OC's SRWQ #4: 2PPOV

[Op_Cit]

Please don't confuse this as a rant.

I personally hate/detest/loath seeing second person POV. The mere sight of the word "you" outside of dialog in the opening two paragraphs will makes me hit the back button without hesitation.

But I need to know that I'm not missing something important about writing by my personal writing squick (if you can call it that).

SO:

Is there any thing good about this POV? Or what is a good use of it (outside of a writing intended for a specific individual)? Does it only show up in sex stories because the authors find it easier to write towards someone they know?

I've considered trying it to test myself. That is, trying to write a piece that will not alienate the reader (like when "you" is supposed to be a woman, and I'm not) yet hold his/her interest. But my personal dislike of it has kept me from it.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I tend to agree. I think that the basic difficulty of 2PPOV is that it's much harder to suspend disbelief. Telling me a story about what you personally did, or about what someone else did, only asks that I believe that some random person did it. Tell me a story about what I did asks a whole extra level of suspension and buy-in.

It's more intimate. I suspect that's why we see it so often in erotic prose. But that intimacy can be resented if it feels unwarranted - as it so often does. From a loved one, it might be endearing; from a random stranger, it tends to feel instrusive.

Just my two cents.

Shanglan

 

[inkstain]

i read one or two "stories" like this here, and they mostly read like cyber or phone sex. they aren't really stories to my way of thinking. you'd be hard pushed to eke any narrative out of them.

ink

 

[Op_Cit]

It wasn't 2ppov, but I remember really hating the perspective that Scott Turrow's (SP?) first novel was written in... does anybody remember what it was? An did it bug anyone else?

"Presumed innocent"? was that the name?

 

[neonlyte]

It's more intimate. I suspect that's why we see it so often in erotic prose. But that intimacy can be resented if it feels unwarranted - as it so often does. From a loved one, it might be endearing; from a random stranger, it tends to feel instrusive.
Shanglan

To some extent it is the whole purpose for using 'I' - it is, or should be, about exposure, intrusion on someone else's life. I think you need to be careful how you use it, I tend to use it to 'lift the lid', have the narrator lay their soul bare, it doesn't work (for me) if used in a boasting fashion.

 

[Evil Alpaca]

I understand the "why" of 2ppov stories, as some people want to use them as ways they feel will draw the reader in, but too often I've seen this used because there isn't anything else about the story to do it. Some people use eloquent language, steamy sex scenes, and some use plot and characters, all of which I find preferable. Like others, this isn't a condemnation of the style, but it just feels contrived to me more often than not.

 

[brightlyiburn]

I've seen this before on lit. On occasion, I use the word "you" when writing, but not in this manner.
I was asked at one point to be an editor. This guy as me to read and give him my opinion on a story he was writing as a gift to his girlfriend.
Among numerous structure problems that made it unreadable (there was a paragraph that was three pages long) he used this point of view. It made me feel distinctly uncomfortable. At the same time, it also felt void of emotion and substance. In essence, this sort of writing attempts to tell the reader what feelings they should get from their reading. I have yet to see a story done well in this manner.
That being said, this man, when I told him I was a tough critic, informed me that he was in the military and had thick skin. I politely told him the problems in his structure, why I felt they were problems, and what he could do to make them more readable.
I never heard back from him.
That was pretty much the end of my career as an editor, though.

 

[TheEarl]

I'd say that 1st person is for getting inside the skin of the narrator. 2nd person is to try and get inside the skin of the reader. It only really works with short, directed stories to a target audience IMHO. It can be well done, but it's far too easy to do badly.

I'm waiting to see if anyone will ever try a 2nd person future tense story .

The Earl

 

[cantdog]

It could be a rant for all of me. I use it strictly in letters. It's very hard to read a story done that way, for the reasons Shanglan stated so eloquently. I do not, myself, understand the "why." I think a person is misguided to use it.

I read a novel in first person who was directing his words to an in-flight recorder as a sort of suicide note (Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor). Its pages were numbered backward, even. If I hadn't been asked to read it by my sister, I'd have never begun. The "you" the character spoke to, though, was a collective "you," the people who would hear the recording. The author never told "you" what "you" had done or, even worse, were now doing. For me, then, it was really first person, but it was as close to second person as I ever want to get. I thought the page numbering thing was hokey and unnecessary. It was an amazing quirky story, though. Palahniuk wrote Fight Club.

The worst are the ones in present tense, besides. Gawd. It has to be someone I know and love for me to even read second person. Even then, I never vote on them because I find the experience of reading too awful and I'd only bring them down.

There you have it.

 

[Poussin]

.....

 

[neonlyte]

I have never myself read a story where I would feel comfortable with the author's use of "you". I think it might be possible though for a very skilled writer who would put the reader in a voyeur position, at least in theory.

There is, however, a very beautiful but greatly disturbing short piece by Marguerite Duras that comes to mind. It is called "L'homme assis dans le couloir" ("Man Sitting in the Corridor" in English I verified before posting). It is a haunting piece, the kind that stays with you forever, the kind you read out loud but only to someone very close. It is neither a short story nor a poem but a little bit of both. She never uses "you" (tu) but she achieves the same effect. She uses "on" in French which is a form of the third person singular that is usually translated by "we" but "on" excludes the person talking (So in theory the "we" would be the equivalent of "you"). It remains uncomfortable for the reader and that was the purpose yet it is incredibly beautiful at the same time. As the reader you feel like a spectator while the narrator describes the scene that is taking place before your eyes. I'd be curious to find out how it has been translated, if they used "we". That might be worth taking a look at...

Brilliant Dumas work and exactly the point I was trying make in my first post. The book was originally banned in Canada under obscenity laws.

It has also been 'produced' as a ballet with a voice over reading of the story. I've seen in performed in France - to call it erotic would be to understate the performance.

The story is available in English - look for the Barbara Bray translation - for around £4.00 (6.00$USS)

 

[English Lady]

I think when you see the "you" thing going on in stories here at lit that more often than not the story has been submitted as a gift for that persons loved one. I think really thats probably one of the only ways it's going to work.

 

[brightlyiburn]

I think when you see the "you" thing going on in stories here at lit that more often than not the story has been submitted as a gift for that persons loved one. I think really thats probably one of the only ways it's going to work.

Am I the only one who finds the prospect of my lover writing a dirty story for me, especially one about feigned rape or something, and posting it on the internet, to be not at all romantic or loving?

 

[cantdog]

LMAcompletelyO

"Then you begged me to fuck you with the calabash. 'Put that thing in my ass, Richard,' you said."

Richard, thousands and thousands of people have read this! What the hell were you fuckin thinking!?

I thought it would be romantic!

Wooo hooo!

 

[Poussin]

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