: Re: 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,
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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