The pronoun is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it offers variety and freshness—a break from the monotony of names. To illustrate, here’s a sentence without pronouns:
- Ryan loves Ryan’s guitar so much that Ryan would take Ryan’s guitar everywhere if Ryan could.
Phew! Exhausting, right? Using ‘he’ and ‘it’ a few times would work wonders for that sentence.
On the other hand, however, the pronoun can lead the reader down a dark path of ambiguity if not used with caution. Here’s another example:
Ryan went to the Eric Clapton concert on a whim, and when he took the stage, he ended up playing the best guitar solo he had ever heard.
How did you read that one? Did Clapton play the best guitar solo that Ryan had ever heard, or did Ryan play the best solo that Clapton had ever heard? (Hey, a boy can dream, right?) It could even be that Ryan played the best guitar solo that Ryan had ever heard, or that Clapton played the best solo that Clapton had ever heard. Boy, replacing just one of those pronouns with a name would make all the difference.
So, when you read over or proofread your manuscript, be sure to pay close attention to sentences with multiple subjects, especially in compound-complex sentences, and don’t hesitate to replace pronouns with their corresponding nouns for the sake of reader comprehension. Even if repetition irks you to the bone (like it does me), you gotta do what you gotta do for your readers.