I'd use it in dialogue, if it fit the character. I'd use it in narrative if it fit the narrative voice. We're writing fiction, not formal essays. I use sentence fragments, obscenities, slang, made-up words - whatever enhances the story. I even split the occasional infinitive! I think novelists should be worried about the effect of their words, not the conformity external rules. Of course ignoring the rules may change the effect of the words, so we need to be aware of traditional language use, but I don't think we need to treat it as an ultimate authority.
Sorry, no, that's unfair. Of course you might use it in dialogue or a certain narrative voice (which is really the same thing as dialogue), as might I. My question was if you would use it in standard narrative, and more importantly, would your editor(s) accept it there. As I may have mentioned before, I came to this forum with the idea that its members were writers who want to be published. My concern is that non-standard spelling, grammar or usage might stand in the way of realizing that goal. Personally, I don't care if @ZYX uses the goofy attempts at work-around pronouns mentioned in the OP, but I have a strong suspicion editors will.
Actually, for this character, it's more like describing blue by alternating yellow and red, haha. I've mentioned it before, but I'm really uncomfortable using it for an animate character. It's not really a question of political correctness. I'm not trying to decide on pronouns because I want to avoid offending or excluding people, I'm just trying not to confuse anyone. I feel like alternating pronouns brings up a whole new problem of " who are we referring to here ? " and " Why is she calling [Name] a he when she was using she earlier ? " whereas so long as the new pronouns are obviously pronouns and don't clash with the rest of the writing readers will at least know who I'm trying to talk about. Also may I ask why non-binary was in quotes ? I'm sorry, I get confused really easily about tone and stuff here ... ! I do intend to be published. I'm trying to choose pronouns that are true to the character I've been developing for months and will still leave me with a readable piece of literature. I'm going to have trouble with editors just by having a non-binary character anyway, but ...
I honestly can't think of a time when I haven't known the gender of a character. I can't imagine myself using s/he in fiction, so I'd probably try to avoid pronoun use or do that thing were you pluralize the antecedent in order to justify the plural pronoun. But I've never written about a non-binary character before. I would assume that an editor who wants to work on a book with a significant non-binary character is interested in exploring the implications of such a character, in which case the pronoun issue gets a bit more important. Calling a non binary character alternately he or she would be kind of like referring to an Asian character as alternately black or white. It's not really an accurate reflection of the situation, at least as I understand the situation. ETA: Crossposted with the blue/yellow/orange/red thing, but I think we're getting at the same point, right?
The alternating thing was meant to be a little tongue-in-cheek. Should have used a smiley. I put 'non-binary' in quotes mainly because I'm an old, old man. Having grasped the whole gay/straight thing (sex, which is binary by definition), I'm still working on the idea of what's come to be called gender, which apparently has its own (seemingly irrational) rules. Pedant that I am, I only use the word gender to refer to language. I think I have a better grasp of your original question, though, and it seems to me you're going to establish how your non-binary character self-identifies (is that the term?) right off the bat. Then you should be able to settle on pronouns (or did I miss it again?). As I said above, I'm not sure how selecting any particular pronoun(s) can be exclusionary, though.
To be honest, I'm not even sure if gender has rules ! I think self-identifies is right, but I think identifies is correct as well. The exclusionary comment came from the fact that " political correctness " is one of those words I can't wrap my head around, so I just tried to cover it from the dictionary definition, haha. There's a handful of words that I just don't accept as real words because they don't make sense ... But basically, I am going to somehow explain that the character is not a boy, and not a girl, but something else that doesn't really have a name, and the pronouns being this character's pronouns is mostly implied by the words used in reference.
I think you are spot on there. There are many hermaphrodites who struggle to identify with a specific gender, who go through life not as a man or woman, but simply as themselves. The fact that the English language does not have a pronoun to reflect this portion of society drives me mad. Perhaps, through the natural evolution of language, this issue will eventually be settled. Until then it seems that many people who are bothered by such things are destined to be continually frustrated.
I feel like a pronoun like that is pretty important for any language where you might need to talk about someone you know nothing about or obscure details. The romance languages have the same problem, you have to gender everything. Just as a note though, the character isn't intersex. I haven't decided whether the character was assigned male or female and I probably won't even mention which, but ... Should I have included that ? Is that something people need to know to answer a question like this ? I'm still new, haha ...
