I'm the worst with descriptions. I use 'her' and 'she' at the beginning of almost every sentence and it's bugging the crazy outta me! How do I stop myself from using these words to start every sentence??
Who is making you? There's your answer. How about a couple examples that we could better offer some options for you?
Here are a few lines from my story as an example: "It was already four in the morning and she had to be to work at six-thirty sharp. She was making her debut presentation to the Board of Directors of the Simon & Simon Corporation, CLAD magazines top client. Her boss would kill her if she missed this deadline. She gathered her thoughts and hit the shower to ready herself for the day."
Here are a few lines from my story as an example: "It was already four in the morning and she had to be to work at six-thirty sharp. She was making her debut presentation to the Board of Directors of the Simon & Simon Corporation, CLAD magazines top client. Her boss would kill her if she missed this deadline. She gathered her thoughts and hit the shower to ready herself for the day."
It changes the POV so it might not fit with your story, but here's an example: Four in the morning. Crap, did I even sleep at all? I can't screw this debut presentation up, not to the board of directors of Simon & Simon, not with this project. How did the deadline get here so fast and why did I not feel ready? Clad Magazine was only our top client and my boss only reminded me of that fact a thousand times last week. Maybe the shower will clear my head. The idea is to show, not tell. "This happened, that happened" those are telling narratives. "The alarm pierced the silence, a big ugly red number 4 stared back at her." That is showing.
6:30 presentation in the office for a presentation? That's harsh! A little bit of she/her cutting: "It was already four in the morning, and she had to be in work for six-thirty sharp. It was her debut presentation to the Board of Directors of Simon & Simon corporation, CLAD magazine's top client. The boss would go ballistic if anything went wrong. Just time to gather her thoughts. A shower would wake her up." [EDIT]I like GingerCoffee's too[/EDIT]
doesn't need a drastic total rewrite, just a restructuring of your sentences... but i couldn't recommend using 'it was' twice in a row, any more than 'she' or 'her'... here's one way to avoid repetition, while paring it down to essentials and cleaning up the grammar: "It was already four in the morning and she had to be at work by six-thirty, to polish her debut presentation for the board of Simon & Simon, CLAD magazine's top client. The boss would kill her, if she wasn't prepared and on time. First, a shower."
Here is what I ended up with after the rewrite! All the same, there would be no use to lay down and try to fall back asleep, she would end up tossing and turning for hours again. Besides, it was already 4 in the morning and she had to be to work at six-thirty sharp. Today she was presenting her marketing strategy to the Board of Directors at Simon & Simon, the biggest client of CLAD Magazine. Sierra, Satan reincarnate and also her boss, would kill her if she missed this deadline. After a mediocre shower and a healthy breakfast of Diet Coke and Pop-tarts, Celeste dressed in her best office attire. A pinstriped mini-skirt that made her feel like a member of the Italian mob, a totally fake Cashmere blouse, and Louie Vuitton heels that cost her a years salary and most of her college fund.
You are still using 'her' and 'she' alot, just in a different part of the sentence. Re-arranging the sentences like that is not particularly difficult to do either. E.g.: Also, try using her actual name occasionally along with her and she. Doing so will not remove the problem you are concerned about but will share the burden a bit. But, my advice would be to write along the line that Mamma demonstrated. Make an observation that does not have her in the sentence. Pretty bad example to follow:
...this has many mistakes needing a fix... too many for me to explain here, so i just bolded the most serious problems... if you want a detailed explanation, you can send it to me as an email attachment...
New to the site. Fascinating reading the posts here. Wanted to quickly point out that the designer is 'Louis Vuitton'.
Thanks for that correction warder! I've changed this particular exerpt from my story, but I will definitely remember this in the future!
don't know how i missed that major goof, warder!... guess i shouldn't post before having my morning green tea... :redface:
