I need some assistance with pronoun usage. It seems to me that I use pronouns way too much, for example: Her face blanched and her heart was pounding in her throat which had become as dry as the Sahara Desert. She tried to swallow the lump down and gagged. She bolted to her room the second the elevator doors opened with her hand over her mouth. She flung the door open, threw the key card on the table, and dashed into the bathroom kneeling before the toilet, emptying the contents of her stomach. That's 9 pronouns in 4 sentences. Is that too many, should I use my character's name more often?
With a blanched face her heart pounded in her throat, which had become as dry at the Sahara Desert. Honestly I have the same problem, but due to multiple characters interacting of the same gender, so I use names a lot more to sort out the issue. But you can due like I did to your first sentence to help cut down on the pronouns a bit, since it seems to be only her in the scene. Sure you could toss in her name once, maybe twice to break it up a bit, but anything more than that and you will be in the same boat you are now, just with proper nouns. Good luck, and hope this helps a smidgen.
Could just be me, but I don't see an excessive amount of pronouns. That said, it might be possible to cut back on them with less explicit description. For example, if I read that someone covered his mouth, I will only picture it being done with his hand unless a kerchief or mask has been mentioned earlier. So that sentence could be rewritten with the single ownership (face) as opposed to double ownership (face and hand). I get that you're filling up each sentence (we all do run-ons for effect so I certainly do not judge) to add a sense of frantic urgency, but wow that first sentence sure has a lot packed into it. I think cutting of the items (face) would ease up on the pronoun usage. That way she just owns two objects in the sentence (heart and throat). You say 9 pronouns for 4 sentences but IMO those are not 4 normal sentences. I think it's a normal amount of pronouns if you consider the amount of things you're trying to convey.
Howdy @T.A. Larson I'd lose the simile, I don't think it suits the pace. I'd also deffo ease up and strip a pronoun or two out. It'll smooth over the staccato feeling I was getting when reading your draft. My effort (might need a grammar check)—I've stuck it in a spoiler so if you want to try editing yours first before comparing it to mine. Spoiler: Gotta get up to get down. With face so blanched as to appear bleached and throat so lumped and cracked that to swallow had her gag, she bolted through the opening elevator doors. One hand on mouth, the other frantically key-carding and thrusting open the hotel door. In, lights on, card slung to tile floor. She followed it down at equal speed to kneel and spew into the porcelain throne the contents of her guts.
I don't think you use too many pronouns; they're pretty ubiquitous parts of the language and not easily noticed. However, three of your four sentences begin "She ...", and there I think you need some variety. My attempt at your paragraph would be: Her face blanched and her heart pounded in her throat, which had become as dry as the Sahara Desert. Gagging as she tried to swallow the lump down, she bolted to her room the second the elevator doors opened, hand over her mouth. She flung the door open, threw the key card on the table, and dashed into the bathroom kneeling before the toilet, emptying the contents of her stomach.
I guess this is going to be one of my scroll-past-the-long-answer posts. I'll break this one down in parts. I think your issue gets solved in the process. I think the pronouns are okay in themselves and may be more of a symptom than a cause. Almost every one of them is followed by a body part . . . I guess I would sort some things first before dealing with that. There are a couple of phrases that aim at the wrong nominals. To fix those, commas can't be avoided. I'll put a couple in and shift the others a bit. Her face blanched and her heart pounded in her throat [comma] which was as dry as the Sahara Desert. She tried to swallow the lump down and gagged. The second the elevator doors opened, she bolted to her room with her hand over her mouth. She flung the door open, threw the key card on the table and dashed into the bathroom. She knelt and emptied the contents of her stomach. I'd look at structural repetitions next. Every sentence is active. I moved one in the center to a complex form ("The second the . . .") and that helps a bit, but the others are very similar. A lot of them use compound predicates too, with multiple actions firing off. You need some simply stated, almost like a kernel sentence (active, no detail). Let's say . . . "She gagged." Slip a passive/static sentence in there at the same time and it will pull the surrounding sentences tight to it. I'd also get rid of the "dry as a desert" metaphor. Say that a different way because it's too obvious of a phrase. So I would try . . . Her face blanched and her heart pounded dryly in her throat. She gagged. The second the elevator doors opened, she bolted to her room with her hand over her mouth. The door was flung open, the key card slapped upon the table. A dizzying stumble into the bathroom. She knelt and emptied the contents of her stomach. Only then would I notice the pronouns. There's three in the first sentence and three in what is now the third. I'd leave the third alone because that one feels okay to me. (Judgment call. I can't explain it. Maybe because of the complex structure?) I'd break up the first sentence. "Her face blanched" is the only piece of this not in the senses of the MC. I would chop that off into its own line and move into the MC's sensation with the next. Her face blanched. A jackrabbit pulse filled her throat with bile, and she gagged. The second the elevator doors opened, she bolted to her room with her hand over her mouth. The door was flung open, the key card slapped upon the table. A dizzying stumble into the bathroom. She knelt and emptied the contents of her stomach. * (Lost my kernel sentence. Oh well . . . These things happen.) And then since all of this is in-the-moment sensation, I would follow up at * with a memory. Use that for the description of vomiting, because it would be just too gross to spell out, but you really need to lengthen that moment. I'll compare it to exercise, I guess. The sentences should stretch long in imitation of that moment that never ends. I wouldn't make it a sprawling additive sentence because that's too obvious of a tactic. I'd just go for modest length. Her face blanched. A jackrabbit pulse filled her throat with bile, and she gagged. The second the elevator doors opened, she bolted to her room with her hand over her mouth. The door was flung open, the key card slapped upon the table. A dizzying stumble into the bathroom. She knelt and emptied the contents of her stomach. There was a day in August like this, when she'd failed with the running club. She'd had too much ambition and not enough skill. Lying in the ditch, heaving and gasping among the dry thistles, the sour reek of beer and sun-baked trash against her skin, staining her, she didn't even care where she was. Phantom eyes were upon her. She just wanted it to end. And the pronouns are (seemingly) gone. Variation is the key. Inner/outer senses, simple/complex sentences, active/passive/static voice, clauses/fragments, etc. The pronouns only stand out because of how the sentences are aligned. You would of course end differently because I just made stuff up. There's an infinite number of edits in the original lines that would work too, but try some sort of shifting. (I recovered your "dry" metaphor by moving it to memory. Sort of. It's not totally lost.) I would come back to what I have here and edit more. There's other issues now, but they're slight, I think, and easily fixable. Just nudging words around. tldr: Address the structural issues and they will hide the pronoun reps or outright replace them.
