: How to refer to character of focus in a story I find that when I write, I'm not always sure how to refer to the character of focus. You can only say "he/she" so many times before it feels

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I probably use attribution other than he/she about 10% of the time, I intentionally try to write without it, and upon re-reading I look to see if anything I wrote is ambiguous, if a reader following along would not be sure which character said something, did something, etc.
Also, attributions need not be he or she, and can be implied: If the Jill the detective is in a room with a prison guard and trying to get Jack to plead guilty:

Jack shook his head, once. "Bullshit. No way."
"You're not going to get a better deal, the more we find the worse it gets."
"No way. Nada."
Jill stood to leave, and spoke with resignation to the guard. "Put him back in his cage."
"Wait wait wait. I can't do five, I can't! I can do two."

I suspect you are trying to help the reader too much; if they are immersed in your story, they expect a very short list of characters to respond; usually with a clear favorite. If that IS who speaks next, you don't need an attribution; OR the speech itself lets them know who spoke. The last line above: If I had written "Yes Ma'am," only the guard would say that, and since she just spoke to him, that is what the reader expects. But the guard's first word would never be "Wait", and it is plausible Jack interrupts and the first word tells us it is him: This is clearly Jack; the guard would never say this, and Jill would never say this.
The second, third, and fifth lines require no attribution. Neither did the fourth; but we need to describe action, and it is plausible Jack could stand up to leave, so we have to attribute it to Jill to be clear.
Read some professional writers without getting immersed in their story, just look at the mechanics of how Stephen King or some other best selling author uses attributions. They use "He said" and "She said", "Jack said" and "Jill said" quite liberally. Readers are not usually noticing this. But not on every sentence: If the interaction shows who is talking, it isn't needed. The only time it is needed is when you violate those expectations. In a two person conversation, lines alternate most of the time, but sometimes they don't, so an attribution is needed.

Karen pushed Fred into the closet, stepped in and shut the door, then leaned against it. "Kiss me."
"Or don't."

This second line sounds to the reader like FRED talking, and is confusing. Properly attributed;

Karen pushed Fred into the closet, stepped in and shut the door, then leaned against it. "Kiss me."
Fred turned, looking pained and apologetic.
Karen folded her arms and looked to the floor, nodding her head. "Or don't."
"I am so sorry."

Now we see, Karen spoke twice, then Fred spoke.

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Call your character by name, if that name is known to the narrator. Calling him "dark haired man" in one sentence, "the butcher" in the other and "the other man" in the third will confuse the hell out of the reader. It will lead the reader to believe there are three characters here, not one. Even if you refer to him as something else just once, it can still be confusing (just the other day someone here mentioned that he read the character being referred to as "the redhead", and he ended up going through the previous chapters trying to figure out if this was a new character or if the character in question really has red hair).

Instead of inventing nicknames for characters to avoid repetition, try arranging your sentences in a way that you don't need he/she. If the sentences are all of the same structure it doesn't matter how you call the character, they will still feel repetitive and monotonous.
To demonstrate:

Jack opened the door. He tiptoed inside. He was afraid he might wake up Marry.

It's not just that "he" keeps repeating, but the sentence structure is the same in every sentence. Boring.
Now imagine this:

Jack opened the door. The burly man tiptoed inside. The husband was afraid he might wake up his wife.

Can you tell me with absolute certainty how many people are there in the example above? And it still feels just as monotonous as the original example.

Instead, why not something like this:

Jack opened the door and tiptoed inside, afraid he might wake up Mary.



After opening the door, Jack tiptoed inside so not to wake up Mary.



Jack opened the door, then tiptoed inside. Mary was sleeping.

You can write these few simple sentences in so many interesting ways without using he/she, or at least reducing it.

If it just can not be avoided, I think a safe "formula" would be to call the character by name the first time he's mentioned in the paragraph, then "he/she" for the rest of the paragraph, or several more if no other characters are mentioned. When the next character is mentioned, use his name first and then "he" until another is mentioned and so on.

One way to keep the clarity is to make only one character perform the action per paragraph. For example, if Jack is opening the door, Mary is yelling and Steve is smoking a cigarette, they should all have their own paragraph for what they're doing, even if the paragraphs end up being no more than a short sentence. It avoids confusion. The same for dialogues, you should never have two people speaking in the same paragraph, that's confusing as hell.

Also, if you're writing from a close third POV, it largely depends on the POV character how the other characters will be referred to. For example, in Lois McMaster Bujold's "Mirror Dance", we have two POV characters, Miles and his clone brother Mark. When we see things from Miles' perspective, the character of Elena Bothari-Jesek is referred to as Elena, since Miles has grown up with her and was in love with her most of his life. When seeing things from Mark's perspective, she's referred to as Bothari-Jesek, as Mark barely knows her, and she also scares the hell out of him. In Miles' chapters his parents are referred to as "mother" and "father", in Mark's they're referred to as "Count" and "Countess" because in this book Mark meets them for the first time. This also serves as a reminder to the reader that even though Mark is impersonating his clone brother on and off throughout the book, he's a completely different individual.

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In order to not get repetitive, make variable rules; that is, a sort of an algorithm that allows for variety in your writing as well as clarity/consistency...

Don't switch names when referring to the same characters within the narration from the POV of one character. Lt. Timz can't call his wife "Moya Zvizda" and "Ellen" in both the dialog and the narration when he's the POV of the scene. - Limited-third-person/first-person narration
When the scene has only two characters and they're of opposite genders, the pronouns "he" and "she" most often suffice.
With several characters of the same gender, mention by name the character that is the subject of each sentence except when the previous sentence either already had them being the subject or didn't have a subject of the same gender. - Wouldn't work in some languages with limited 3rd-p pronouns; eg. Finnish.
When referring to characters using pronouns, see if the setting/surrounding-action/... helps you as a reader identify them without rereading preceding sentences.

eg. A character reading by the fire talks to another sitting by the window. If either "looks up from his book"/"leans against the window" before talking, using one pronoun shouldn't be confusing but don't overuse it.

If the character is a major one that readers are supposed to pay attention to, refer to him/her either by his/her most popular nick-name used in dialog, or by his/her first or last name. Whatever you him/her to be remembered/though of as.

eg. "Peter Ivanovich Bobchinsky" and "Peter Ivanovich Dobchinsky" can be referred to as "Bob" and "Dob" respectively...

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This is a very hard question to answer clearly, I typical reread passages and anytime it becomes unclear who I'm referring to I will use their name and whenever it feels excessive use pronouns.

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Here's a technique that can help: Identify each instance of he saw or he heard or he thought. If you're writing a close third person POV, you can often eliminate those by simply saying what he saw or heard or thought. Instead of:

He saw Sandra cross the room.

you can say:

Sandra crossed the room.

Other times the edit isn't quite so simple, but even then you can often eliminate them by recasting the sentence or paragraph.

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It does feel weird when you're writing, but you don't notice it when you're reading. Use the name the first time in a paragraph and the pronoun thereafter.

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