Your Opinion Here!

[clarentine]

In this series I'm struggling with, one of the characters (Irie) is female but cross-dresses and manages to get away with the masquerade sufficiently that most of the others see her as male. (About a 14-year-old male, but male nevertheless.)

I've had a reader observe that the pronouns I'm using in dialogue and exposition do not match. Here's the situation: the POV character (Canum) knows Irie's gender. He does not want to give away the secret (which, btw, is not kept secret from the reader). When he speaks of Irie, then, he's either very careful not to use a pronoun or he uses the masculine pronoun. However, when he's thinking about or observing Irie, he uses the feminine pronoun.

How would you handle the pronoun issue and why?

There's probably a "right" answer, but as with so much in writing I'm looking for what will work the best, not what's necessarily "right." Feel free to chase this one out on a limb. *g*

Comments

[clarentine]

That's pretty much what I've always thought, but you know what they say about blind spots! Better to have someone tell me I'm being stupid now. *g*

Perhaps it's not a matter of it being wrong, but just not handled as clearly as possible?

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

It might be clarity. Do a clarity check to make sure the wording isn't muddy, but I wouldn't change what you're doing. :)