: How to replace overuse of "I" in a short story, fiction, written in the first person I am trying to edit a short story, written in the first person. I have used "I" way too many times,

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Consider switching the narrator to someone other than the primary character. Nick tells Gatsby's story. John tells Owen Meany's story. In effect then, your narrator is not who the story is about, but they tell us the story of the main character, providing an interesting point of view.

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Lance's example is excellent. It may also help to vary sentence structure (you may already be doing this). I'll give an example that retains the "I" but improves variation.

From I ran from the minotaur, and he chased me down the darkened, stone hallway. I grasped for my sword only to remember I had dropped it running from the goblins the day before. If only I had saved my flying potion, I could get out of this dungeon alive!

To The minotaur ran towards me, so I fled down the darkened, stone hallway. Grasping for my sword, I sadly recalled that it was lost during yesterday's flight from the goblins. The flying potion that I had needlessly consumed was what I really needed, but without it, escape seemed impossible.

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A technical term for this is "filtering," meaning you're often reminding the reader what POV or filter rather than the context of the situation allowing the filter to be implicit and unwritten.

Get inside the character's head, tight enough that your inside his body, and then write that.

Ex of filtering: I found the envelope in the supermarket. I reached passed the butter squash and I grasped it, and pulled. I noticed the envelope smelled like crayons fresh from the box. I twisted it a little and whatever was inside was stiff and unbending.
(Lots of "I" filtering, explicitly written at the front of many sentences.)

Ex of less filtering: The envelope came from the supermarket, hidden among the butter squash. After pulling it out and examining it, the smell of crayons, fresh from the box, teased me to discover more. Cautious twisting indicated the contents as stiff and unbending.
(Who's doing the activities is implied.)

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