posted
I noticed after reading Eric's blog from his notes at the WOTF conference, that one of the no-no's were: "Do not write in second-person".
D'oh! That chops two short stories of mine, one the mumbling of a transfoming character to his dead mother, and then another where the character is chatting with a psychologist.
posted
A character mumbling to his mother is delivering a 1st person monologue, not writing in 2nd person.
In 2nd person, the author is making the reader the protagonist. "You walk down the hall. You see the evil robot monkeys. You pull out your hand grenade and toss it at them."
as compared to, "Mother, you won't believe me when I tell you what happened when I was walking down the hall. You told me the monkeys were there but I didn't believe you. You told me to always carry a hand grenade and I was so glad I did."
someone else will probably be along shortly to explain that better.
posted
Yeah, second person is annoying for one simple reason: It is the tense of the imperative. That means that first, it feels (from the reader's perspective) as though it is talking to me even if it is not. Second, it feels like a command.
If your narrative starts using the word "you" then you are using second person. Do not mistake this. I recently critiqued a story written this way that got an argument (not to bring that sore subject up again) saying it wasn't written in second person because that narrator wasn't talking to me, the reader. The "you" was somebody else. Bull. "You" is second person poitn of view. Whether or not it is a good option to use is entirely a different story, but let's at least be on the same page in terms of semantics.
I read a novel b7 Michael Resnick that used second person point of view for BRIEF chapters in betweeen sections. It turned out that this was a way to distinguish between two different time frames and once the story caught up with the "you" part it switched to "i." I thought it was...weird. I tolerated it because I liked the rest of the story but honestly, I thought it would have been better without.
That's my way of saying that even when it works, it doesn't really work for me.
quote:one the mumbling of a transfoming character to his dead mother,
Is that your Bigfoot story? As I recall, that was first-person, not second.
An example of second person would the "Choose Your Own Adventure..." series, where the reader is the POV character. Role-playing games also make use of second person POV.
It is difficult to do well because as the author you are telling the reader exactly what to do and how to feel. Being told what to do and how to feel is off-putting to most people. If people are put-off by the tone of your story, or feel as though they are being bullied through to the conclusion, you will lose readers. Losing readers cuts your audience which makes your story less marketable.
posted
Second person is very difficult to do well, and most such stories trigger the reaction "no, I'm not!" (I know at least one person who has that reaction to first person, however...).
Second person can be done well, and when it is, it is no more obtrusive than first or third, imo. I have seen second person stories in print, so they are not unsaleable.
posted
I always thought the first and last chapter of Needful Things (Stephen King) was interesting because it was in second person. He didn't really need those chapters, but it gave the book a touch of small town hospitality and intimacy. Glad he didn't keep it up for the whole book though.
Posts: 579 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Yep. I thought it was first person, but a few did mention it being in second. I didn't think it mattered either way until today. Even so, Cristine's post seems to indicate that it would be second.
Of course, I have a high school scene, and the blog related about the "No high school scene", and "No, dialect", the character is full of dialect.
posted
No, Bigfoot wasn't second. Second is like those old Choose your own Adventure books. Like: You jump through the hatch and run down the ramp. At the bottom is a patch of ferns and you decide to hide behind them. The aliens come tumbling out of the ship, hot on your trail. Do you? A. Stay put and hope they didn't see you. B. Jump up and run toward the school.
Oh, and actually it's the prologue and afterward in Needful Things.
posted
I still have Bigfoot in my critique file, so I looked at it. In the first paragraph when you are using "You", you have made sure that the reader knows this is a reference to Mama. Your first sentence sets it up perfectly so that we know it is a first person account being related to a particular person, other than the reader.
NewsBys write-up is a good example of second person.
posted
Here's the problem with the distinction some are trying to set up between a second person point of view that is addressing the reader and a use of "you" that is addressing someone else...say a character's mom. In both cases, the intended audience of the piece is "you" and that is who the narrator is talking to.
So if you say:
"Mom, I hate you. You were a terrible mother to me and you made my life miserable."
you are using second person point of view. Whoever actually does read this, the intended audience is the mother.
It is also written in first person point of view because you reference yourself.
posted
I actually like the secoind person in some respects. If it's done right, it can move the storyline along. Although it's a rare thing for it to be done right.
The best use I can think of would be to delve into the character's head. One that comes to mind would be Matthew Stover. I just finished reading (this makes me sound like a fanboy) his novelization for the new Star Wars movie. In it, the second person is sprinkled around. It's done tastefully, IMO. One of them goes like this:
quote:This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker, forever:
The first dawn of light in your universe brings pain.
The light burns you. It will always burn you. Part of you will always lie upon black glass sand beside a lake of fire while flames chew upon your flesh.
"Mom, I hate you. You were a terrible mother to me and you made my life miserable."
you are using second person point of view. Whoever actually does read this, the intended audience is the mother.
It is also written in first person point of view because you reference yourself.
I must be missing something, because I don't understand how that is second person POV delivery. Those sentences are appear to be delivered by a first person POV narrator. The narrator is talking to the mother and by extension, the reader. The reader can insert themselves into the story as the mother who is hearing the story, or reading a letter, etc., but the narrator is still telling the story from a first person POV.
Second person POV narration, is in the imperitive (as you mentioned before) and has different application (as has already been noted: Choose Your Own Adventure stories and RPGs. Second Person is also used in Technical Writing for instructions and recipes).
posted
wait, I think there's some conflation going on here.
there's *grammatical* second person, which is about verbs. I see, you see, he/she/it sees. "you see" is grammatical second person.
*narrative* 2nd person POV is more than just using "you." it's the attempt to have the reader be the one taking the action in the story. (you walk down the hall. you see the evil robot monkeys.)
but a 1st person monologue addressed to someone else is still 1st person even if it relies heavily on *grammatical* 2nd person. The narrator is still the person doing the telling; I'm not trying to make the reader be the narrator.
[This message has been edited by Beth (edited August 16, 2005).]
posted
I was writing in the first person, like htis, but I saw you were doing it differently. It bothered me what you were doing. I didn't think your way would be as effective. I didn't say anything, but I suspected you knew what I was thinking. The reason I didn't say anything was that you were surrounded by evil robot monkeys from outer space, and if I distracted you, they might jump you and make you one of them. You never did respect their powers enough, in my opinion. -- You wrote in the second person, like this. You thought I had no business telling you how to write your story, and if I gave one more critical post, you were going to snap and give me what-for. But you didn't. Instead, you thought about the evil robot monkeys from outer space, and how you could use them to establish second-person as a legitimate POV at Writers of the Future. That'd show me. That'd show everyone. -- So I'd say it's a question of who you're following, whose head you're in, rather than which pronouns you're using.
Posts: 2830 | Registered: Dec 2004
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