On 2nd person

[Britva415]

2nd person I’d exciting because it demands a lot from the writer.

It demands a lot from the reader.

 

[Britva415]

The 2nd person opens up avenues for perspectival shifts

Not sure what you're describing here. Can you give examples?

 

[StillStunned]

I'm surprised at the number of people here that interpret a second person narrative as addressing the reader. I always think of it as giving me a peek into one character's opinions about another character.

I don't think 2P addresses the reader. But I think it cuts out the narrator, and goes straight from the writer to an amorphous character that they want the reader to identify with.

Where 1P gives the narrator a voice, 2P tries to project that voice onto the reader. The reader isn't asked to believe in a made-up character, they're asked to take on that character's role. If the reader is OK with that, they might enjoy the story. But it takes a lot of effort, I think, and can place them outside their comfort zone.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I would have to disagree.. The 2nd person opens up avenues for perspectival shifts. I don’t think it is any more limiting than 1st person.
Perhaps it boils down to comfort levels. 2nd person I’d exciting because it demands a lot from the writer.

First person is also very limiting.

 

[Bamagan]

I don't think 2P addresses the reader. But I think it cuts out the narrator, and goes straight from the writer to an amorphous character that they want the reader to identify with.

Where 1P gives the narrator a voice, 2P tries to project that voice onto the reader. The reader isn't asked to believe in a made-up character, they're asked to take on that character's role. If the reader is OK with that, they might enjoy the story. But it takes a lot of effort, I think, and can place them outside their comfort zone.

I'd argue is also makes one of the inherent general limitations of writing more overt: the need for focus. I think it's a little easier to accept that the narrator, first person or third, only describes the most relevant details of any scene or interaction. It's certainly more efficient from a time-management sense, and relatively few readers enjoy being subsumed by minutiae that don't contribute to advancing the story. In second person, though, assuming the reader is actually 'immersed' as intended, they have no ability to control the focus the way they're probably accustomed to in real life. They can't ignore details that seem extraneous, or pay closer attention to ones they might rely on in life, such as smell or texture. In 1P or 3P, if the reader deduces something about the plot, they can feel clever when their guess is proved right, but the action is happening to someone else, so it doesn't seem weird or frustrating that they don't act on your intuition (unless maybe you're the kind of reader who yells at the character not to open the door the murderer is hiding behind).

I'm not trying to dissuade anyone who likes it, I just don't think it is a net benefit for most stories.

 

[StillStunned]

I'd argue is also makes one of the inherent general limitations of writing more overt: the need for focus. I think it's a little easier to accept that the narrator, first person or third, only describes the most relevant details of any scene or interaction. It's certainly more efficient from a time-management sense, and relatively few readers enjoy being subsumed by minutiae that don't contribute to advancing the story. In second person, though, assuming the reader is actually 'immersed' as intended, they have no ability to control the focus the way they're probably accustomed to in real life. They can't ignore details that seem extraneous, or pay closer attention to ones they might rely on in life, such as smell or texture. In 1P or 3P, if the reader deduces something about the plot, they can feel clever when their guess is proved right, but the action is happening to someone else, so it doesn't seem weird or frustrating that they don't act on your intuition (unless maybe you're the kind of reader who yells at the character not to open the door the murderer is hiding behind).

I'm not trying to dissuade anyone who likes it, I just don't think it is a net benefit for most stories.

This is a very good point. It's probably why for my Writing Exercise snippet I chose a dream sequence.

 

[yowser]

Your example is not second person narrative. Your example is first person narrative because Grant is not telling the other character what he or she feels. He's just describing what would happen and what that character might do or feel during that event. As you point out with "Let's pretend", the reactions are not the only possible reactions. They are just possible reactions and leaves it up to the viewer to decide how those might apply to him or her. The use of "you" does not make it second person anymore than if a character said, "You would feel the same way wouldn't you?"

True second person is the author ("I") telling the reader ("you") how the reader feels, reacts, or has a particular emotion in response to some action by "I".

We need a better word (anybody know one?) for this. It is so easy at first glance to read the 'you' address and automatically go '2nd person!' And it is quite common on Lit (and almost as repulsive as 'true' 2nd person.)

 

[AG31]

that they want the reader to identify with.

I don't feel that I should be identifying with the addressee. On the contrary, I identify with the character doing the narration, the character/narrator saying "You....." The person being addressed could be a complete jerk. Often is.

they're asked to take on that character's role.

not when I'm the reader.

 

[SkyBubble]

Personally not a fan. I found this article and thought I’d share.

I had a creativew writing teacher who absolutely banned it. I think there might be extremely limited circumstances in which it's acceptable. But they're extremely limited.

 

[crookedletter]

Second person is hard to do well, but I think it can be done. And like anything else, in the right hands it can work. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is written in second person. It doesn't feel like it's talking to me, or assigning the reader themselves to that perspective character -- the person who inhabits that 'you' is a character with a name and a background and a personality -- it just adds to an overall sense of displacement and confusion that works for the plot and setting for the novel. I believe it won the Booker, if that helps convince anyone of its effectiveness (at least some critics thought it worked, for what that's worth).

I've never personally been tempted to use second person, but I wouldn't rule it out entirely. It's a tool I would consider using for a very particular sort of story -- though I'm not entirely sure what sort that would be, exactly.

 

[AoiEndo]

It demands a lot from the reader.

Any good writing ought to

 

[AoiEndo]

Not sure what you're describing here. Can you give examples?

Well, I suppose I am talking about the way the intradiegetic narration offers perspectival shifts is that they force the reader into the shoes of another: Ocean Vuong’s On Earth we are briefly gorgeous puts us in the shoes of a Vietnamese woman. Paul Auster’s autofictive short story You remember the planes turns you into a a young Jewish American boy post war. Shehan Karunatilaka’s Seven Moons places us in the after life, in the second half of the novel, Pahlaniuk’s The fight club, Camus’ The Fall, Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night..

Im just naming a few

 

[Britva415]

Well, I suppose I am talking about the way the intradiegetic narration offers perspectival shifts is that they force the reader into the shoes of another: Ocean Vuong’s On Earth we are briefly gorgeous puts us in the shoes of a Vietnamese woman. Paul Auster’s autofictive short story You remember the planes turns you into a a young Jewish American boy post war. Shehan Karunatilaka’s Seven Moons places us in the after life, in the second half of the novel, Pahlaniuk’s The fight club, Camus’ The Fall, Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night..

Im just naming a few

Oh, I see - the "perspectival shift" is just putting the reader into another pair of shoes.

I took it as you talking about perspectival shifts within the narrative.

 

[filthytrancendence]

The things I've written in 2P tend toward being more poetic and evocative, attempting to overtly illicit a particular feeling in the reader. And they've been short.

It'd be interesting to try in the context of erotica, but the idea feels very unnatural to me. That's probably just a limitation of my perspective (haha). I suppose I just find the immersive potential of 1P more natural for this context, if that's what I'm going for. I think it does a similar thing in the reader's brain, it's just more an invitation to immerse themselves into the head of a character, rather than meeting them with an implicit assumption that they already have.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm surprised at the number of people here that interpret a second person narrative as addressing the reader. I always think of it as giving me a peek into one character's opinions about another character.

People see real 2d person pov so seldom they don't realize what it is.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Personally, I refuse to read a 2nd person narrative. I hate being told what I did

So many people say that they hate 2nd person but also so many people love to leave the lead character ambiguous and fill-in-the-blank so that the majority of readers can self-insert. Indeed, self-inserting is staggeringly popular amongst readers, and many many writers purposely write with this in mind.

If it's all about self-inserting, 2nd person shouldn't be a problem, and any writer who says that they hate 2nd person should be physically describing his lead characters in reasonable detail, otherwise he's copping out 100%.

 

[Britva415]

People see real 2d person pov so seldom they don't realize what it is.

If it's addressing "you," the grammatical 2nd person, it's "real."

Whether that's intended to represent the reader or not, rather than simply address them as if they were a character, is a separate matter.

What distinction were you referring to? Which are you calling "real?"

 

[SimonDoom]

If it's addressing "you," the grammatical 2nd person, it's "real."

Whether that's intended to represent the reader or not, rather than simply address them as if they were a character, is a separate matter.

What distinction were you referring to? Which are you calling "real?"

No, that's not it. The key is the point of view, not the person being addressed. The person being addressed is irrelevant. If the story is told by an I addressing a you, then it is first person exactly the same as if I was addressing he or she. When I addresses you it is I's thoughts, not you's thoughts, that are revealed to us. This is the key to point of view.

 

[StillStunned]

No, that's not it. The key is the point of view, not the person being addressed. The person being addressed is irrelevant. If the story is told by an I addressing a you, then it is first person exactly the same as if I was addressing he or she. When I addresses you it is I's thoughts, not you's thoughts, that are revealed to us. This is the key to point of view.

Agreed. As soon as there's an I or me, it becomes 1P. Like I mentioned upthread, with 2P there's no narrator.

 

[TheLobster]

Agreed. As soon as there's an I or me, it becomes 1P. Like I mentioned upthread, with 2P there's no narrator.

Which sort of raises the question, why do we even call it a second-person narration? It's "narrative" in about the same way that a cooking recipe or an IKEA instruction is.

 

[filthytrancendence]

Which sort of raises the question, why do we even call it a second-person narration? It's "narrative" in about the same way that a cooking recipe or an IKEA instruction is.

I wouldn't call it that, personally. 2nd person perspective seems like the correct term to me.

But in any case, I think it's more that 2P attempts to flatten the reader and the narrator into one entity. And that's where both the potential strengths and many problems come from. There is a narrator in the sense that someone (the author) has laid out a narrative that will be followed by the reader. But there is not a clear line between the narrator entity and the reader. The reader is certainly free to disassociate from the narration, and I think that phenomenon is most of what people find off-putting about 2P. But the narration itself is attempting to essentially wrest control of the reader's internal monologue and put them directly into the headspace of the narrator entity.

 

[crookedletter]

Agreed. As soon as there's an I or me, it becomes 1P. Like I mentioned upthread, with 2P there's no narrator.

I don't see why it's any different from a third person narrator in that respect, though the scope is similar to first person or third person limited (you probably wouldn't have a second person omniscient). Sometimes third person narrators have personality, characterization of a sort, sometimes they don't. As long as a second person "narrator" only addresses the "you" of the perspective, I feel like there's room to play with that.

 

[Britva415]

why do we even call it a second-person narration? It's "narrative" in about the same way that a cooking recipe or an IKEA instruction is.

I see it differently: The recipe writer or instruction writer isn't narrating, they're instructing.

Whereas a 2pPOV author is narrating.

 

[AG31]

with 2P there's no narrator.

Can you give a snippet of example?

I think there are narrators who are characters (usually the case in "2nd P narration," and there are narrators about whome we know nothing. I have a hard time imaging a 2nd P story that doesn't reveal a whole lot about the narrator.

I agree that technically there's no such thing as 2nd person "narrative." There's got to be another term.

 

[XerXesXu]

Can you give a snippet of example?

I think there are narrators who are characters (usually the case in "2nd P narration," and there are narrators about whome we know nothing. I have a hard time imaging a 2nd P story that doesn't reveal a whole lot about the narrator.

I agree that technically there's no such thing as 2nd person "narrative." There's got to be another term.

2nd Person Point of View. The story-teller/writer/author/narrator tells only what 'YOU' are, do, see, say, hear, think or otherwise experience.

'Bright lights, Big City' - Jay McInerney.

You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time
of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is
entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy. You are at a nightclub
talking to a girl with a shaved head. The club is either Heartbreak or the
Lizard Lounge. All might come clear if you could just slip into the
bathroom and do a little more Bolivian Marching Powder. Then again, it
might not. A small voice inside you insists that this epidemic lack of clarity
is a result of too much of that already.