Young Writers Society

I'm
sorry if this is in the wrong place I wasn't sure if it should post here or in miselenous.
Anyway. Yesterday I was writing an extract from my story as it was and I came across a scene that had gone well in my mind but didn't work at all when I tried to write it. In this scene it is told from the third person or as if from a perspective of a ghost watching these two people. The scene consists of entirely actions and no dialouge. Both of the characters are male and I suddenly came across a problem such as using alot of he's to describe both characters which got confusing as to who was being refered to. I then started trying to use the characters name in places but it got to repeditive and unnatrual. Expeshily with one characters name being three sylables long. Does anyone know of another way to aproach this? Some techniques to make this scene flow without excessive use of he's or tougue twisting names?

Exuse my spelling my mind is everywhere today.

This is the right place. Ask an Expert is for general writing/research questions. ^^

The problem is pronouns and antecedents.

Antecedents are what pronouns relate to. So, if you make sure every time you use "he" it relates to the last actual name you use, it should be fine. Such as:

"Paul looked in the fridge. He stopped and turned around only to see that ghost, smiling at him. A ghost that was smiling far too much for his liking. The ghost tilted his head to the side. What was he doing wrong?"

It's probably still a touch confusing, but the principle is there. Organize the sentences by who's doing what, and only use the full name when you're changing whose actions you're describing.

Also, use the fact they're too different species to your advantage. Notice how I used "the ghost" instead of naming said ghost? Use "the ghost" and "the man/guy/boy" (whichever fits) to cut down on "he"s and first names.

Finally, nicknames in prose can help for multiple syllables. Just shortening the name can do wonders.

Hope this is useful!

Sorry how I put it raised mis understanding. There's no ghost in the scene. It just a scene with two male characters (human)
but your infomation helped a bit.

Ah, I see. Misread.

Instead of calling them "the man and the ghost" you can use "the taller/shorter" or some other distinguishing characteristic to provide a third name. So long as you identify which is which, you should be fine.

What Rosey said the second time. Only, even better, you can use whatever features the ghost chooses to characterize the ghost. If he sees the two guys as "the fat one" and "the thin one" or "the tall one" and the "scrawny one", that says a lot about who the ghost is as a person. Or was.

Possibilities of distinguishing characteristics are endless, so have fun.

Thanks so much guys. The situation I have is slightly differnt to how you are perceiving it though. It's really difficult to explain so I decided not to but if you do want me to explain I can try. Your advice did help though.

Not sure if you still need help but....
Watch the sentence structure. You can do a lot with varrying "he saids" with "John saids" and still maintain unconfusion/order.
Mostly, it just takes a lot of work and revising. Pay special attention to grammar, use it as your friend.
Don't get too rigid though, see if you can actually get away with some of the sentences being sort of vague. Just make sure everything flows naturally---that's the most important part. You don't want your reader having to go back and re-read the paragraph five or six times before they get it.