When writing a first person narrative, do any of you have tips or tricks to avoid or cut down on how much you use 'I'?
You're certainly not the first writer to struggle with this issue: https://www.dailywritingtips.com/the-use-of-“i”-in-first-person-narration/ Personally, although I don't write fiction in first person, what I do when I'm writing normally (like now) is I try not to start every sentence with "I." The "I"s that appear within a sentence meld in better than the ones at the start. What you want to avoid, I reckon, is establishing a rhythm of "I, I, I," that the reader will notice. I'd say, break up the rhythm as much as you can. But as the writer of those tips says, at the end—just write your story without worrying about the issue. It's easy enough to tweak your sentences later on, if you discover the "I" jumping out at you. This is another instance where reading it out loud ...or getting somebody else to read it out loud to you ...can certainly help. Even a robot voice programme reading your stuff back to you can help you recognise word choice bumps.
Be sure that it's even an issue. In 1st person you're going to have a lot of them. Just looking at a few obvious books from my Calibre program: The Handmaid's Tale: every 40th word American Psycho: every 33rd word Swamplandia!: every 58th word There's a range of normal that depends on your story, but these authors were satisfied with these amounts. I would consider Handmaid to be pretty typical. Patrick Bateman is a narcissist chronicling his exploits (well, as he imagines them), so that would be an extreme usage, and of course "I" comes quicker there. Swamplandia! uses a lot of "we," and a lot of its action lies outside of the MC, so that's why it's lower. If you're sure you want to chop these down: Be merciless with filler (I saw, I heard, I thought). There are good reasons to keep a filler phrase, but make each one prove it. Then make it prove it again. Make sure the MC isn't doing trite actions that add nothing and can be assumed. Shove the MC's actions into description so they aren't in POV. See if you can increase description, especially if it's outside the MC, just for a breather. Look at compound/complex sentences to remove the subject "I." Passives can be used judiciously. (haha) Fragments too. (sorry) Really, what you're worried about is misused repetition. Words/phrases are repeated for one of two reasons. 1) They can be said no better way, or 2) emphasis is needed. Misused repetition puts emphasis where it's not wanted, and that makes the reader notice the sentence structure or some other detail that they shouldn't. Over-corrections, which are failures of synonymy, are almost worse than the original problem. That leads to the biggest fix, and the one that takes the most thought. Picture "I" as a pox sprinkled through the paragraphs. In that case, "I" isn't a cause, it's a symptom. It's like welts caused from a disease of the body (the story, in this case). The real viral culprit is a reluctance to move away from the MC. If you have "I" everywhere, you might be too centered on the MC, and you need to shift your attention to the outside story. Sometimes people get comfortable in the MC's skin and can't escape it. Kind of like I was mentioning in that earlier paragraph . . . it makes sense for some characters/stories more than others (e.g., American Psycho vs. Swamplandia!) just because of where the story is, if it's internal or external to the MC. That last point is very tricky to fix in later drafts. It involves much rewriting. The quicker you settle on where the story is, the less revising you'll need to do.
I just checked chapter 1 of my released work in first person, and there were 89 “I” in 2550 words. A beta reader I am working with on all my stuff showed me a few tricks of starting a sentence with a prepositional phrase or a point of action and she even suggested using adverbs, but I’ve shied away from those.
"I don't see eye to eye with you," I said. "Aye aye sir," replied seaman Ai. Seriously though, although I don't often write first person, when I do, I usually concentrate on the narrative about the things surrounding the character. You can also break it up by rearranging the sentence. Instead of: I opened the door. You could write: The door opened with a creak. (the "I" being implicit).
Further to the above - while the passive voice is usually considered "bad" writing, IMO judicious use of it is perfectly fine. Others will disagree.
