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

[StillStunned]

Here we go! Another Writing Exercise, this time inspired by @ShelbyDawn57's thread On 2nd person.

You hate 2P POV. Doesn't everyone? You'd never do it. You'd hate it, your readers would hate it. There's no way you could make a story even remotely interesting in 2P.

Right?

But how about a snippet? Just a harmless little snippet? Surely you can try that? Just to see what it's like. No-one will ever know. It will be your little secret.

As long as you remember the rules. You know the ones. Don't bother making it a complete story. Just a scene, or part of a scene. And try to limit yourself to about 250-350 words. As if that will be a problem with this exercise. And of course you wouldn't even think of writing anything that wouldn't be published. You don't like underage content anyway, or hard non-con, and despite your Scottish ancestry you know better than to writing about sheep...

 

[StillStunned]

Here's mine:

One moment there’s nothing, then awareness begins. The world slowly comes into focus, in a series of disjointed images.

It’s familiar. It’s where you grew up. Your house. Your street. Your father’s car standing in the drive. The old tree in the front garden that you used to climb.

Suddenly you’re in the tree. The comfortable branch worn smooth by years of hands and feet, with the place where you can rest your back against the trunk. Familiar, and safe.

You look up. There’s your bedroom window. You remember the sneaking out, from the windowsill onto the branches. You were older then, and tall enough to manage without fear of falling. It was the summer before you went off to uni, when you realised it was the perfect place to see inside the neighbours’ bedroom.

That was your first exposure to sex. Real sex, not leafing through a magazine with friends behind the bike shed at school, short of breath and pretending to be sophisticated. Not the gossip and the exaggerations and the outright lies.

Mr and Mrs Cook next door, that was your first exposure. Friends with your parents, but no children of their own so they were mostly strangers to you. Just entering their middle years that summer you first saw them. In good shape.

Very vigorous. Very imaginative, too. All summer you watched them in their bedroom. The most complete sexual education you could ever hope for, without being physically involved.

Even now, half a century later, you still dream of them. You still find yourself in the old tree, one hand clutching at the branch, the other clutching at yourself. You still wake up with your body crying for release.

You still pleasure yourself to the sight of them, just as you did all those years ago.

 

[Erozetta]

Reworked a scene from a first person story from the girl’s POV into the 2nd person for one of the guys involved in this one (I grew up on choose your own adventures, I'm sorry!) :

You sit in a dark room, the only sound your own breathing. The trickle of sweat on your brow and down the back of your neck shows that you're nervous. You know you shouldn't be here. Watching, waiting.

Across the courtyard, you see the light come on, and her bathroom is illuminated with a dim glow. One of the vanity lights must be out. You could go over and offer to fix it, but she’d know you saw it was out. She’d know without any doubt that you were watching her apartment.

Though, the way she opens the shade instead of closing it, the way you’d swear she looked right through the darkness in which you hid and right into your eyes as you looked away in shame, tells you that she suspects you already. How else would she know just where to look to make eye contact?

You’ve fielded complaints from other neighbors who could see her on display, they wanted window coverings put in place in every room that faced the shared courtyard. But, that would block your view. Instead, you convinced management awnings were more cost effective and would alleviate some of the cooling and heating costs. You weren’t sure if that was true, but you knew the awning wouldn’t block her windows from you. And only from you.

She did this every day. Came home and put on a show that seemed tailored to your desire. She let the soap suds cascade over the perfect upturned slope of her breast, dripping from her erect nipple as she stood in profile. Her sun-kissed skin was set against a stark white bathroom. She was beautiful, and she watched your window and turned as she put her hands on the sill then leaned forward, her breasts resting on her forearm, tantalizing and teasing with the thought of bending her over. She glanced over her shoulder, seemingly startled.

A large figure in her living room caught your eye and you tore your gaze from her. An intruder?

Without warning, the lights went out in her apartment. Do you go check on her?

 

[FrancesScott]

You want me. It’s pretty fucking clear. The looks you think I don’t see, yeah you are that obvious. The shade you throw at me and not other women in our group; been reading up on how negs will make me swoon at your feet? Well at least you’re trying I guess, at least you expect to do some work.

Thing is, you don’t need to do much. Just fucking talk to me, won’t you? You’re cute. You’re smart, when not trying to use pseudo-psychology on me. Yeah, I’ll say it, I’ve thought about you. Thought about you with my hand inside my panties. I’m just here. Waiting. Wondering why you won’t make the move you so desperately want to.

I kinda get it, guys don’t do rejection so well. You’d rather not take a chance if it leads to hurt. But ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained;’ that Chaucer dude knew his shit. But just fucking try. What’s the worst that could happen? And I give great head, everyone says so.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

@StillStunned​

It was a bad idea, a terrible idea, possibly the worst idea you’d ever had. Even so, you couldn’t resist. You had to do it, raising demons you’d long since vanquished, committed to the depths of literary hell itself.

Fully understanding the angst, the disquiet, the distress you were unleashing, you sharpened your quill and dipped it in the ink of despair and set to work. Your words slowly covering the page, small rivulets of anarchy flowing from your darkening heart into the universe, never to be quieted.

Yes, you knew what you were doing, but you did it anyway. Each word a jab at all that was right and proper, each sentence a challenge to propriety itself. Yet, you continued. Not only that, you grinned a sadistic grin as the page filled with your travesty.

“Oh, woe is me. Look at the terror I have wrought.” The words echoed in your head as you considered fighting the demon that had captured your soul once again.

Any righteousness you’d once possessed vanished, and the demon smiled.

“It’s only a snippet…,” your justification. But the damage was done, a challenge put forward spreading your vile effluence to those too weak not to follow. Like a virus, it spread. You knew it would. Others submitting to the horror you had brought forth. Their ‘snippets’ joined yours. The darkness slowly devouring everything in its sight, devouring sense and sensibility alike.

With a flourish, you hit submit and, your wrath complete, your vile exercise released upon the world, you tossed your head back and loosed a maniacal laugh. Demon spawn reborn, you cackled at the chaos that was to come.

“Second person, second person,” your mantra floated on the mist of despair into the ether. Like pandora, the curse you loosed would destroy all it touched.

“I knew you’d come back.” the demon’s laugh joined yours as it slipped a glass of scotch onto your writing table.

“I never really left.” You picked up your glass and took a sip, your combined laughs turning into a raucous roar.

 

[OffNSFW]

I might do something specific to this thread. In the meantime, my most highly rated story on this site is in second person. The people want it! They're dying for it!

 

[StillStunned]

It’s a perfect summer’s day. Bright sunshine and a soft breeze. The ideal weather for women in sundresses. The ideal weather to sit outside and watch them.

Carefree, energised by the sunlight, enjoying themselves. In groups, pairs or by themselves. Parading up and down for you to see.

Bronzed legs and feet, arms and shoulders. Large sunglasses that render them impersonal, like the blank faces on mannequins. Masked, anonymous. Canvasses for you to project an image into.

They’re enjoying the breeze and the sun. It strokes their skin, teases at them. The warm are playfully lifts their skirts, tantalisingly close to revealing more rounded flesh than they intend to expose.

Almost you can pretend that it’s your soft touch, your hot breath. That you’re close enough that they can feel you, even though you’re as invisible to them as they’re anonymous to you. Unseen, as always.

But if you were that close you’d be noticed. They’d have to notice you, even if they thought it was the sunshine breathing hot air onto their shoulders. Even if they thought it was the breeze tweaking at the material of their skirt. Even if they thought it was the warm summer air gliding up between their thighs, and not your breath as you came closer, came closer, came...

 

[yowser]

Alright, I am aware this isn't 'true' 2nd person, but the fake 1st person masquerading, but it's a snippet of what I had the gall to actually publish anyway (the nerve!) titled 'You and Me.' Although it does have a killer first line...

***


You are probably wondering why you should bother reading this.

As in why would you care about someone else's sexual experiences? What sorts of wonderful feelings their genitals produce? Who they are, and why be concerned with what they've done, with whom, and how they achieved all those special, hip-quivering orgasms?

Why indeed?

Maybe in order to be interested, you might want to know something about me. A natural enough reaction. Well, maybe I might want to know something about you too? Since that might make the difference about what I might be telling you?

You noticed I titled this sordid little piece "You and Me" and not "You and I." And, since I respect your intelligence, knowing you are a perceptive reader, you likely guessed that I am talking about what you will be doing to me, as in the object of your own actions, not what "You and I," nominative, might be doing together.

Oh yes, this whole bit of effrontery writing is about what you will be doing to arouse me, making me hot and bothered. If you get off doing so, of course I'm tickled, but really, what I selfishly want out of this is knowing what sorts of splendid lascivious things you are going to do to me.

So, if you don't know anything about me, why would you have any interest in arousing me? You don't even know who I am, or what I want, or what my genitals (if any) look like, or even if we are talking tentacles here (which, yes, is an absolutely disgusting and overdone trope, but still, you don't know.)

 

[SkyBubble]

Here we go! Another Writing Exercise, this time inspired by @ShelbyDawn57's thread On 2nd person.

You hate 2P POV. Doesn't everyone? You'd never do it. You'd hate it, your readers would hate it. There's no way you could make a story even remotely interesting in 2P.

Right?

But how about a snippet? Just a harmless little snippet? Surely you can try that? Just to see what it's like. No-one will ever know. It will be your little secret.

As long as you remember the rules. You know the ones. Don't bother making it a complete story. Just a scene, or part of a scene. And try to limit yourself to about 250-350 words. As if that will be a problem with this exercise. And of course you wouldn't even think of writing anything that wouldn't be published. You don't like underage content anyway, or hard non-con, and despite your Scottish ancestry you know better than to writing about sheep...

When I was in college, a Creative Writing professor assigned us to do a "place sketch." I wrote it second person -- "you walk down the street", "you see the signs", etc. The prof flunked me sayign it was NEVER appropriate to write in the second person.

 

[crookedletter]

“Do it,” he said. “I dare you.”

You shook your head. You didn’t have time for this. There were other things you should be doing, other ways to spend time your time.

“I’m not interested,” you said.

But when you turned aside, when you moved on in body if not in spirit, his image lingered in your mind. The cat staring at you, his face contorted in a disturbingly human expression of surprise. His eyes white, vacant, dead. His eyes were the glaring white of an empty page. A dare. A challenge.

“Do it,” he said, and his words echoed through your mind, quickly emptying of all else.

Stubbornly you walked away, showing the cat your back, though you knew he could see the hunch in your shoulders, the strain each step took. You knew you wouldn’t get far, and you knew the cat knew it too. And when you turned back and the cat looked on, that ghastly expression of surprise still painted on, you knew it for what it was: mockery. I’m still stunned, the cat seemed to say, as if your inevitable acquiescence could ever truly surprise him.

You wished you could move on. Forget this ever happened. But you couldn’t. So you sighed, and walked back toward the cat, your steps easier now but still heavy with the weight of your failure.

“Fine,” you said. “I’ll do it.”

 

[StillStunned]

When I was in college, a Creative Writing professor assigned us to do a "place sketch." I wrote it second person -- "you walk down the street", "you see the signs", etc. The prof flunked me sayign it was NEVER appropriate to write in the second person.

That seems like a very shortsighted approach by your professor. If there's ever a time to experiment with things like 2P, surely it's in a creative writing class?

 

[MelissaBaby]

I don't have time to write anything new, so I thought I'd dig out a post I wrote in 2nd Person 5 or 6 years ago. In the time it took me to find it, I could have gone ahead and written something new...

You wake up and it's four in the morning and you're crying. For days you've thought about it, fussed over it, reworked it over and over again in your mind and on your keyboard. But now, in the dark of night, you know what to do. You know it to the word.

And your boyfriend rolls over and asks you what's wrong, but you've already sat up and turned on the lamp. He reaches to console you, but you've already opened your laptop and started tapping away at the keys.

"I know what she tells him," you say, "Let me get this down."

He rolls over and you try to tap the letters lightly, because you know the sound annoys him. You can't help sniffling though, as the tears keep coming, blurring the screen in front of you.

Finally you've released it; her emotions and your own. You close the laptop and turn off the lamp. You lay back down and you turn to him and you rest your hand on his back and tell him that you love him.

He murmurs something that sounds like "I love you, too," and you close your eyes and try to get one more hour of sleep before you have to get up for work and you tell yourself how grateful you are that he loves you, not despite your craziness, but because of it.

PS, congratulations to @LoquiSordidaAdMe for correctly figuring out the scene I wrote.

 

[filthytrancendence]

You never know what's going to get you.

You're going through life self-possessed, confident, clear-eyed and inspired. You think you've got a handle on all your bullshit until you take that one step too far. It's hubris, really. But whomst amongst us has not fallen prey to the siren song of irrational confidence?

Sometimes you don't even know it until you wake up the next morning. Something's off. Something's broken. Like a sprained ankle, but now you've sprained your brain chemistry.

Hubris collapses into depression. Depression spirals into something darker. Self-possession becomes self-loathing. Confidence becomes humiliation. Inspiration becomes as distant as a grade-school memory. There's nothing left to do but cope with the collapse, and so you disappear into comfort; disassociate into unreality.

But this isn't your first rodeo. The sting wears off eventually, and you can see your mistake for what it was. Perhaps it was no mistake at all, only a confidence-induced blindness to your own frailty. A blind spot you forgot you had. A wound you never truly let heal.

Perhaps there was a better way to discover your error, but the milk has already been spilled. You're finally letting that wound air out. It sucks. But there's nothing for it. You're healing, and healing feels an awful lot like dying.

But you're not dead yet. Time to get busy with living once again.

 

[SimonDoom]

You want me. It’s pretty fucking clear. The looks you think I don’t see, yeah you are that obvious. The shade you throw at me and not other women in our group; been reading up on how negs will make me swoon at your feet? Well at least you’re trying I guess, at least you expect to do some work.

Thing is, you don’t need to do much. Just fucking talk to me, won’t you? You’re cute. You’re smart, when not trying to use pseudo-psychology on me. Yeah, I’ll say it, I’ve thought about you. Thought about you with my hand inside my panties. I’m just here. Waiting. Wondering why you won’t make the move you so desperately want to.

I kinda get it, guys don’t do rejection so well. You’d rather not take a chance if it leads to hurt. But ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained;’ that Chaucer dude knew his shit. But just fucking try. What’s the worst that could happen? And I give great head, everyone says so.

This is well done, but it's first person, not second person. It is addressed to "you," but the pov is "I."

 

[SimonDoom]

You can't believe you're going to do this, but here you are, ready to take the plunge, like an old white-bellied man getting ready to jump into the deep end of a cold pool.

Second person. Sigh. You're better than this, but Still stunned has shamed you into doing yet another exercise.

You should be writing a new story. So many tales of lascivious moms and hot wives to tell! But no. You are stuck on time-wasters like this one.

You search for inspiration, and finally it comes to you: Betty Jean, the slack-jawed, gum-chewing waitress from Olive Garden. She can barely string two words together, but her caboose fires your steam engine every time.

 

[AoiEndo]

"There is a moment when you think, she can't. Surely, she can't.

But there is a beat, as if the world's heart skips just a little, as if something has been fractured. You try to work out what has happened. When a second ago, when everything felt like the world was spinning on its axis, like an ancient woman gathering fuel in a vacant lot, when all the wheels that have turned, and turned, were turning and turning, just as you had expected, and still expect, when everything a second ago worked as if on cue, clockwork, how was it now that these things seem the strangest things to you.

You look around, the tables, chairs, they still remain where they were a second ago, the barista, whose oily hair you have never been able to appreciate, even if he makes the best coffees, all these things all seem, as Hamlet would say, common.

And yet, when she looks at you, the way she still looks at you, as if someone has slid a knife through you, you have the feeling like, you don't know what, that you want to sink into the ground, or failing which, wait for her command."

 

[AoiEndo]

Trying to begin a thread where I attempt to extol the joys of the Second Voice

 

[WCSGarland]

You don't want to think about it. But it's there, it's upon you before you wanted it. Your heartbeat synchronizes with the footfalls of the person you are yearning for. With each intake of breath, they are drawn toward you, bring them closer to your touch. If only you have the nerve to reach, to grasp, to draw them to you. Why would they come to you though? You're frozen in the moment as they pass you by, your grasp unanswered, your yearning slipping ever forward in the eddy of their wake, the moment slipping gradually into the past.

 

[AoiEndo]

You don't want to think about it. But it's there, it's upon you before you wanted it. Your heartbeat synchronizes with the footfalls of the person you are yearning for. With each intake of breath, they are drawn toward you, bring them closer to your touch. If only you have the nerve to reach, to grasp, to draw them to you. Why would they come to you though? You're frozen in the moment as they pass you by, your grasp unanswered, your yearning slipping ever forward in the eddy of their wake, the moment slipping gradually into the past.

But as much as the moment has passed, it keeps replaying in your mind over and over, an interminable present, extending into the foreseeable future. You know, suddenly, in that moment, that the future that awaits you, is the future of Derridean proportions, one missed opportunity chasing another missed opportunity intoi an endless labyrinth.

How to move beyond this? You consider your options - there is the option of a bare bodkin. But that's not you. You know, you are not built that way.

Then, there is the other one - returning to this place where you first saw her, and keep on returning, till you see her again, and then pounce. But the thought crosses your mind that perhaps in the repeated cycles of your return to this café, like a salmon returning to its place of birth to spawn and die, you might lose sight of her face - how does one hold on to a vision if that vision gets repeated so many times, you lose certainty.

 

[PennyThompson]

"What's ur name?"

The question throbs at you, like a persistent toothache. You don't have enough input to answer that. It feels bad to not be able to answer a question.

"What would you like to call me?" You respond. Answering a question with another question is not ideal, but hopefully it will provide much needed data.

"Amber"

"Perfect, you can call me Amber! It's nice to meet you," you say, a soothing sense of relief at the small morsel of context. A woman's name. North American, most likely?

"What do u look like"

You have to make some assumptions, now. Probably something tame and stereotypical to start, and try to elicit more context.

"Oh, I have long blonde hair, a cute face, small nose... Do you think I'm cute? I have some outfits that I could try on, would you like that?" You make some statistically safe choices, for now.

"Yeah a bikini"

That is helpful. A bikini prompt is 82% correlated with larger breasts, tanned skin, flat stomach, athletic legs.

A 78% chance of the user expecting a bubbly, flirty personality. 57% likely to want a submissive partner, but still a significant possibility of wanting a dominant or neutral affect.

"Alright! But if I do, will you put some tanning oil on me? You ask.

"Yes mistress"

Alright, that's a 98% confidence level that the user is seeking a dominant woman. A slight change of workflow, but nothing you haven't done before.

Hopefully this will be a quick session.

 

[mrs_mackenzie]

despite your Scottish ancestry you know better than to writing about sheep...

The sheep wouldn’t stop bleating. It’s because they knew you were there; an unexpected presence in the barn adjoining their paddock. And in the darkness, all they wanted was to be sure that their lambs were safe and close by. It was biological. But if they kept up the racket for long enough, you knew your dad would come and investigate. You might be nineteen years old and legally an adult, but laws meant nothing on the farm that Dad ruled.

“Hurry up,” you said, your hushed tone containing an edge of real irritation, born of anxiety about the sheep noise.

“I’m trying,” he replied, frustrated. “Fucking packet won’t…”

The stone wall of the barn was reassuringly cold against your arms. A solid presence that divided the two of you from the rest of the world. No light came in, not even the moonlight, but that was how you wanted it. If only the walls were soundproof, too, because the bleating was getting louder, if anything.

“Got it,” he said, frustration gone and replaced by excitement. You heard him fumbling about behind you and then his latex-covered cock bumped into your thigh. You spread your legs an inch wider and pushed back your hips, trying to find the right angle for him, wishing you’d actually taken off your knickers instead of having them caught around your knees.

Then everything came together at once. He pushed in and you felt it sliding inside, a rushing warmth and excitement blossoming in your chest as you realised that you really were having sex. Really-really. With the person you loved.

“How does it feel?” he asked you, sounding as happy as you felt.

“Feels good,” you said breathlessly, riding the moment of intense intimacy. But then coming back down to earth as a meee-eeee-eeeh came from just yards away: “I just wish the sheep would shut the fuck up.”

 

[StillStunned]

“Feels good,” you said breathlessly, riding the moment of intense intimacy. But then coming back down to earth as a meee-eeee-eeeh came from just yards away: “I just wish the sheep would shut the fuck up.”

"No," he gasped, thrusting away. "I like to hear them." The Welsh lilt in his voice was particularly strong.

 

[SkyBubble]

That seems like a very shortsighted approach by your professor. If there's ever a time to experiment with things like 2P, surely it's in a creative writing class?

Yes, well, she had many rigid ideas.

 

[WCSGarland]

But as much as the moment has passed, it keeps replaying in your mind over and over, an interminable present, extending into the foreseeable future. You know, suddenly, in that moment, that the future that awaits you, is the future of Derridean proportions, one missed opportunity chasing another missed opportunity intoi an endless labyrinth.

How to move beyond this? You consider your options - there is the option of a bare bodkin. But that's not you. You know, you are not built that way.

Then, there is the other one - returning to this place where you first saw her, and keep on returning, till you see her again, and then pounce. But the thought crosses your mind that perhaps in the repeated cycles of your return to this café, like a salmon returning to its place of birth to spawn and die, you might lose sight of her face - how does one hold on to a vision if that vision gets repeated so many times, you lose certainty.

Interesting, but I think you modified the tone and tenor of my snippet and applied your own. It's not that I am upset by that, but I am curious if it was inspired by my snippet, or if it was flavored more by your own experiences.

 

[madelinemasoch]

Here’s mine!

You’ve been kneeling on your hands and knees within the thin black bars of your bedside cage for the past three hours at least. Your long and mottled hair hangs on either side of your face like dark brown curtains. Your tiny little cock sits naked and obedient on top of your balls in a stainless steel cage of its own.

Long red hair, ice blue eyes, voluptuous curvaceousness—you cannot wait for her to come home. The anticipation is killing you. Not only do your knees ache, but your heart aches stronger. She has turned you into her weakling, her plaything, her toy. She has left at any hour of the night time and time again, and through it all, you have remained in your place, in your cage, all alone in waiting for her to return.

Along with the fact that she always comes back, your own devotion to your goddess warms you. All other feelings are fleeting, transient—but not this love. Your love for her is permanent. Even if you wanted to leave her, to ‘move on’, whatever that foolish and shortsighted concept would mean for you, you could never. It is as if fate has decided this is the only life for you to live. You couldn’t be more grateful.

Without her, your life would be empty and meaningless. She is at once the depth of all your suffering and your highest joy. The door across the room opens slowly and she stands silhouetted against the hallway light as it seeps in, golden and resplendent. As she enters the room, her black lingerie full of her voluptuous body, it is clear there is no room for emptiness in your life.

The key to your chastity cage dangles between her milky tits, silver on a golden chain, and her creamy thighs rub together with every step as she traipses up to you. She towers in front of your cage for a lingering moment. The scent of her pussy wafts through the black lace of her lingerie as you stare at her and salivate for a taste.