Because
of that advice, in my rough drafts I’ve been looking for ways to remove
references to myself, crossing out phrases or sentences the way I did in the
first and second paragraphs above.
But did
you notice? In the third paragraph, I used personal pronouns four times.
Instead, I could have made this revision
here’s a potential revision: “Writers can often remove references to
themselves without diminishing a sentence’s meaning and message.”
But don’t stop there! Because—
Phillip
Lopate makes a strong case in favor of referring to ourselves:
“Nothing is more common in a personal essay than the letter I. It is a
perfectly good word, one no writer should be ashamed to use.…”
Lopate
is a pro: an essayist, film critic, editor, and novelist (author of eight
books). His advice comes from Telling
True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers’ Guide from the Nieman Foundation at
Harvard University (Mark Kramer and Wendy Call, editors).
Memoirists
need to pay attention to such folks.
So
which advice is correct? Should we minimize using “I” or, instead, take Lopate’s
advice?
Both bits
of advice can be appropriate.
Here’s
how it works:
Lopate comes to the discussion from a different viewpoint than
the group at the top of this post.
He
writes: “The problem with I is not that it is in bad taste but
that fledgling personal essayists and memoirists may think they have conveyed
more than they actually have with that one syllable.”
Read
that again.
He
explains what he means: “In [the writers’] minds, that I swarms with a lush,
sticky past and an almost fatal specificity, whereas the reader encountering it
for the first time in a new piece of writing sees only a slender telephone pole
standing in the sentence, trying to catch a few signals to send on.”
In
other words, you, the writer, are a
stranger to your readers, so let them
get to know you. Introduce them to a well-developed individual rather than to
a dull, distant, shadowy type. Lopate applauds writers “whose teeming inner
lives readers come to know.”
Think
back to your favorite books or stories. You probably felt you knew—felt a
connection with—the main character, and that’s one reason you kept turning
pages and didn’t want the story to end.
To let
readers know and connect with you, Lopate says, “You must be able to pick
yourself apart. The first step is to acquire some distance from yourself.… See
yourself from the ceiling, know how you are coming across in social situations,…
[know] when you charm and when you
seem pushy, mousy, or ridiculous. You must begin to take
inventory of yourself so that you can present that self to the reader as a
specific, legible character.
“Start
with your quirks,” he recommends, “the idiosyncrasies, stubborn tics, and
antisocial mannerisms that set you apart from others. To establish credibility,
resist coming across as absolutely
average. Who wants to read about the regular Joe?”
Include
details about yourself that pertain to, and advance, your story’s message; leave
out irrelevant traits and quirks: If you are charming, pushy, mousy, or ridiculous
but those details have no relevance to your vignette’s meaning, leave them out.
(Save them. They might be just what you need for a different vignette.)
Bottom
line: Avoid self-absorption and conceit, but also avoid being a stranger to
your readers. Leave out unnecessary personal pronouns, but do let your readers get
acquainted with you.
Readers want and need to know you in order to hear your
message.
