Writing 2nd person

I often hear complaints that 2nd person should not be used ... that it is rarely done well. However, I cannot think of any other way to write a letter, but in 2nd person.

Is this the only instance where 2nd person is acceptable, or are there other examples where 2nd person is best used, or should be used?

CharleyH said:

I often hear complaints that 2nd person should not be used ... that it is rarely done well. However, I cannot think of any other way to write a letter, but in 2nd person.

Is this the only instance where 2nd person is acceptable, or are there other examples where 2nd person is best used, or should be used?

Click to expand...

LOL -- I faced this challenge. I think I succeeded. Link in sig.

CharleyH said:

I often hear complaints that 2nd person should not be used ... that it is rarely done well. However, I cannot think of any other way to write a letter, but in 2nd person.

Is this the only instance where 2nd person is acceptable, or are there other examples where 2nd person is best used, or should be used?

Click to expand...

The only 2nd person piece that I've read that were well done are letters. I suppose the two are not mutually exclusive, but my only attempt at 2nd person is certainly not my best work.

Seems the biggest drawback is that the "You (this)" and "You (that)" can get tiresome. So, I guess the biggest hurdle to overcome w/ 2nd person is not to fall into that trap.

However, I'm at a loss for advice. Hence, it's 1st or 3rd person for me.

Edit - time to check imp's work.

I'm afraid I'm so ignorant of the niceties of the English language I wouldn't be able to recognise 2nd person if it barked in my face.

So I can't comment.

lil_elvis said:

The only 2nd person piece that I've read that were well done are letters. I suppose the two are not mutually exclusive, but my only attempt at 2nd person is certainly not my best work.

Seems the biggest drawback is that the "You (this)" and "You (that)" can get tiresome. So, I guess the biggest hurdle to overcome w/ 2nd person is not to fall into that trap.

However, I'm at a loss for advice. Hence, it's 1st or 3rd person for me.

Edit - time to check imp's work.

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I will check it out Imp. Well, LE. Hm, I do see your point. Do you ever break it up into I this and you that, or does that represent a shifting POV, and then I wonder (thanks a lot! )... how many shifting POVs can one use in a piece of writing?

CharleyH said:

I will check it out Imp. Well, LE. Hm, I do see your point. Do you ever break it up into I this and you that, or does that represent a shifting POV, and then I wonder (thanks a lot! )... how many shifting POVs can one use in a piece of writing?

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Based on imp's story, I'd say it's success owes to having a thrid person involved. Most of 2nd person is "you and me," but imp made it "you and her" so there was a certain blending of 3rd person with 2nd.

Doesn't hurt that it was well written and hot, with a good dose of humor.

Writing fear

Delete - sorry meant to be a thread of its own. NEEDMORE COFFEE!

impressive said:

LOL -- I faced this challenge. I think I succeeded. Link in sig.

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Very smooth, Imp. 2nd person is barely even noticeable. I have a question, though. In the notes field you say:

To top THAT off, it's in the present tense. Strike two.

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Are there rules governing that 2nd person cannot be in present tense?

What are your (or anyone elses) feelings about 2nd person (or first or third for that matter) shifting tenses from past to present to future?

CharleyH said:

Are there rules governing that 2nd person cannot be in present tense?

What are your (or anyone elses) feelings about 2nd person (or first or third for that matter) shifting tenses from past to present to future?

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No rules that I'm aware of. Just more comments that have been repeated here about likes/dislikes.


As for shifting tenses -- if your reader follows you & is not thrown out of the story, you've succeeded.

CharleyH said:

What are your (or anyone elses) feelings about 2nd person (or first or third for that matter) shifting tenses from past to present to future?

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I try to avoid shifting tenses. Personally, I find it confusing and jarring when I read a story where this happens.

If I do change tenses, I try to make it happen in only one block of the story, near the beginning to build the backdrop of the story and the main character. I did this in my latest Discovery. I'm not sure I'm happy with the results.

I just wrote a second person story I swore I never would, because it bothered me when other people did it. But, it was written for one specific person and somehow it works. A reader on the other site I posted it said it felt like voyeurism to read it because it's that personal.

Charley, if you're interested it's on a thread here, but I can PM you the full version. If not, that's cool. I surprised myself by writing it in 2nd person and having it be readable actually...

carsonshepherd said:

I just wrote a second person story I swore I never would, because it bothered me when other people did it. But, it was written for one specific person and somehow it works. A reader on the other site I posted it said it felt like voyeurism to read it because it's that personal.

Charley, if you're interested it's on a thread here, but I can PM you the full version. If not, that's cool. I surprised myself by writing it in 2nd person and having it be readable actually...

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Is 2nd person a sudden trend? lol, Its always good to know what authors at Lit are up too!

CharleyH said:

I often hear complaints that 2nd person should not be used ... that it is rarely done well. However, I cannot think of any other way to write a letter, but in 2nd person.

Is this the only instance where 2nd person is acceptable, or are there other examples where 2nd person is best used, or should be used?

Click to expand...

No, a letter isn't the only place second person is appropriate -- but most of the places where is appropriate are documents of one sort or another; i.e. orders, informal wills, etc.

Dialogue is another place where second person is appropriate in small doses -- where one character is talking to another, it's usually in second person.

My only problem with second person is when it is the only POV used in a story -- mostly as a way to avoid having to come up with names for characters. There are just so many bad stories out there written in second person for the wrong reasons that I've come to associate second person POV with a bad story. It takes a very deft touch to overcome that bad association.

Writing in second person always turns out horrible and ALWAYS turns me straight off from reading a story.

velvetpie said:

Writing in second person always turns out horrible and ALWAYS turns me straight off from reading a story.

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Then, how do you write a letter?

lil_elvis said:

Based on imp's story, I'd say it's success owes to having a thrid person involved. Most of 2nd person is "you and me," but imp made it "you and her" so there was a certain blending of 3rd person with 2nd.

Doesn't hurt that it was well written and hot, with a good dose of humor.

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Question: when writing "you and me", isn't it actually most often from the "me" POV that the story is most often told? Meaning it's 1st person?

A letter to someone would then be from a 1st person "me" perspective in relation to a fictive "you". But you're not IN the "you" perspective, just because there is a (fictive or real) one person audience.

CharleyH said:

Then, how do you write a letter?

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Dear Charley,

I hope you are having a good time and I'm sorry I can't come over to visit you. You are a really fun person to get sloshed with, and it bums me out that I'm stuck over here instead.

Liar said:

Dear Charley,

I hope you are having a good time and I'm sorry I can't come over to visit you. You are a really fun person to get sloshed with, and it bums me out that I'm stuck over here instead.

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I see your point. But, I was wondering the same thing you formerly posted (before this one).

In this way, you are always writing from 1st person, so where is all this second person in a letter. I am just completely confus'ed now.

CharleyH said:

I see your point. But, I was wondering the same thing you formerly posted (before this one).

In this way, you are always writing from 1st person, so where is all this second person in a letter. I am just completely confus'ed now.

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I don't see that a letter IS in 2nd person.

The only good 2nd person storytelling I've ever experienced has been in role playing games. Actual role playing around a table as well as text based adventure games have 2nd person narration.

"You are standing on a muddy road. To the north there is a white house, the road extends to the south. It is cold, you are freezing."

This is true 2nd.

If you just start that with "Imagine that you are standing..." it is beginnig to lean over into 1st person.

I don't see that a letter IS in 2nd person.

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My understanding of second-person perspective is that any writing involving "you" is second-person, regardless of whether there is also an "I". The "you" can even be implicit, such as in a set of instructions. Naturally, any second-person writing will also involve a first or third person narration style- but it's still second-person.

See also
http://radar.ngcsu.edu/~smcglaun/261Caut/pov.htm
http://www.carlhose.com/poisonpenguide.htm
http://www.absolutewrite.com/novels/mastering_pov.htm

I've heard that second-person is supposed to work in erotica, but I have yet to read the story where it works for me. The problem I have, and I think it's a common one, is that I don't like to be told what I'm doing and especially what I'm feeling and whether I like it- never mind when I'm the alleged recipient of a blowjob.

Charley said:

Is this the only instance where 2nd person is acceptable, or are there other examples where 2nd person is best used, or should be used?

Click to expand...

Acceptable? Even though I don't care for second-person, I'd never call it unacceptable. Letters work to an extent because the "you" involved is a character and not necessarily the reader. A piece written for a specific person might work in second person. And, it's just possible the right second person story could grab me too.

Impressive's story is far better than any I have read before, and I still didn't finish it. The charm of this tale is it doesn't take itself too seriously. The detached narration style is perfect, yet I was still jarred out of the tale the moment I had a painful erection. Are they really painful? Somehow, I doubt it. Even though the next part was amusing enough to lure me back in, I'm afraid I started skimming at the imagined blowjob. I still gave the effort a five because that's longer than any other second-person story ever held me and it did give me one really good smile.

Take Care,
Penny

my second person story *gay porn warning*

So I'm thinking....

you take me for a drive in the desert night, leaving behind the casinos and all the neon and the crowds... out into the sand and the rock, with a few clouds gathering over the full moon. You put the top down and turn on Madeleine Peyroux and she sings to us in the breeze as you drive.

the clouds are getting thicker now and my eyes catch a faint flash off in the distance.

"Smells like rain," you say as the charge of electricity ripples over you.

"Yeah." I stare up ahead at the gathering clouds as the flashes become more pronoucned. "Should we turn back?" I ask you over the rush of the wind and Madeleine's voice.

"Turn back? No way."

And you get a grin on your face as you push in the gas pedal, speeding ever faster toward the impending storm.

The desert night is lit up by the glow of the neon, like a sunburst from behind us. We can see the clouds rolling in and smell the thunder and taste the lightning. The flashes turn into spectacular bolts and the thunder rumbles, coming closer and closer. You reach down and turn off the radio and we just sit and listen to the storm as we speed into its mouth...

There's a convenient pull-over on the side of the highway and you slow and stop. You put the top up because your seats are leather, but as the rain starts to patter on the windshield, instead of watching it from inside, you reach for the door handle and turn to me with a smile.

"Come on. Get out."

I'm mildly surprised. I wouldn't have seen you as the dancing-in-the-rain type... but you are and so am I. So I get out of the car and you come around to my side and beckon me off into the sand, away from the road, as the rain starts to fall onto our shoulders.

I'm laughing, but not at you. I'm laughing because this is just exactly what I need, this giddy unencumbered freedom. The downpour washes away the stains from my mind and I fall on my back into a puddle with you above me. You grin as you draw my wrists to my sides, stretching my arms out, pinning my hands down like a mean older brother.... but not really.... because I don't fight or struggle. I catch my breath and my cock starts to harden as you press me into the ground with your weight and I can feel you hard against the top of my thigh.

The rain drips down from your face onto mine... it's a warm rain, but my clothes are plastered to me like a wet prison and I want to be free of them. I want us both to be naked and feel the lightning race down our spines while I lose myself in the feel of your wet flesh.

A hungry little growl catches at my throat as I reach up and tug at your clothes. "Get these off..."

You shift your weight slightly and you're sliding between my knees so my thighs are on either side of your hips and your cock presses into mine through the layers of wet cloth while the water streams down on us from the heavens. I gasp and thrust upward without even meaning to, rubbing against your cock... and I let out a little groan at the charge of lust that shoots through me like a bolt of lightning in the sky behind us.

"Let me fuck you," you growl in my ear and I only bite my lip and nod helplessly as a clap of thunder makes your spine jolt and your hips jerk against mine.

"Where?" I whisper back. "Here on the ground like wild animals or on the hood of your car, slipping and sliding in the rain?"

"I'm going to bend you over the back of the car and we'll do our own rain dance... I'll make it rain for you," you whisper as my hands pull you down into me. I am desperate, soaked, electrified.... lightning like strobe lights, the rain plastering your hair down.

I peel your shirt off your wet body. I don't want you to move off me, to lose contact with your cock, but you have to in order to struggle with your soaked jeans, while I wiggle with mine. No care of any cars that might come by; they wouldn't stop in this storm. It's just you and me under the dome of the sky with the desert all around, while it rains just for us.

You get to your feet and pull me up, pulling my soaked shirt over my head. Our wet skins slide together, hard nipples and gooseflesh from the chill, and I wrap my arms around your neck and lick up the raindrops that collect and drip from your chin. You laugh at my weirdness, but I don't mind. I grin up at you, and you catch the wet strands of my hair between your fingers and tilt my head back. I feel you laugh silently as your mouth comes down on mine.

Your tongue slips inside my mouth and I taste the sweet drops of rain on your lips... we are in a bubble of warmth, protected from the howling storm around us. Your hands catch my ass and you begin to back me up... I can't see behind me to walk, but you won't let go of me, you won't release my mouth from yours, you make me trust you as you push me backwards until my back hits the side of your car and slides against the wet metal.

I feel you grin and I reach between us and pop open the top button of your pants while rubbing the outline of your cock through the wet denim, cupping your balls with my palm, nibbling your bottom lip all at the same time.

Eagerly i pop open the rest of the buttons and your cock springs into my waiting hand... so warm and hard and smooth to my touch. I wrap my fingers around it and stroke its length and tease the head with my thumb while you catch a breath and bite your bottom lip slightly.

The rain still pelts us and a sudden crack of thunder makes us both jump... it's close now, right on us, and a sudden bolt of lightning splinters the darkness and hits the ground close enough for us both to feel the dull thud and the surge of electricity drowning our senses. It would probably be sensible to get in the car but instead it just excites me more, this assault of nature, and I drop to my knees and haul down your soaked jeans in handfuls, over your hips to your thighs. I grab your ass cheeks in both hands and a low, soft groan comes from your throat as you grab my hair in your fingers and tilt your head back to the sky.

Oh yes, I have to suck this cock. I have to lick its juicy tip and run my lips down the shaft, licking off the drops of rain before I wrap my lips and my tongue around the fat, swollen head and slide it to the back of my throat. You groan while you use your handful of my hair to draw my head back. Your cock is so big, you know I can't take it all on a normal day, but this is no normal day. The thunder crashes around us again and I grab your hips and pull you forward until my nose is buried in your wet curls and the streams down on my face, sheeting off your chest and you stare down at me with your lips parted hungrily, watching me suck you. The water is getting in my eyes but I just blink it out and look up at your eyes as the lightning flashes and lets me see your face.

Your cock hits the back of my throat; i moan and we both shudder. My own cock is straining against my wet jeans almost painfully but I'm too absorbed in you to really care much about it. I feel you twitch inside the warm confines of my mouth but then you're suddenly pulling back. You're taking it away and I grunt and greedily try to follow, but you haul me up to my feet. You taste your juices on my tongue before you turn me around to lean up against the car.

The metal is cool and wet against my chest as you press me forward and place my hands up on the edge of the roof, baring the back of my neck when my head drops forward. Your hands encircle my wrists and I feel your breath on the back of my neck and your nipples brushing my back as you press behind me. The rain had started to slack off just a bit and the rumble of thunder is more distant, the lightning not as fierce. Your tongue touches the back of my neck and I shudder. You know all about me and the back of my neck. Your chuckle tickles and I gasp as you gently nip at the base of my neck. My body shivers and you shift, pressing your hard cock against my ass.

"Feel that?" you ask in my ear.

I moan slightly because you're nibbling the outside edge of my ear.

"That's for you. After I slide my tongue inside you, I'm going to bend you over this car and fuck you until your knees can't hold you. That sound good?"

"Oh fuck yes," I whimper and my knees get weak just from your words as you lick the raindrops from my shoulder, tracing the Japanese tattoo on my left shoulder blade before nibbling up to my bicep. Oh yes you know all my weak spots...

your tongue traces a raindrop down the sensitive underside of my arm at the same time your hands slide up my arms to my shoulders and my toes curl. I throw my head back so the rain is falling on my face and my hips squirm greedily back against yours. Hands on my shoulders, down my ribs making me whimper, down to my waist while you lightly nibble my hairline. You roughly pull my hips backward against you at the same time you bite into my neck like a wild animal claiming its mate and I gasp. "fuck..."

"Mmm hmm." You growl in my ear and you pull open the buttons of my soaked jeans. The storm is passing us now, leaving a gentle steady rain in its wake that patters down on our skins. Your warm fingers wrap around my cock while your teeth steadily bite down on my neck, not enough to hurt but enough to make me whimper with lust and i grind my ass backward against the hard ridge of your cock while, with one hand, you peel down my jeans one side at a time and tug them down to expose my ass. I need this and I think you do too. We both need to be out of our heads, take me out of my life and up to the pinnacle of the sky so I can come down like rain.

Like the storm, our violent explosion has slowed into something deeper that sinks past our skin like the rain penetrates the desert floor. Your teeth skate down my spspine and I lean my head back against yours, reaching behind me to catch your hair in my fingers like seaweed floating through the waves and your hands cup my ass, parting the cheeks. I feel the tip of your cock nudging me, soft as an artist's brush, painting me with a warm, sticky trail. I want you to paint me... lie on my back while you take your brushes and paint me with a language only you know and mark me, tattoo me from the inside, finish the unfinished ink others have left behind.

You're sinking down. I mourn the loss of your hair in my hand at the same time I whimper for your tongue and your teeth and your clinging lips sucking the rain from my back and down to the base of my spine, where you lick an outline of a tattoo I might get someday. You lick it so thoroughly over and over till it's there even unseen and then your tongue darts and teases the top of my butt crack and I shiver, bracing my hands on the side of the car. I can hear you laugh and I know you're amused that I'm giving in this quickly, but sometimes I just want it to be easy. I don't want to fight and above the low black rainclouds, the desert sky is filled with a galaxy of stars and you'll show them to me so I'll know north from south and inside from out.

Spreading me now, pushing my thighs apart with your hands. I'm constricted by my wet jeans and you spread my ass cheeks with your warm hands and I feel your breath, and your tongue stroking my crack. I want to touch myself but if I do, I'll cum too fast and I want to experience whatever you're planning. Your tongue flicks the rim of my hole. Just a taste, a tease. My cock bumps the wet metal of your car but you hold me steady. Warm breath on my innermost places. Licking the raindrops away one my one, then tasting me again. I moan when your tongue dips inside me past the tight ring of my ass and I push back to get even more inside me, I want you filling me but you lick and taste me, I feel you growl in your throat like a wild animal and I want you to fuck me from behind, I want you to make the earth shake like the sound of lightning hitting the ground and splitting it wide open.

"Now," I demand. No pretty words, nothing memorable you can put in a story later, just this begging. "Now now nownow."

You laugh because that's what you want anyway. You've got your own words, prettier than mine. You just want me to need your cock reaming me while I beg for more. You get up and open the car door, rummage around in the glove box a second. I have to grin. My boy scout, always prepared. I close my eyes while you tear the wrapper and slick up with lube. The rain is down to a light mist now and the sky behind us is beginning to lighten to gray as the sun struggles. In the grayness your finger slides inside me and I moan. I grip the spoiler as you pull me back, spreading me wide, opening me. They slide in easily at first but it burns a bit when you add the third; I just bite my lip because I haven't had anything as big as you in a long time and I need this, and anyway I love the burn. I love the feeling of being stretched and it feels so intense, just a little pain mixed with the pleasure and then your fat and slippery cock head presses against me as you pull your fingers out.

You push inside me slowly and I gasp because it hurts but only for a moment; then fades to a dull tingling burn and you push in deeper. I want all of you and I push back because I need to feel every inch of you and my ass cheeks tingle where you've stroked and licked them. I drop my head and groan, yes fuck me hard, fuck me so hard, i'm your whore yours and nobody else ever, because no one has ever hit that spot inside me quite that way and you're relentless but not violent, just sleek and steady on and on like the rain that comes down on us and you're whispering to me, I'm sure it's something I'll want to remember but I really can't hear it, only the sound of my own hard and heavy breath and your balls slapping my ass.

Somewhere behind the clouds the thunder gives a last low rumble and you growl in your throat, your hips jerking a bit. You reach around and wrap your hand around my cock, you lean into me and when you stroke me expertly I'm suddenly done and I gasp in surprise as the familiar flash of orgasm builds in me and then strikes and my cum spurts out and down your hand where the rain washes it away.

"Oh fuck yes, your ass feels so..." You groan and I feel the way you're losing your rhythm, you're about to cum but all the sudden I pull away and spin, I drop to my knees and your hands are braced against the side of the car, your lips parted and eyes glazed as you watch me strip off the condom and wrap my lips around your cock. You taste of rain, you taste of salt and the sweet remnants of the lube and your cock is so big, I close my eyes and grab your hips and pull you into me, the wet jeans cut into my thighs like a rope and the feeling makes me tingle all over while I suck your hard shaft as deep as I can. I grip your ass. You cry out and your balls tense and you give that unmistakable hard twitch, and then a flood of your cum drowns me and I'm swept away in a river of rain and cum and your hand stroking the wet hair back from my eyes while you laugh in sheer amazement and unadulterated joy.

At last, exhausted, I pull away and your cock slips from my lips and gives one last little twitch. I lick the last drop of your cum from the slit and lean back against the car, exhausted but satisfied. You grin down at me and there's a sparkle in your eyes that I think has been missing. We laugh like a couple of idiots, and you pull me up and we pull up our wet jeans and sit down on the low hood of your car. The rain has stopped now and the clouds above us are breaking. The stars are gone, but the split in the clouds allows us to see the birth of the sun.

Close your eyes and picture it. Picture it for me because I don't know what it looks like. I've never seen what you see, so I have no words to describe it. I don't know the patterns of the desert, or how the mountains look looming in the distance like a sleeping giant. Are there birds chirping, I don't know. The spectacular colors painting the undersides of the clouds as the sun breaks through are only for you to see. Maybe you can tell me about them someday.

We sit on the hood and just watch it all unfold in silence, together but alone, the way we both always are even when we're with someone. It's a good feeling to be totally emptied out. You light a cigarette and I raise my eyebrow because you're not supposed to be smoking, but I don't say anything and you just grin a small guilty smile and inhale deeply. The night is gone and the desert morning spreads out, bringing its heat. You crush out the cigarette and lean over to me, brushing your lips over the tattoo on my right arm.

"Come on, I'll take you out for breakfast."

"Biscuits and grits?" I ask hopefully. You laugh and make a face. You can get anything in Vegas, except grits probably.

"Nah, but I know a place that has great lobster macaroni and cheese."

Penelope Street said:

My understanding of second-person perspective is that any writing involving "you" is second-person, regardless of whether there is also an "I". The "you" can even be implicit, such as in a set of instructions. Naturally, any second-person writing will also involve a first or third person narration style- but it's still second-person.

See also
http://radar.ngcsu.edu/~smcglaun/261Caut/pov.htm
http://www.carlhose.com/poisonpenguide.htm
http://www.absolutewrite.com/novels/mastering_pov.htm

I've heard that second-person is supposed to work in erotica, but I have yet to read the story where it works for me. The problem I have, and I think it's a common one, is that I don't like to be told what I'm doing and especially what I'm feeling and whether I like it- never mind when I'm the alleged recipient of a blowjob.


Acceptable? Even though I don't care for second-person, I'd never call it unacceptable. Letters work to an extent because the "you" involved is a character and not necessarily the reader. A piece written for a specific person might work in second person. And, it's just possible the right second person story could grab me too.

Impressive's story is far better than any I have read before, and I still didn't finish it. The charm of this tale is it doesn't take itself too seriously. The detached narration style is perfect, yet I was still jarred out of the tale the moment I had a painful erection. Are they really painful? Somehow, I doubt it. Even though the next part was amusing enough to lure me back in, I'm afraid I started skimming at the imagined blowjob. I still gave the effort a five because that's longer than any other second-person story ever held me and it did give me one really good smile.

Take Care,
Penny

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Ah, the clouds are beginning to break. This is also something I have known for quite some time. Perhaps then, this is precisely why I do not notice 2nd person, (when 2 characters are involved) and yet it seems to SCREETCH and terrorize me from the page everytime it is adressed to me, the reader.

Good - good - good.

Penelope Street said:

A piece written for a specific person might work in second person.

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that's what mine was... spontaneous, not planned, and definitely not supposed to be a second person narrative.

carsonshepherd said:

that's what mine was... spontaneous, not planned, and definitely not supposed to be a second person narrative.

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And it's an excellent write at that... Carson.

CharleyH said:

Then, how do you write a letter?

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Very succintly.