I/you stories; are there alternatives that work better? what are they?

It's pretty generally acknowledged that writing an I/you story is the kiss of death. In checking the erotic anthologies, one finds this is a rare type.

One way these accounts arise is that someone writes them for their lover, as a kind of cyberlust provocation or memoir.

In any case, can any of these I/you productions be 'saved', that is, vastly improved by such moves--essentially re-writes -- as the following: a) Leave the "I" and stay first person, but name the other (replace the 'you' with 'John' or 'Jane)'; call this, 'ordinary first person'. b) Give the "I" a name, and convert the "you" to the first person, i.e., tell the story from the other's (the 'you's pov); this idea is from Penny. Call this, 'reversed first person'. c) Convert entirely to third person; "I" becomes Jack, "you" becomes Jill.

Here are some first person examples culled from Lit stories*. Are any of them improvable by these means?

your blow job, by louise brown [female pov]
http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=252780

you are next to me, nrcma98 [male pov]
http://www.literotica.com:81/stories/showstory.php?id=59949

"we finally meet," by 1kiki
http://www.literotica.com:81/storie...y.php?id=203270

======

you and me,
http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=245074




Note that the last is the one most approaching a story (others are more like scenes), and it's a variation of the I/you, namely a piece told in the past tense. How does that work? Can it be improved by any of the methods above?

I want to use some other examples, so if you have an i/you piece that died a-borning, and would like to volunteer it, PM me. Especially if it was a piece written to a specific 'target' with whom you were involved.

Those with experience in writing such pieces are welcome to contribute their experiences and supply urls, if the stories are posted.

In the interests of discussion, though, i will try to narrow down to some limited number of examples that are of interest to all.

[Note, for purposes of this discussion i will call these I/you stories, 'second person,' even though they are mixed first and second person. where i am talking about a case where there is only "you" and no "I", i will say 'pure second person.']


---
*these authors do not seem active or easy to contact, so I am proceeding to cite them w/o request; be respectful; be kind.

*opinion*
Truth be told, I actually loathe i/you and first-person or present tense (or both) styles of writing. I like a third person, past tense narration... but, since most of the stories (and IMO, a lot of them are crap- I'm not in any way saying mine rock, because they don't) on here are that first-person crap. It's like playing dolls. So frustrating. Third-person just flows better (imo).

Why don't more people write third-person? The ones I tried writing first person were awful. I cringe upon looking at them. Others do, too.

Mainly, right now, I'm just kind of testing the waters to see what gets read (spare me the "I write for myself" stuff- I respect it, I just don't want it driven down my throat. I happen to agree, but I also try to evolve in my writing, too- and I'm in a stagnation period, that's all). So far, incest and (by my definition, not anyone else's) "Weird stuff" seems to get the best hits.

MOST of the stories I've read on here have been I/you. Have I just been reading the wrong ones?

That's more unsolicited and incriminating stuff you didn't ask to hear from me.

/*opinion*

in the best erotic anthologies i find almost equal representation of first and third person. my impression, compared to other non-erotic short storie collections, is that this is high for first person.

another issue is tense. i agree that first person present often bombs, but it's not terribly unusual in the best erotica.

i do agree that it's a shame that more porn/erotica writers don't get into classic third person; this form is a large part of the great world literature.

returning to the thread topic, and taking the third example, 'you and me': would you say it's best recast in classic third person?

Personally I/you stories don't do well rating wise because they say the same thing twice. If I really wanted to read the same thing over and over again I'd go back to school.

Not all of them make this mistake of course, like the first one you listed. That one did not rate well if it was even rated because at one point she goes to simple text and rather ruins the read. Below is how it is in the story.

Your cock slides into my mouth... in... and out... in... and out... I can't get enough! My grip around the base of your cock tightens as my head bobs down... and up your cock... down... and up... in... and out... in... and out... I pull my face off your cock. Licking the head, I pull your cock down and tilt my head back so my neck straightens out.

This is how I would have done it, and probably gotten more/higher voters.

Your cock slides into my mouth. I can't help but drool a bit as the hot spongy bit of you slides in. Moaning as you go deeper, resisting the urge to plunge down as you pull back until just your head is still encased then surging forward ravenously. With a sigh I pull you out again to lavish the length of you with licks and kisses before taking that hot flesh back inside.

Granted it is probably in need of a little editing, I am bad about that. I find it much more interesting than the way she has it.

Honestly to me the I/you stories don't do well rating wise because they tend to fall into the common problems of writing. Poor grammar, poor word usage and over-usage, and the biggest, repeating from both perspectives.

Suppose doesn't help that they generally are posted by people who don't do more stories for whatever reason. Who knows maybe the trolls scare them off or maybe they only wanted to do the one or two stories.

Honestly to me the I/you stories don't do well rating wise because they tend to fall into the common problems of writing. Poor grammar, poor word usage and over-usage, and the biggest, repeating from both perspectives.

there is something to what you say, and it's a point about dangers of repetition.

but the fact remains that i/you is a rarity in the best anthologies (not to say novels), and these are writers with command of grammar, etc.

do you see any fix that's in line with the thread's topic. you propose:

//This is how I would have done it, and probably gotten more/higher voters.

Your cock slides into my mouth. I can't help but drool a bit as the hot spongy bit of you slides in. Moaning as you go deeper, resisting the urge to plunge down as you pull back until just your head is still encased then surging forward ravenously. With a sigh I pull you out again to lavish the length of you with licks and kisses before taking that hot flesh back inside.//

In line with the threads question, what about this, simple first person:

Pure's first person re write.
John cock slid into my mouth. I couldn't help but drool a bit as the hot spongy bit of him slid in. Moaning as he went deeper, resisting the urge to plunge down as he pulled back until just his head is still encased, then surging forward ravenously. With a sigh I pulled him out again to lavish the length of him with licks and kisses before taking that hot flesh back inside.

I am actually liking your version better. Not because better writing, probably is, but because I can relate to that better. Not being a guy makes it hard to get into reading about how I is sucking on my cock.

On just a pure writing context though, an I/you story if written properly will be just as hot as any other way or witing it. This is of course assuming the you is a sex you can get into being.

I mean if say someone wrote a hot little I/you about licking pussy and the you is the female, would you enjoy that? I am pretty sure I would.

I/you stories really seem to be written for one sex, not both like a third person and I assume most first person. My stories get more guy's reading and commenting than women.

Poorly written stories are poorly written stories, whether in first, second or zillionth person voice.

Second person is not a written voice, it is a spoken voice - that is why it doesn't work. No, it can't be 'improved'. Lots of people say that 2nd person POV just cuts out the other gender but that's not true. When James Blunt sings, 'You're beautiful' he's talking to my soul. My boyfriend is the singer serenading his love (prolly not me).

Songs, poems, audio stories can work in the 'dialogue' framework of 2nd person. How many songs do you hear in 3rd person. Some, but it's difficult.

As soon as you start writing a story using 2nd person, you either have to take on board 100% dialogue or 0% dialogue. Neither work in a written framework.

As a nerd about this, please let me have a short rant.

First person is very intimate - often successful - but difficult to handle well. Instead of creating characters that the readers can form their own opinions of, 'I' guides them. Everyone should start with a 3rd person, 'omniscient', POV, drift into 1st person if intimacy or individuality is the crux of the story but avoid 2nd person until they have a reputation like Grisham or King.

I always get a bit sad that there is not enough dialogue in stories. That is where the second person POV really belongs in written fiction. All attempts to put it into narrative are doomed to failure.

elfin_odalisque said:

Poorly written stories are poorly written stories, whether in first, second or zillionth person voice.

.......

First person is very intimate - often successful - but difficult to handle well.

Click to expand...

I agree, Elfin. Some of the best stories/novels I have read were written in first person.

I tried my hand at first person - present tense, no less, and found it to be difficult and a lot of work. The story did fine in terms of rating but some feedback I received knocked it simply for being first person present tense.

Now that it's out of my system I'm back to writing in third person.

First person is the most difficult, but still commonly used, pov ... often by folk who choose it w/o much thought or experience. It is difficult because its perspective is so limited -- "I" can only see, hear, feel, understand so much, and everything else has to be left out. The most common error with it is the failure to realize that "I" is a character who is active in the story ... not just an observer ... and this makes it more difficult. Another problem is why s/he would tell the story ... what's the excuse for telling it?

Third person has evolved over the past half century. At first (think Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charlotte Bronte, Dickens, et. al.) it was omniscient. At the end of the 19th C, the immediate third person was "invented" where a story is "seen" from the perspective and sympathies of a single character -- one of the best in this mode was Katherine Mansfield who often wrote of characters so alienated that they couldn't speak as "I" because they had no one to talk to! The author could, like the omniscient, speak in his own voice, vocabulary, intellect.

With movies, the third person evolved into "objective" pov -- a voice that, like a camera, tried only to observe. Commentary was (supposedly) relegated to symbolism and selection. Hemingway invented this one and is, arguably, the best, though many grade schools read another famous example, Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery."

Commercial fiction has made popular the use of third person that works like first person ... it not only takes a character's perspective but it speaks solely from his pov, just as if it were first person. It permits the author to move from one character to another with credibility ... if it is done very carefully. But lots and lots of writers -- many of them pros -- are really ham-fisted with it and lots of "head-hopping" results where the reader is driven slowly insane by characters taking over the story willy nilly. It is an especially popular technique in romance writing and Nora Roberts is one of the best at it and sometimes prepares for a "head hop" for an entire chapter to use the rapid-fire switch in pov as both unnoticeable and as a special effect.

The pov Pure is asking about is the second person. It is notoriously the hardest to write. The big problem is to make the reader identify with the "you" who is being addressed or described, and to make the "I" into a character the "you" can imagine being involved with in the manner described. It is most "popular" in stories that are told through a series of letters -- which try (successfully in some famous examples) to get around the problems by including both saluation and signature for the letters --

"Dear Robert," "Love, Mortitia" and so on.

Sorry for all the abstraction, but I couldn't think of another way to respond to the question. HOpe it helps someone.

To the point: to revise a point of view, it sometimes requires different characters to, in fact, experience different things in a different way than was done before. But as Elfin points out -- a crappy story is a crappy story ... often the "problems" begin way before pov became an issue!

Respectfully,
ST

There seems to be little disagreement that second-person perspective works well enough for some forms of writing, but not so often for stories. The point of view seems to work best when the reader is simply addressed, such as in a letter, but it can work for a story too; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn starts with the word 'YOU' directed at the reader.

Second-person doesn't become really awkward until the reader is meant to be a character with an active part to play. Most erotic tales attempt this, I assume the author sought a more intimate narrative or because they were writing with a specific reader in mind. Maybe both.

If I understand the crux of this thread, the question is, 'What should the author do, or have done, instead?'

Since one of the strengths of first-person point of view is the intimacy, I think this would at least be a better perspective choice, if not the best. Less clear to me is which character would make the best narrator, though my intuition is that it should be the 'You' character. This all assumes the story is worth writing in the first place; Elfin Odalisque is right, some tales can't be saved just by changing the perspective.


I have read two stories on this site where I thought second-person not only worked, but worked well:

'Shopping for Sex Toys at Walmart' by glynndah

'The Second Person' by impressive

note.

hi penny,

as to imp's nice little story, it's would of those variants, even further from the main stream than my third example. the word "I" for the narrator, never appears. [all "I"s relate either to Daphne or the 'you' character, speaking.] essentially it's a story of "you" and Daphne, and this gives it more of the character of a first person story, than an I/you second person story. it succeeds partly because the 'you' is somehow fleshed out a bit as a character as he interacts with several persons, but NOT the narrator.

I agree one of the reasons Imp's story works is the omnipotent voice.

In the same manner that third-person has the subcategories that SoftTouch listed above, second-person also has some distinctions within. Even if the perspective is second-person, the narration style must still be either first or third-person. Unrelated to the narration style, the intended reader may be simply addressed or may be a character in the story. In the case of the latter, the narrator may go that final step and even say how the 'you' character feels.

On a related note, I'm not sure why more second-person stories that are meant to be erotic don't use future tense. Maybe it's just me, but I think that would be less awkward since it would be like expressing a desire instead of relating an actual history.

I like my I/you story (of course). I don't think it would work the same any other way. I've heard people say they can't into it if the you is male and they're female, for example, but when I read my story, I'm the I and he's the you and I'd think that if a guy read it, he'd be the you and she'd be the I. Know what I mean? But I have to be pedantic and mention that I/you isn't second person; it's first.

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=273321

tanyachrs,

Yoir story doesn't work. I/you stories are so wrapped up in the personality of the writer, they never let the reader in.

Everyone will tell you that first person, 'I', stories are hellish difficult to write. If you want to compound that by adding a second person antag, you end up with a story that any editor will throw out without reading beyond the first page.

Believe me - second person doesn't ever work in stories.

You are the living proof, sorry.

tanyachrs said:

I like my I/you story (of course). I don't think it would work the same any other way. I've heard people say they can't into it if the you is male and they're female, for example, but when I read my story, I'm the I and he's the you and I'd think that if a guy read it, he'd be the you and she'd be the I. Know what I mean?

Click to expand...

Thank you for offering your story as part of the discussion! I do know what you mean, but the story didn't work for me even though I thought it was really well written. I'm not sure it would have worked with a different perspective- but I absolutely agree that it wouldn't work the same any other way. Would you mind if we used a portion of this story for an example of how a tale might read differently with another perspective?

tanyachrs said:

But I have to be pedantic and mention that I/you isn't second person; it's first.

Click to expand...

An interesting assertion. Is not a simple letter often cited as a classic example of second-person perspective?

elfin_odalisque said:

Everyone will tell you that first person, 'I', stories are hellish difficult to write.

Click to expand...

Really? I've never told anyone this.

elfin_odalisque said:

Believe me - second person doesn't ever work in stories.

Click to expand...

Yikes! It never works for you?

Penelope Street said:

Would you mind if we used a portion of this story for an example of how a tale might read differently with another perspective?

Click to expand...

Sure, although since you don't offer me much hope of admiration, I'll stay out of it.

An interesting assertion. Is not a simple letter often cited as a classic example of second-person perspective?

Click to expand...

The presence of an I means first person. A second person narrative would have no I. I haven't read all the way through all the examples given above, but true second person is very rare. The OP, correctly, didn't mention second person (others brought that in later). The I/You form, while first person, must be fairly unique to porn and love letters.

interesting point, tanya,

A second person narrative would have no I. I haven't read all the way through all the examples given above, but true second person is very rare.

yes, i suppose a pure second person would be like that, and Penny has pointed to Imps story, which fits that description to a 't'; no narrator "i" (the "i's that occur mostly belong the speech of debbie, the main character.) the obvious way is to have a 'you' and have 'you' interact with various named characters. [a mirror image of first person stories.]

so i/you, what i called--following others--'second person' is a bit more complex.

btw i don't see why people disqualify a book that's a series of letters of person A to person B. it seems to show that "i-you "works, if framed right; sharp distinctions of I and You, and no direct interactions of i and 'you'

so elfin's statement is a bit overbroad (and caustic).

Everyone will tell you that first person, 'I', stories are hellish difficult to write. If you want to compound that by adding a second person antag, you end up with a story that any editor will throw out without reading beyond the first page.

elf does not identify the particular difficulty of i/you. but, on first person, i might add this point:

if "i" stories are difficult to write, ftsoa, i don't think they're hard to read.
the excellent anthology "best women's erotica, '01" has 2/3 "i" stories and 1/3 third person stories. none of what i've called 'second person."
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added: thanks for the url. i read the story and it's certainly as good as any of my examples, drawn from my search.

technically it's well written.

two points: 1) it's really a scene, more than a story (many lit offering are scenes, or short strings of them).

2) my problem is that i feel kind of 'trapped' as a reader. if i read a first person story that's similar, it's how "i" fucked Bill. i have some freedom to form an opinion of Bill. and i'm even free, in imagination to be the "i'.

in this story, i, the reader is trapped as 'you.' you the author tell me exactly what i do, when my hips move, how my muscles tighten. IF the story were written by my lover, i could 'buy in'; i'd recgonize my reactions. as it is, it's like having to follow a detailed movie script with directions (takes breast in left hand, moves off her body; slides hand up inside of left thigh).

somehow the 'you' has to become real, apart from the reader. if not by a method of the three i mentioned, then, maybe by embedding. start the story thus:

[START]
I had this boyfriend a while back, that i was just nuts about. I thought I was his love goddess and believed he'd become aroused and enslaved by me. Here's a 'mash' note i wrote to him, at the height of my infatuation. After the note i'll tell what happened.

[existing story]

Turns out his 'ex' Gail was on his mind in that entire scene. He was picturing the bitch as i sucked him off. All of this gradually become clear to me in the weeks after i wrote that.

Our final conversation went like this.
"I thought there was so much between us."
"There was for a while."
"You 'came' so hard for me; i thought it was love."
"Well, your technique is great! Best blow job in the West"
"You still love her, don't you?"
"Yes."
"She's the one you want to fuck, right?"
"Oh no, you are fine, baby."
"But when she comes back, you'll try to be with her as much as possible, right?"
"Yes. But we can have fun in the meantime."
"Fuck you, buddy."

I left without looking back.

END.

I wrote "Kim and Me" as a first-person male story. It was very much of a cyberlust provocation/memoir as Pure mentions in the first post in this thread.

It's not bad at all and it's pretty darned squishy in places (and the woman I wrote it about/for has finally read it and really likes it), but it has failed to gather the thousands of admiring readers I would like. I'm pretty sure that the problem really is that first-person male just doesn't cut it with female readers as a general rule. I need to rewrite it into third-person limited POV, which will make it a substantially different story, albeit a much better and more saleable one.

John

I'm always surprised to encounter the opinion that third person narration is somehow superior or more literary than first person narration. Both have tradition and are commonly accepted, both have their advantages and disadvantages, and either can do what the other can't. I know of no grounds for recommending one over the other as a general rule.

Second person, however, is unusual indeed, more so because Tanyachrs is right. Real second person would be you/he (or you/she), and I was able to recall reading only one published, non-erotic story written in this manner. Impressive's story, offered by Penny as an example, fits the bill as well, and seems to prove that second person appears as rarely in the erotic realm as elsewhere.

The I/you stories referred to in the thread title, as has been already said, are rather a variant of first person. A variant that's endemic, to the best of my knowledge, to internet porn (and epidemic as well), but a variant of first person nevertheless. That some of us think of it as second person is probably a consequence of typically poor quality of these stories, entailing among else inconsistent point of view. Considering that they can bounce from I/you to you/I and everywhere in between, it's hard to say what we should call them.

The main problem with I/you, though, comes down to the absence of character.

A real second person story manages to establish the "you" as a character distinct from the reader and the "s/he" as a character distinct from the writer.

In Impressive's example, apart from "you" and "she", there's a third participant, an invisible narrative voice that clearly addresses a "you" who's a character of his own—not me sitting in front of the screen and reading the story—and this character lusts after a woman who's also a character of her own. None of the three pretends to be me, and none of the three is necessarily the writer.

In the non-erotic example I'm thinking of, the situation is even more complex, as the impression one is ultimately left with is that the "you" in the story is at the same time the narrator, but the effect achieved is the same: The reader is allowed to retain the role of the observer and experiences the story only through mediation of a character, just like in all other narrative persons.

The same is true of one commonly accepted application of I/you—the stories structured as correspondence—and Penny's idea about using future tense with I/you has merit, too. The former makes it clear to the reader that he's not the recipient of the letter; the latter should make for something akin to soliloquy. Ideally, the writer of the letter (or the soliloquist, as the case may be) will come across as distinctive characters, too, just like the 'usual' first person narrator.

In sum, of limited use though they may be, all these can be worthy and interesting stylistic tools—and devilishly hard to employ with success.

The I/you as we mostly know it, though, doesn't even rise to the level of interesting experiment, and the reason for that is its attempt to force the reader in the role of participant.

Lacking any of the clues that the reader is not the "you" addressed, the reader is, effectively, drawn in a conversation with the first person narrative voice indistinguishable from the writer. Since this writer insists that the enthusiastic responses to his actions are my very own, my side of it usually sounds a bit like, "No. Nope. No, I'm not. Actually, I think you look funny in these clothes."

This is the case where no degree of displacement is allowed, and anyone but the narrowest circle of those to whom the story caters is bound to have a similar reaction—or all sorts of different reactions, which is just as bad. The presence of a character as a mediator between the writer and the reader may well be the defining feature of fiction writing, and one that allows for reasonably unambiguous communication. While the two of us need not agree on our stances on, say, anal sex, we can happily concur that Sally, the character, gets off on it. Trying to eliminate this mediating feature leaves one with…well, something else than fiction writing, I guess.

As to the thread's main question—how to transform I/you stories into something more palatable and appealing to an audience bigger than one—a part of my answer is contained in the above.

Since I think anything better than the obnoxious reader-entrapment, I believe any of the proposed solutions will provide some improvement. Using the letter device, trying for a soliloquy feel, or better yet transposing the story in first, third, or even second person, will create at least a technical presence of characters and broaden the story's appeal at least a bit. Whether any of these will help the characters become engaging, however, is a different question, and I'm not too optimistic about that.

Written initially, in most cases, for a particular person, I/you stories conveniently bypass everything a writer normally sweats for. There's no need to make the characters compelling, since they already are, at least to that first reader. There's no need to make their actions plausible or understandable, either, since the first reader understands motivations and proclivities perfectly, odd as they may appear to everyone else. A stylistic revision alone, while procuring a neater product, won't be able to solve that. Unless one has written a veritable masterpiece in the I/you form, it's my strong suspicion that it's better to leave it to private consumption and start a publishable story afresh.

Oddly enough I look at an I/you story as not being a first second or third person tale but more of a conversation, with written pictures. Think about it, it tends to come across more as two people sitting there remembering something that happened to the both of them.

Well unless it is in a traded letter format of course.

Course it is really difficult to word in anything beyond a single scene format because it is very easy to get the two people confused and I turns into you and vice versa.

Though ummm I am confused, why is it hard to write in first person again? I only write in first person because that is how I have looked at the world and lived it. Third person besides being more or less the same thing as watching a movie with a guy who tells you what happens as it happens. So really, first person is hard for those who have never done the things they are writing about, for everyone else, it's simple.

Well at least it is for me. Milage of course will vary.

Verdad said:

The I/you stories referred to in the thread title, as has been already said, are rather a variant of first person.

Click to expand...

If this is true, I'd still like to know why correspondence is often cited among examples of second person. Is it that only a portion of a letter is written in second person perspective? I did a little research, but I couldn't find any credible source that explained it. I don't want to derail the primary discussion with a terminology debate, but I would like to know, so a link to anything definitive from a credible source would be appreciated.

Verdad said:

That some of us think of it as second person is probably a consequence of typically poor quality of these stories, entailing among else inconsistent point of view.

Click to expand...

Regardless of what label one chooses, I think this is an issue readers have with most stories featuring I and you, the perspective really isn't first or second person; but both- "I did this. You felt that." Headhopping at its worst.

pure said:

if "i" stories are difficult to write, ftsoa, i don't think they're hard to read.

Click to expand...

Excellent point.

pure said:

btw i don't see why people disqualify a book that's a series of letters of person A to person B. it seems to show that "i-you "works, if framed right; sharp distinctions of I and You, and no direct interactions of i and 'you'

Click to expand...

Did I miss where someone disqualified such a book?

pure said:

somehow the 'you' has to become real, apart from the reader. if not by a method of the three i mentioned, then, maybe by embedding.

Click to expand...

While this version perhaps would be more of a true story, wouldn't it also be a different story? Is such a change contrary to the concept of 'saving' the original?

Verdad said:

Since this writer insists that the enthusiastic responses to his actions are my very own, my side of it usually sounds a bit like, "No. Nope. No, I'm not. Actually, I think you look funny in these clothes."

Click to expand...

Too funny! And too true as well.

Verdad said:

This is the case where no degree of displacement is allowed, and anyone but the narrowest circle of those to whom the story caters is bound to have a similar reaction.

Click to expand...

I agree, such stories seem to be enthusiastically received by a narrow audience. Maybe it is better to just accept this and not try to fix them.

john-the-author said:

I'm pretty sure that the problem really is that first-person male just doesn't cut it with female readers as a general rule.

Click to expand...

I'm not at all sure this is a general rule.

emap said:

I am confused, why is it hard to write in first person again? I only write in first person because that is how I have looked at the world and lived it. Third person besides being more or less the same thing as watching a movie with a guy who tells you what happens as it happens. So really, first person is hard for those who have never done the things they are writing about, for everyone else, it's simple.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure. I tend to prefer a story told in first person if it can be, both those I read and those I write. Perhaps it's harder than I realize. I don't imagine having done the things in the story makes it any easier to relate them in one perspective instead of another.

some uls

List of second person narratives:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-person_narrative


Available on line:

"The Haunted Mind"
http://www.4literature.net/Nathaniel_Hawthorne/Haunted_Mind/

Excerpt available on line.

If on a Winter’s Night, a Traveler
http://www.italo-calvino.com/ifon.htm


A literary analysis of second person [difficult]:

“The Second Person: A Point of View?
The Function of the Second-Person Pronoun in
Narrative Prose Fiction.”


http://members.westnet.com.au/emmas/2p/thesis/0a.htm

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not bad little literotica "I/you" narrative.

"we finally meet," by 1kiki
http://www.literotica.com:81/stories/showstory.php?id=203270

I've followed this thread with growing interest. I don't believe it's so much that 1st person stories don't work--there are an awful lot of published works out there written in 1st person. I don't think they'd sell so well if they didn't work! So (sweeping statement time), I think what turns many of us off I/you stories is the use of present tense. It's a hard tense to work with--best suited to short works, because it's hard, if not impossible to move the story forwards faster than realtime. The action happens as it's written.

But 1st person in written in past tense is a different kettle of fish altogether. True, you're limited to a one person viewpoint, but as emap pointed out, isn't that how we all view our lives anyway? So in 1st person stories, you're free to explore misunderstandings (if you knew the other person's viewpoint, it'd spoil everything!). But better than that, you can really get inside the 'I' character.

After years of writing in 3rd person, I've started writing in 1st so that I can explore my character from within, use all 'my' senses, not impose them from an omnipotent height. It's really helped me get a sense of who they are. And there's a lot to be said for not being able to describe what the character looks like (unless they happen to look in a mirror, LOL), because then the reader can create their own image of what the character looks like.

But it's only been a recent thing, I'll admit. Not so very long ago, if I picked up a book in a bookstore and it was written in 1st person, I'd put it down again. I've no idea why. I guess somehow, somewhere, I'd picked up that 1st person was inferior to 3rd. It isn't. It's just different.

Lily

Thanks for the links, Pure!

Penny, a quick glance suggests I wasn't necessarily right about the terminology after all, i.e. that both I/you and you/he could be considered second person narration, and there's a lot more food for thought at those url's, too.

I hope to return to the thread with an additional thought or two, once I get to work through the texts. This one seems particularly interesting and exhaustive (though also exhausting!):

http://members.westnet.com.au/emmas/2p/thesis/0a.htm

I didn't know a story could be crap just cos of the POV. That's kinda scary.