He, his, multiple characters, how to avoid confusion?

[iWant iStrive]

Hi there

I'm currently writing my first novel and have a pretty good idea of how I want the story to go. For now though I am finding articulating what I want hard, I think part of the problem is that I am a very visual person and the ideas in my head sometimes don't come out well on paper. I have one particular problem right at the beginning of my story that involves the main character, who so far has no name. Here is a particular problem paragraph.

Then he heard something approach rapidly behind him. As he turned his ears were filled with a resonating growl. He saw a grey wolf bounding between the trees behind him, eyes fixated on the advancing soldier. He dared not move but froze praying that the wolf did not turn its gaze onto him. The soldier gave a shout, raising a sword and began charging at him. The wolf lunged forwards as his right arm desperately clawed at his left gauntlet to remove it. Just as the catch came undone he heard a roar and looked over to see the wolf tearing through the soldiers sword wielding arm. With both arms free he dropped onto his side and slid the chestplate off, the wet earth crawling up his back sending chills through his body until finally he was free.

Here we have a wolf appear, and a soldier advancing. In the paragraph all the 'he' and 'his' refer to the main character, with the others being referred to by name. But reading it back I think it could be confusing just who 'he' and 'his' refers to, but am having trouble rewording it to avoid confusion.

Can anyone help? Are there any rules to when you can use 'he' for characters in a scene like it always refers to the same person per paragraph or something?

Thanks

 

[Svrtnsse]

It does indeed get a little tricky. I have issues with situations like this myself.
My first advice would be to think of a name for your main character. Not only does it make a scene like this easier to write, it also helps you think of him more as a person if he has a name of his own.

Edit: keep in mind you can change the name later (though you probably won't want to).

 

[iWant iStrive]

Thanks, I do have a name for him but he only gets named after the first few paragraphs, reason being that he starts off not knowing who he is and needs someone else to call him by name. I felt that naming him immediately took some of that away from the reader...

 

[teacup]

I have this problem, somewhat, because my villain is nameless and only chooses his own name halfway through the story.
If he doesn't have the name yet you could refer to him as something else. If he's a boy, maybe say the boy did this, the boy did that. You could just find something about him that you can focus on to set him apart from the others, I'd say.

 

[BWFoster78]

I have a few comments in addition to the main topic:

Then - Why is this word needed? You're writing a sequence of events in order. I know something happened after the previous event because your wrote it happening after the previous event. "Then" is redundant. Don't be redundant.

Heard and saw - These words represent the narrator telling the reader what the POV character experienced. Your writing will be stronger if you get rid of these. If we're in the character's head, show us what he's experiencing instead of telling us what he experienced. Instead of "Then he heard something approach..." use "Something approached..."

Modern grammar allows you to eliminate the comma after an introductory prepositional phrase if it's shorter than five words, but there's a caveat. You can do that only if the comma isn't needed. When I first read that second sentence, I got: As he turned his ears...

There's a lot of action here, but it can be more active still. In that second sentence, "resonated" is a much better verb than "were filled." Rearrange to something like: A growl resonated in his ears. Words like "began" steal action from your piece. Charged is much better than began charging.

Now on to the actual topic:

eyes fixated on the advancing soldier. He dared not move but froze

Your instinct is correct. This is called pronoun confusion. You want "he" to refer to your main character, but the actual antecedent is "soldier."

My suggestion is to use something like "the man" to refer to your protagonist since you can't name him.

That's not ideal, but, honestly, your situation creates a serious problem for you that's not easily resolved.

 

[Devor]

Then he heard something approach rapidly behind him. As he turned his ears were filled with a resonating growl. He saw a grey wolf bounding between the trees behind him, eyes fixated on the advancing soldier, and he dared not move, but froze praying that the wolf did not turn its gaze onto him.

The soldier gave a shout, raising a sword and began charging at him. The wolf lunged forwards as his right arm desperately clawed at his left gauntlet to remove it. Just as the catch came undone NAME-HERE heard a roar and looked over to see the wolf tearing through the soldiers sword wielding arm. With both arms free he dropped onto his side and slid the chestplate off, the wet earth crawling up his back sending chills through his body until finally he was free.

Well, I tried. But to go back to the MC you need a name.

 

[Somniphil]

I often have the same concern with pronouns, and I'm constantly rereading and rewording paragraphs to fine tune their clarity. In my own story, my main character also remains nameless for some time until he introduces himself. So, to get by with as little confusion as possible, I do describe him a bit. He starts off as someone as simple as "a hooded rider" or "the silver-eyed stranger," which now and then stands in for "he" and "him" when I need to clarify. Perhaps you could allow some detail about your character to stand in for his name for now. It could be physical, like new pants or an awesome beard, or maybe where he's from, for example, "the Tibetan so on and so forth."

 

[Jamber]

Hi iWantiStrive,

I think the problem isn't merely the pronoun, but to do with perspective and scene-setting as well. I'm not sure what the scale is here, and how far apart the two men are (indeed I wasn't sure if 'the soldier' also meant the main character -- it took me a while to work out what was going on).

To a great extent you can use scale and details of geography etc to help separate the two men (the wolf of course can be 'it'). Does sunlight strike the soldier's helm? Is he in dappled shade? What weapon does he use? You can easily separate your characters by simple descriptors if one is a swordsman or an archer and the other isn't.

As well, is there a 'tag' you can give the soldier, something that makes him easy to describe even in a fast-moving scene like this one? By 'tag' I mean a simple physical feature that stands out. What tags would a soldier have? Colour of uniform is obvious enough. A coat of arms might stand out from the background, or he might wear a particular kind of armour that gleams in a particular way. Movement is also a useful giveaway. Is he old, young, stiff, nimble, grizzled, inexperienced? Can you 'tag' him in terms of the way he moves, e.g. a puppet jerking?

I feel if you can 'tag' him, and get the geography clearly in mind, there won't be much confusion.

cheers
Jennie