You've seen sentences like these:

My heart raced with fear.
Nervousness twisted her stomach.

These sentences seem, on the surface, that they're showing but in reality, they're telling. Why? Because it tells us what emotion the character is feeling. Fear, in the first sentence, and Nervousness in the second. Chances are, if the physical reaction is appropriate to the scene, that the naming of the emotion is simply excess information. This is sometimes called tagging your emotions and it's usually unnecessary.

In this case, that extra info creates a distance between the reader and the character. In a tense or emotional situation, the reader should be right there with the character, experiencing and connecting to everything the character feels. When something happens that causes your character's heart to pound your reader feels it, when you add in "with fear" you push your reader back a step because they're forced to process an external observation.

Think about it. When you're in the middle of a scary situation, you might notice your heart is pounding but do you actually think - hey my heart is pounding because I'm afraid? No. You just feel afraid.

I work with the rule of thumb that unless a character is experiencing an emotion that is unexpected (like, rather than fear, a character's heart pounds with excitement at being chased by an axe murderer) there's no need to name it. If you've done a good job at creating your character and revealing what makes them them to the reader, they will know what your character is feeling. And even more than that, they will feel a part of that character's experience.

Trust your reader! You don't have to explain everything to them.