: Re: How to avoid using "he/she/it" repetitively in action Please do not make this a duplicate, I know there's a couple of questions like this, but they are not quite like my question, and their
Ah, I also had this sort of problem, back when I first started writing. It's only natural, especially if English is not your native language.
Thankfully, it's not so hard to get past this, after realizing what you should be doing. After writing a paragraph, read it to yourself and look out for these little eyesores:
Try to eliminate all the pronouns he/she/it/they-said/saw/did something and so on, as much as you can. It is impossible to write a book without them, but keeping them to a minimum is definitely a plus.
Just look at it this way - Instead of telling the readers what the characters are doing (which gives off the impression that you are just re-telling a story, rather than writing a book), try to show them what is happening through the characters actions/observations/surroundings/thoughts (this is what I believe, makes a story come to life, and entices reader attention)
I'll try to give an example, using your paragraph:
Will stood silently in the middle of his simplistic abode, and nodded to himself. What to do? He asked himself dumb-founded as to what he was going to do with the abundance of time he suddenly had on his hands. It wasn’t often he had a day off, and now he did. Will walked into the kitchen and poured some cheerios into a bowl, and covered it in milk, making them float like water doughnuts. He grabbed a spoon and started slurping the the cereal into him whilst walking around his home. Nothing much was going on outside, he thought as he looked out of his window.
Now, let's try to get rid of some of these annoying buggers:
Silently standing in the middle of the rather simplistic abode, Will nodded to himself, and pondered over what to do next. A day off was a rare occurrence, indeed. Suddenly dumb-founded as to what he was going to do with the abundance of free time, he opted to go into the kitchen and pour himself a bowl of cheerios. While adding some milk to the mixture, he noticed the cheerios floating.
"Heh... almost like water doughnuts." (Italics can be pretty useful for character thoughts)
Grabbing a nearby spoon, he started slurping the cereal while taking a stroll around the house, stopping only for a moment to look out from one of the windows "Nothing much going on outside..."
I wouldn't say, my example is necessarily better (somebody here can definitely pull it off even better), but it is definitely cleaner this way.
My final tip to you is: Try to rearrange some of your sentences every once in a while, and you can pull off a damn miracle, mate :)
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