Writing Exercise: You Can't Believe You're Going To Try This

[TheLobster]

Y’all who are arguing whether it is really 2P PoV or not… Have you realized that all you’ve done is fall into a trap cleverly laid by @StillStunned ?

 

[millamomud]

Genette doesn't deny second-person narrative either.

He simply classifies it under narrative voice rather than treating it as a separate point-of-view category.
"Second person" is fully acknowledged as a mode of address, but Genette focuses on voice (who speaks) and focalization (who perceives) rather than the grammatical labels of first/second/third person.

 

[millamomud]

Y’all who are arguing whether it is really 2P PoV or not… Have you realized that all you’ve done is fall into a trap cleverly laid by @StillStunned ?

It’s literally the perfect teacher’s trick.

 

[StillStunned]

Writing it in past tense immediately throws it out to an external narrator.

For it to work, second person has to be present tense, I reckon, for it to have the slightest chance of working. You've got to put me into "now", with the immediacy, no way to escape from what's happening now, or is going to happen next.

I'm inclined to agree, but because I've had fun experimenting with techniques, I'm also inclined to see if I can think of a way that 2P POV might work in the past tense. Well, you know, as much as 2P ever works.

Second-person POV isn’t defined by eliminating "I," it’s defined by addressing a "you" who performs the central actions. Internal reactions of the narrator don't change POV, they only define focalization.

Genette doesn't deny second-person narrative either.

He simply classifies it under narrative voice rather than treating it as a separate point-of-view category.

From what I remember of Genette, we're talking about two completely different things. Without going into levels of literary analysis that are, to put it bluntly, beyond anyone's scope of interest but a handful of academics and critics, with very little bearing on actual reading and writing, "point of view" is literally "whose perspective does the reader see the story from?" Who's behind the camera, as it were, not who's in front of it.

Your snippet above is what most of us call faux-2P: it looks like 2P, but there's still an "I" holding the camera.

 

[StillStunned]

Y’all who are arguing whether it is really 2P PoV or not… Have you realized that all you’ve done is fall into a trap cleverly laid by @StillStunned ?

It’s literally the perfect teacher’s trick.

I wish I could take credit. But I'm afraid this has just grown organically. Like it or not, 2P POV has a mind of its own, and it's spreading like a virus!

 

[millamomud]

On a side note: that was probably the first creative thing I wrote in my non native language in about ten years.

 

[StillStunned]

On a side note: that was probably the first creative thing I wrote in my non native language in about ten years.

That's great to hear! One reason why I post these Writing Exercises - besides my desparate need for attention and validation - is to offer an easy and low-barrier opportunity for us all to try something we might not otherwise consider.