On 2nd person

[Kelliezgirl]

That’s kind of exactly what (at least some of us) are talking about, except without the “choose” part. Just straight rails.

I can see that finding example links is called-for. That will have to wait till I’m on a better device later.

And you completely missed the point.
Examples aren't necessary, thanks

 

[Britva415]

Yes. Specifically, the observation by AG1 that the writer Jay McInerney could be the MC in that snippet. He probably was, he was writing in a 'knowing' way to his literary associates using Second Person POV.

Do you want to give us an example of what you describe? Abstract discussions are rarely illuminating.

All right. Here goes:

I'm looking at today's story lists, starting with the EC category. What do we see...

Bingo, I knew I would find one.

https://www.literotica.com/s/mid-night-interlude

"You" is a specific character. It isn't the author talking to theirself, it isn't a generic figure which anyone at all might stand theirself in for, it's an actual character with a concrete and specific relationship to the narrator character.

I think you/one could replace 'you' with 'one' in this story, but if you/one did, it would be an utter bastardization of the author's intent, unlike the BLBC snippet we regarded. It would be replacing some very specific person the author had in mind and the narrator is directly and personally interacting with, replacing them with a generic and impersonal idea of a person, not concrete at all. It would turn this actualized narrative into a hypothetical.

That's the thing I wanted to contrast. It isn't about exclusive vs. inclusive in the way you mentioned, it's a different utility of the 2nd person: It's about actual vs. unrealized. You/one couldn't replace "you" with "one" in such an example. It's about personal vs. impersonal. It's about narration vs. ideation.

Maybe this story isn't a perfect example, because it's actually a clearly first-person story. The narrator is "𝐈'ing" all over the place. But she's not narrating about herself and third persons, she's narrating about herself and a "you" person in second person voice.

It's my response to your observation about "some people treating 'you' as 'one'." Because I agree: There are some pieces of writing where that's a reasonable way to treat it, but, that doesn't account for the entirety of the technique and it doesn't address what's objectionable about 2p narrative because it's not objectionable. Your BLBC exercise in replacing "you" with "one" shows that that's an example which still can stand even if the voice is changed because either way it's about a generic, unpersonalized object.

But stories like the one I found (they come along every single week if not every single day in New Stories around here) aren't like that at all. Not linguistically and not narratively either. And this is what some people seem to be either unaware of entirely, or, eschewing discussions about them because - heck, I couldn't say why. Maybe because 2p declarative narrative dictated to a specifically personified "you" are just seen as so bad that they aren't worth discussing? But I feel like they're exactly what should be discussed because they're what we see so much of around here.

It doesn't serve any purpose to talk about 2p narrative while also saying "but, oh, not those ones, those don't even count." Or maybe it does - maybe the purpose is to just dismiss them as crap because, as someone else called it, the "choose your own adventure [but without choices]" style (italics mine) is not to be taken seriously at all, even though people are publishing it around here all the time.

 

[Britva415]

And you completely missed the point.
Examples aren't necessary, thanks

I'm honestly not sure. Maybe I did. Or maybe I'm making an orthogonal one which you're free to ignore if you want, but it's a broad discussion with lots of opinions.

 

[Britva415]

Well, we aren't talking about choose your own adventure.

Actually I want to thank you for putting a name to what I've been talking about all along. This really puts a fine point on why so many 2p stories are so clunky - because they DO read like a "choose your own adventure" story, but one without any choices.

The only reason 2p even works at all for those kinds of books is because the reader is making the choices. So the narration has to address them as "you." So, "you" has to be the protagonist. It's clunky to read even in a choose-your-own-adventure book, but at least in one of those there's a defensible reason for writing it that way and a way in which it kind of couldn't be written differently.

And this is why the kinds of 2p stories I've been talking about aren't like the kinds of 2p stories you've been talking about. You've been talking about ones which aren't like this, and all I was trying to do was point out that stuff is being written which doesn't fit the picture you were painting - and that, yes, there in fact were people talking about it.

Maybe what you meant to say was you weren't talking about the choose your own adventure style?

 

[Britva415]

I'm kind of tickled by the idea that maybe the 2p stuff I dislike so much is universally regarded as so bad that nobody even wants to talk about it in the same breath as the other, ostensibly more lofty, effective, justifiable and successful versions of ways to use 2p narrative. "That's not what we're talking about! And we aren't going to!"

Even if I'm just imagining it and nobody thinks that, I still like it.

 

[SimonDoom]

All right. Here goes:

I'm looking at today's story lists, starting with the EC category. What do we see...

Bingo, I knew I would find one.

https://www.literotica.com/s/mid-night-interlude

"You" is a specific character. It isn't the author talking to theirself, it isn't a generic figure which anyone at all might stand theirself in for, it's an actual character with a concrete and specific relationship to the narrator

I see this example as first person, because the narrator is I. It's problematic because in places the i narrator purports to know what you is thinking and feeling, and there's no explanation how I could know that without mind reading. I think we as readers are being asked to give I some creative license. But the license doesnt make it second person. But this short story clearly is predominantly in first person.

This story illustrates that it's more interesting to talk about what the particular POV in a story is trying to accomplish than to figure out what label to put on it.

 

[Britva415]

this short story clearly is predominantly in first person

Maybe this story isn't a perfect example, because it's actually a clearly first-person story. The narrator is "𝐈'ing" all over the place. But she's not narrating about herself and third persons, she's narrating about herself and a "you" person in second person voice.

As you can see, I agree, but I think that the very heavy inclusion of second person grammatical voice and the reader's ostensible position as the character being addressed are representative of a particular kind of second-person storytelling which effectively illustrates what I was saying to @XerXesXu and which 100% deserves to be part of the conversation.

 

[Britva415]

Or not



I don't fuckin' know

 

[XerXesXu]

All right. Here goes:

I'm looking at today's story lists, starting with the EC category. What do we see...

Bingo, I knew I would find one.

https://www.literotica.com/s/mid-night-interlude

"You" is a specific character. It isn't the author talking to theirself, it isn't a generic figure which anyone at all might stand theirself in for, it's an actual character with a concrete and specific relationship to the narrator character.

I thought I'd come across a discussion of this before, so I asked Copilot. Apparently, it's called Apostrophic Narration - second-person address within a first-person narrative. Examples are "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz, "Citizen: An American Lyric" by Claudia Rankine and "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehesi Coates.

From 'Citizen: An American Lyric'.

'The rain this morning pours from the gutters and everywhere else it is lost in the trees. You need your glasses to single out what you know is there because doubt is inexorable; you put on your glasses. The trees, their bark, their leaves, even the dead ones, are more vibrant wet. Yes, and it’s raining. Each moment is like this—before it can be known, categorized as similar to another thing and dismissed, it has to be experienced, it has to be seen. What did he just say? Did she really just say that? Did I hear what I think I heard? Did that just come out of my mouth, his mouth, your mouth? The moment stinks. Still you want to stop looking at the trees. You want to walkout and stand among them. And as light as the rain seems, it still rains down on you.'

 

[AG31]

with 2P there's no narrator.

What do you call the person in the story who’s saying “you?”

Precisely. The person in the story who's saying "you" is the narrator. @StillStunned, I think you addressed this, but I was away for a day and don't have it in me to plough through these 4 pages to find it.

I don't see 2P as telling me what I am thinking or feeling. I see it as listening to the MC's internal monologue.

Yes, yes.

2p is her telling you your story.

No, no.

Or maybe I'm making an orthogonal one which you're free to ignore if you want, but it's a broad discussion with lots of opinions.

i was all excited to find a new word, but when I went to get a definition and compared it to what you said I find I'm as ignorant as ever about how to use orthogonal.

or·thog·o·nal
/ôrˈTHäɡən(ə)l/
https://ssl.gstatic.com/dictionary/static/promos/20181204/pronunciation.svg
adjective

1. 1.
   of or involving right angles; at right angles.
   
   
2. 2.
   Statistics
   (of variates) statistically independent.

 

[Britva415]

orthogonal.

Two different points can be made, without them being contrary to the other.

They're going in different directions.

So, it doesn't have to be taken as a challenge if someone makes a point and someone else makes a different point which doesn't negate the first one.

So, instead of an axis of discussion, such that there's one pole and another pole and all points lie in between, "orthogonality" describes a plane of discussion, where not every point is on some particular axis.

A plane, at a minimum. It could also be a whole space - a volume. Or any number of dimensions.

 

[Britva415]

2p is her telling you your story.

No, no

Say more?

 

[AG31]

Say more?

I don't think the reader enters into a 2p story. The narrator is addressing a fictional character.

 

[Britva415]

I don't think the reader enters into a 2p story. The narrator is addressing a fictional character.

OK, I do get that. But that's "orthogonal" to the point I was making (see what I did there), which was:

Whoever "you" is, whether it's literally intended to be the actual reader, or instead a fictional character whose shoes the author has put the reader in and who the narrator has in mind when they're addressing "you," 2p is that person being told their story by the narrator.

It was a contrast to what the other poster had said, which was that 2p is the narrator telling herself her own story. I don't deny that - that is definitely one of the ways which 2p is used. But not the only, or even the most common way. In by far most of the 2p stories I see, "you" is not the narrator talking to herself. It's the narrator telling some other person that person's story.

So my statement "2p is the narrator telling you your story" doesn't have to be taken to mean "the reader" is "you." Whoever "you" is, they're being told their story by the narrator.

So, you know, sometimes it's true that, to the narrator, "you" is their own self and so they're telling their own self their own story, but that is hardly universal. Far from it.

 

[AG31]

whose shoes the author has put the reader in

See, this is what I don't agree with. I don't feel like the author has put me in the "you's" shoes. I'm just being given a peek at the relationship between the author and the "you" character.

 

[Britva415]

I don't feel like the author has put me in the "you's" shoes.

I mean it in the most prosaic way possible - there's nothing deep about what I meant. I wasn't talking about the reader's feelings or experience or immersion or suspension of disbelief, I was talking about the author's choice. The author knows that you, a reader, are in the position of the character being addressed.

The author knows that it's a reader and not the character who's reading/hearing/receiving all of those "you's," because the character is not real.

This is the perspective that the author is giving you. I understand maybe it doesn't feel like you're the character, and sometimes making you feel that wasn't the author's intention, but that doesn't take away from the fact that the way the author wrote it, they're putting the reader into a position which receives that character's perspective.

"In their shoes," so to speak.

One doesn't have to feel it to simply acknowledge it as a bare matter of practical fact.

 

[AG31]

The author knows that you, a reader, are in the position of the character being addressed.

I don't agree. I think the author knows the reader is watching the author address a fictional character.

 

[StillStunned]

Sometimes you know it's going to hurt. Like that split second before you bite your tongue. You know it's going to happen, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

My entry for the Born to Run challenge is 2P. It has to be. It's based on the song "Night":

You get up every morning at the sound of the bell
You get to work late and the boss man's giving you hell
'Til you're out on a midnight run
Losing your heart to a beautiful one
And it feels right as you lock up the house
Turn out the lights and step out into the night

But that's alright, because it's cyberpunk and stream of consciousness, so everyone is going to love it! Aren't they?

Only got three hours in the Night, no point wastin’ them, dodge the cars on the street, tyres hissin’ on the wet black, headlights puffin’ in the murk, go see Faisal about a knife, somethin’ slim, fits up your sleeve, razor trigger and sharp as shit, ask around, maybe someone’s seen Beth, seems unlikely if Freddie can’t track her, but only a shit for brains wouldn’t try, and what you know, Hazy Janey knows somethin’.

“Yeah, I seen her, three days gone, bought a pair of ghosts for her eyes.”

Thanks Janey, now you know something, she got ghosts in her eyes, means she was expectin’ trouble, trouble of the Night kind, specifically somethin’ involvin’ the Maximum Lawmen, but why would a gang of conmen involve some kid fresh out of school, what does she bring, what sets her apart from all the alley rats and shitmongers you see everywhere you look in this City, huddled in corners, waitin’ for the fuckin’ rain to stop, does it ever, can’t remember last time it wasn’t rainin’, Beth got that legit jack implanted in her skull, got it done up at school, that’s what the Lawmen want from her, a legit jack with high access protocols, all traceable back to Beth but what do the Lawmen care, not a fuck that’s what, if she ain’t dead yet she will be soon, either by the Lawmen or by whoever they’re rippin’ off, gotta figure out if the deal gone down, means goin’ into Lawmen territory, so time to jack in, done all the preparin’ you can, quiet spot so you can adjust without bein’ hit by a car, against this wall, broken neon flashin’ overhead, bit of shelter from the rain too, deep breath, deep breath, here you go, jack it in, fingers fumblin’ why they fumblin’ done it so many times always fumblin’ and it’s in and the connection hits and–

 

[StillStunned]

Hey everyone, I only went and did it: Into The Night.

I think this story uses 2P more like a choose-your-own-adventure, without the choices, than my previous attempts. It's more an explicit "imagine this...". Inviting the reader to immerse themselves in a fictional character in a fictional world and go on an adventure.

I didn't have any particularly lofty intentions as I was writing, but rereading this thread has made me ponder the use of 2P again. It seems to be that it *can* be used (not going to state anything in absolutes) as a pure form of storytelling. Remember being a kid and asking for a story, and being told, "Once upon a time there was a happy little erotica writer, just like you in fact, with the same yellow ears and the same dead eyes..." Alright, maybe not quite like that.

But storytelling used to be about inviting the listener into the story. To picture themselves experiencing the events of the story and becoming the hero or heroine. Because deep down I think we all like to hear stories about ourselves, and even if the story isn't actually about us, it's nice to imagine being thought of as the hero or heroine.

"What about a story?" said Christopher Robin.
"What about a story?" I said.
"Could you very sweetly tell Winnie-the-Pooh one?"
"I suppose I could," I said. "What sort of stories does he like?"
"About himself. Because he's that sort of Bear."
"Oh, I see."
"So could you very sweetly?"
"I'll try," I said.
So I tried.
- From: Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I don't want to belabor this point, but 'can be' and 'should be' are two very different things.

 

[StillStunned]

Sometimes the story wants to be told, and it has very specific demands as to how. In this case, its inspiration came from Springsteen's song "Night", which is told in 2P POV.

And how come it's fine for songs to use 2P, but not stories?

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Sometimes the story wants to be told, and it has very specific demands as to how. In this case, its inspiration came from Springsteen's song "Night", which is told in 2P POV.

And how come it's fine for songs to use 2P, but not stories?

I tried to call Bruce when he put that song out. He's not taking my calls.

 

[StillStunned]

I tried to call Bruce when he put that song out. He's not taking my calls.

His loss.

I've been wondering whether he knows of the Born to Run challenge. I can almost imagine him hanging out on his favourite erotica site and seeing the announcement, and having to wait all this time to see what people have written.

 

[ICantLeafYou]

I've written two stories in this POV and aside from one or two comments about that aspect, they've been received about the same as the rest of my stories.

I didn't put intentional thought into which POV I was using, it's just simply how the words were coming to me when I began the story and I kept at it for the rest of the piece. Both stories are short and purely porn, no plot to speak of aside from a man just getting his rocks off.

 

[UnexpectedLuggage]

Second person and present tense are two things that will make me dip out of any story immediately.