Who. Who? Who!

“'Why would someone like that draw attention to themselves?' she murmured,

almost to herself.”*

What's wrong with the above quoted sentence? There's a clue in the first half of it that should have signaled the author in how to construct the correct parallels, if she'd looked for it to self-edit; her subconscious gave her the solution in the second half of her sentence, but confusions over plural-versus-singular pronouns misled her decisions.

The trouble with the sentence at the top is this: “someone/themselves.” The first clue showing her how to proceed is the second half of the compound word, “someone.” “One.” One is singular. She was referring to a single person, a murder suspect. How many selves, then, does one person have? Unless the character who was speaking was trying to suggest the suspect may have a multiple-personality disorder, the “someone” in question might only want to draw attention to “himself.” The author would have not been confused if she'd written, “Why would he … draw attention to himself?” She proves it in the second half of the sentence by finishing up with “she/herself.”

There are several ways to correct this kind of problem when you're self-editing.

First, you need to actively look for singular and plural references of nouns and pronouns so that you can correct any mismatched pairings in your sentences. When you find a singular noun/pronoun mated with a plural word or phrase, check your surrounding paragraphs for how weighted they already are towards either the singular or plural forms, much like checking for consistency in verb tenses. Unless you are regularly bouncing between writing about one thing or person, and more than one, try to maintain the same form within a paragraph while you are referring to either “it” or “them.” If you are bouncing between singular and plural entities, double-check that you have made the shifts for each separate reference clear for your readers. It can be quite embarrassing to learn, after your work has been published, that your readers regularly sound like owls.

Next, correct the mismatched pairing using either the singular solution–-in our case above, “someone/himself(herself)”---or the plural–- “people(they)/themselves.”

Another solution for fixing plural and singular mix-ups is to rewrite the awkward sentence altogether, if you can't figure out which form you should be using. Sometimes that's the best solution. The better solution, though, usually, is to learn and memorize which nouns and pronouns are singular and which plural. The more consciously you look to keep your forms parallel and consistent, the sooner they become embedded in your writing practices. After a while, your subconscious will assist you to almost always get them right the first time.

Let's go back to the Who?-Who?-Who?-owl problem I mentioned, as there is also another confusion over pronoun use and reference that often crops up in writing. This preventable mistake often arises when authors don't go back over their manuscripts to make sure pronoun referents are clear enough for readers to follow: Have you ever found yourself reading along, and then “he” pops up in a sentence whose antecedent (a thing, i.e., noun, that logically precedes another thing, e.g., noun, pronoun, possessive, etc.) includes the possibility of 2 or more male characters?

What was your reaction? Most likely, you stopped reading, said, “Who?” and looked at the word “he” again, then started reading backwards to see who the writer was last talking about. You might have been able to figure out which “he” was probably being referred to, based on the probability that one “he” would fit better than the other. But you may not have been able to ascertain who the author intended to refer to–-in either case, this ambiguity caused you, and other readers, to stop following along with the story or poem or article for a time; you did not remain immersed.

Readers don't like that. So, writers, you don't want that.

I recently read a self-published book written by an author who made this error of the vague reference of “he” or “she,” repeatedly. He did it so consistently that I finally decided he had created a formula for himself that he used to determine when to use a name or a pronoun. But what he didn't do was go back and read for ambiguity in references to their proper antecedents. Either he didn't think to make sure his pronouns parsed, or he assumed they did, based on his preferred formula. Furthermore, I can't believe a professional editor wouldn't have pointed out and corrected this constant hoot in the narrative, so it leads me to believe the author never worked with an editor at all. Or if the writer did, he stubbornly ignored valuable advice.

And while I'm on this path complaining of hoots, I'll quickly remind you about another “who” issue that you should watch out for while self-editing.

When you are talking about people and you want to refer to some descriptive action or characterization of theirs, it is always about “who” they are. People are not “that”s. You'll hear one of your colleagues say, “People that like to fish often stay out in the heaviest rain.”

“No,” you should think to yourself. Become an owl. “People who like to fish often stay out in the heaviest rain.”

If you hear a news report in which the anchor mentions “children that study homework as soon as they get home from school get better overall grades,” again become an owl: Children who study homework as soon as they get home...” Even if it's just in your own head, correct every misuse of “who” and “that” you hear, and soon, saying and writing it right will feel natural to you.

That? Things, and animals in general. Who? Animals that are personified, like pets, and people. Okay, think of them as owl people, if you have to.

*The opening sentence is quoted purely as an educational example, from a published, contemporary novel, without intent to embarrass its author, so no byline credit is given.

#selfediting #editingtips #waystoimprovewriting #editingyourmanuscript #parallelconstruction #antecedents