Burying the I: How to Avoid Repeating “I” Too Much in First-person Writing

If all your sentences begin with “I,” that’s a problem. Thankfully, it’s a problem that can be fixed with sentence variety techniques.

Whenever you write in first person, the narrator will tend to become the subject of every sentence. This can start to be tiresome. Up ahead are some techniques for disrupting this pattern.

Mix Sentences

To mix up sentence beginnings, you can often start with a prepositional phrase, which buries the I further in the sentence: 

Was: I decided to take a taxi to Bucc-ees, which was a weird choice.

Becomes: To get to Bucc-ees, I—being a weirdo—took a taxi.

Start with a Gerund

Another way is to start with a gerund, which is an -ing word. 

Was: I declared, “This is my new home,” when arriving at the colossal gas station. 

Becomes: Arriving at the colossal gas station, I declared “This is my new home!”

Remove the I

You may be able to remove the “I” entirely by moving words around or using a well-placed “me.” 

Was: I took a taxi to Buc-cees 

Becomes: That afternoon, a taxi delivered me to Bucc-ees. 

Simplify the Sentences

If you see a lot of “I believe, I thought, I noticed, I smelled, etc.” these are a filter you can just cut. Just say the sentences. The reader is aware that you’re the one believing, thinking, and noticing.  You can package information without yourself. 

Was: I thought this Bucc-ees was grand and gorgeous. 

Becomes: This Bucc-ees was grand and gorgeous. 

Speak to the Reader

Switch to a second-person or direct address—like a letter (this is common in travel writing, and some so-called “service writing,” but writers like Lorrie Moore use it in literary writing, too).

Above becomes: When you enter Bucc-ees, you’ll probably find it grand and gorgeous. Among the offerings: Smoked meats, keychains, and sodas in medium, large, and extra-large sizes. 

Overusing “I” in Writing : Exceptions

it’s worth noting that there are exceptions to this tendency, including what I call “portrait essays” (I’ve done a couple of these, and John Jeremiah Sullivan’s famous “Mister Lytle” is another notable example).

Also, this won’t be a problem when the narrator’s identity is somewhat obscured (I’m thinking of ZZ Packer’s short story “Brownies,” and the novel Less, by Andrew Sean Greer).

Example: Overusing “I” in Writing

If the narrator is also the protagonist or the center of the story, you might start to notice that sentences start with “I” plus a verb. This can become very repetitive very quickly. In which case it’s time to do something about it.

There was a bit of this in Bob Odenkirk’s recent essay (a fabulous actor and screenwriter) in the Wall Street Journal:

At first, I feared I wouldn’t fit in if I went away to college, so I attended the College of DuPage nearby. The following year, I transferred to Marquette, but I wanted a more lively, creative student environment. I transferred to Southern Illinois University. 

I love Odenkirk’s acting, but you can already feel how these sentences start to thud upon arrival, particularly this “I” plus verb combination. I wanted. I attended. I went. I feared.

Like many of us, Odenkirk does a fairly good job of obscuring this tendency in his first paragraph, but then he lets his guard down as the piece continues.  Writing inevitably gets sloppier by the third to fifth paragraphs. It happens to all of us. 

Example: Fixing Too Much “I” Use

In contrast, ideally, you want less than a fifth of your sentences to start with I, or even have “I” as the subject of the sentence. Watch how Jennine Capo Crucet does it in her NYT essay about being the first in her family to go to college (her parents accompanied her to orientation):

It was a simple question, but we couldn’t find the answer in any of the paperwork the college had sent. How long was my family supposed to stay for orientation? This was 1999, so Google wasn’t really a verb yet, and we were a low-income family (according to my new school) without regular Internet access. I was a first-generation college student as well as the first in our family to be born in America — my parents were born in Cuba — and we didn’t yet know that families were supposed to leave pretty much right after they unloaded your stuff from the car.

Now, time to learn some tricks for yourself.