Pronouns

[triskellian]

I'm writing about a man who is physically made into a woman, a woman who thinks she's a man, and a man who lives as a woman, and having great problems with pronouns. And names, as two of the above possess both a male and a female name. If I try hard enough, I can make up my entire word count with 'his/her' and similar constructions.

Comments

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

Sounds like fun.

You could (I think) solve this with perspectives. When the action is seen from inside the person's head they would in all cases be referred to as he (with the possible exception of the last one). Taken on an outside view, they would be referred to as they appear. Though, I can see where there would be confusing perspectives that would return to the original problem!

[triskellian]

Yeah, I'm trying to do that. Where it becomes difficult (well, one of the places it becomes difficult ;-) is with man-made-into-woman, because she ends the book feeling like a woman, so it's mostly shades of grey. And the whole essay is about the relationship between how they feel and how they look, so there are grey areas there, too ;-)