# I need help with single gendered scenes.



## Tiarhlu (Feb 6, 2008)

What do you do when everyone in a scene (and in the case of what I'm working on now, the whole story) is the same gender and you want to avoid pronoun confusion without constantly referring to everyone by name? I find it leads to very clumsy passages without being able to liberally add he and him, or she and her.


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## Xipoid (Feb 7, 2008)

If your characters have a difference, note it. Species, clothing, physical features, occupation, current action/emotion can all work. Such as: The leather laden husky, blue-eyed doe, the lanky blacksmith, head engineer, the overly beleaguered woman, and whatnot. Be sure to change these regularly or you still will be overloading a passage with repetition.

You can also use this to sneak in small character descriptions without suddenly dumping a large amount of information to your reader and even use it to advance the plot in some way.


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## TakeWalker (Feb 7, 2008)

I find it helps if you have at least three methods of referring to a character beyond simple pronouns and switch back and forth between them. One can be a name; another can be a job or species, if you're dealing with multiple species in a universe.

Consider things like age: "the boy" versus "the man". If you're writing from one person's perspective more, you might be able to say something like "his friend" or "his brother". You can always use "the other man" if it comes down to it.

The more methods you find the merrier, of course. The goal is to repeat yourself as little as possible.


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## M. LeRenard (Feb 7, 2008)

That said, you don't want it to get too confused.

"Let me see that," John said.
"What's to see?" Jack replied.
"You're just hogging," the orphan replied, stretching out a hand.  "Give it."
"It's just a picture," said the red-head.
"I want to see it," said the short boy.

How many different people were there in that example?  2?  3?  4, 5?  Hard to tell, isn't it?
So just make it clear from the context who's talking.  If you constantly switch descriptors around, you'll end up confusing the reader more than if you just use one or two per person.


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## Digitalpotato (Feb 7, 2008)

I usually only pronouncs in single-gendered scenes if it's about the specific subject. Such as



> "Why what are ye doing there, sonny?" He asked. Fand looked down at the dwarf.
> "oh nothing!" he said (<-- subject switches to Fand)
> "Ach! But if you only you watched where you were going that gnome may be alive!" The dwarf responded, he looked down at the crushed gnome that had tripped the Night Elf over. (<-- subject is on the Dwarf)
> "But," Fand responded, remembering how hard it was to see gnomes for him (<-- Fand again)



Not the best example.


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## Poetigress (Feb 7, 2008)

I'd basically just use descriptors as has already been mentioned ("the vixen," "the doctor," whatever's appropriate) and simply use the character's names.  It might seem repetitive to keep using everyone's name so often, but that's better, to my mind, than taking the risk of majorly confusing the reader.

I was trying to write an example passage, but for some reason everything I was coming up with didn't need a lot of pronouns anyway.  Maybe you could quote a paragraph or two that you're having trouble with, and we could show how we'd deal with it?


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## Vore Writer (Feb 7, 2008)

I second Poetigress. Keep it simple.


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## Tiarhlu (Feb 8, 2008)

Thanks for the advice! 

Referring to them by species is a pretty good idea. I'll see if I can make that work.


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## Digitalpotato (Feb 11, 2008)

It works pretty well. But just out of curiosity, what would you do if there are several different species? 
If a character say, older would you refer to them as "Elder ____"? or "red-furred boy"?


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## larkin (Feb 16, 2008)

if you have a group of characters and you are writing in a first person narrative, it is better to see the action from the eyes of a secondary character instead of the leader.  Point of view of the leader is more difficult because it becomes a personal struggle with a bunch of other characters.  

Even in a large group it is better to deal with only two characters at once but giving the sense that they are part of a group.

A transition occurs when the dialog shifts to another character.  
Dialog gives you the oppertunity to identify who is talking and who is reacting. 
you can do that using elaborate sentences with discriptions or keep it simple using he said, or (character's name) said.    

Third person is easier to write, but the reader is more detached.  
The narrator of the story is above it all and can describe all the characters as a group with a purpose.  Dialog can be used to distinguish one character from another.


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