Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Tequila Rose

This is topic Tequila Rose in forum Fragments and Feedback for Short Works at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
http://www.hatrack.com/ubb/writers/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=11;t=002849

Posted by bigdawgpoet (Member # 7046) on :

Flash fiction, 998 words. Looking for readers.
This is a strange piece, my first experiment in 2nd person.

First 13:

You sit beside me on the couch, your feet crossed on top of my mahogany coffee table. The TV in front of us is on. You ask me if we have to watch this stupid documentary about the supernatural.
“Paranormal,” I say. You look confused. “Paranormal. Not supernatural.” You roll your eyes.
The only light is from the fireplace on the west wall. It bathes the entire room in a soft, flickering orange glow; the shadows in the corner dance and sway. We have been drinking a little, and there is an open bottle of Tequila Rose, half-empty on the coffee table. On the end table beside you is a short glass, empty except for a little Rose.
The narrator on TV is talking about demons. He makes a few statements, and the interviews begin.

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited December 17, 2007).]

Posted by aharown07 (Member # 6638) on :

I'm not crazy about 2nd person and present tense, but I'll read more if you want to post or email or whatever the procedure is (I read all the procedural stuff a while back but don't remember how it's supposed to be done)

Posted by TaleSpinner (Member # 5638) on :

Hi Ben,

I got taken to task a while ago for using second person, so I thought I'd share some thoughts.

Here's why I don't think it works here. I read the "you" as meaning me. I don't react to things the way your "you" does, so when you tell me what I'm doing, I'm thinking "No, I wouldn't." I'm constantly being jerked out of the story, protesting.

For example, if we knew each other well enough for me to cross my feet on your mahogany table, I wouldn't call your TV choice "stupid", nor would I roll my eyes.

And if we were drinking Tequila we would most definitly not be watching TV--at least, not if you were as pretty as you'd need to be to get me to sit through supernatural documentaries.

Which begs the questions, who are you and who am I? If we are a couple then if you're the guy and I'm the girl, I can't identify with "you" (me). If you're the girl--well your name's Ben, what do you or any other man know about how women think? ;-) And if we're both guys, well, I wouldn't sit through a TV programme I don't like, I'd be off down the pub.

So you see, telling me how I would react doesn't work for me.

That's not to say it won't work for anyone, but we're told that second person is not popular.

Hope this helps,
Pat

[This message has been edited by TaleSpinner (edited December 16, 2007).]

Posted by annepin (Member # 5952) on :

I agree, second person is problematic. I'm able to delve into it, but only for a short time--as in a few hundred words. I don't know if I could read that way for nearly a thousand.

Posted by skadder (Member # 6757) on :

Just because you use the word 'you' a lot doesn't make this second person, does it? I am confused because it still seems as though the POV is still first person...

I have never tried it so I don't really know.

Posted by nitewriter (Member # 3214) on :

I agree very much with TaleSpinner. The problem with this POV is I read what "I" am doing, and think no, I wouldn't do that, I would do such and such. Out of the many story collections I have, only three stories are in 2nd person and I will not read them - it is just too frustrating and distracting. There is, after all, a reason this POV is so rarely done.

Posted by supraturtle (Member # 1518) on :

2nd person is rough; very hard to keep from a 'telling' story. I'd be interested if you can pull it off. Send it.

Posted by rickfisher (Member # 1214) on :

You're right, Skadder, that using the word "you" a lot does not, by itself, make anything second person. But this does more than that. In fact, this is first and second person at the same time.

First person means the narrator is a character. Third person means the narrator is NOT a character. Second person, on the other hand, means the READER is a character; it makes no claim about the narrator. Thus 2nd person can be placed in either a first or third person framework.

And, no, it doesn't work, except that it's possible to get used to (just like present tense). After a while, if the reader sticks with it long enough, he'll stop paying attention to the "you" and start treating it like a "he" or "she," as appropriate.

IF the reader sticks with it long enough. It takes me longer than present tense does to start ignoring it.

Posted by TaleSpinner (Member # 5638) on :

Skadder's question provoked a modicum of curiosity in my brain too, darn it. So I visited my friend Google and found out somewhere that second person is often used in instruction manuals. I can imagine you could tell parts of a story like that...

The routine's always the same for an alien fighter: Once aboard your personal space craft you check the canopy's shut real tight because you don't want hard vacuum messing with your air supply. Then you calibrate your navigation systems because flying into a planet that's occupying what you thought was empty space can get awful bumpy. Finally you light the engines, release the brakes pray your mechanics tightened all the bolts--and wham, the stars blur into streaks as you blast away from the mothership and eyeball your displays for signs of pesky aliens ...

Pat

[This message has been edited by TaleSpinner (edited December 18, 2007).]

Posted by Alye (Member # 5017) on :

1st person omnipotent or 2nd?

To me 2nd POV should be more like ‘zork’. “You turn left and walk down the hall. It is dark. Are you sure you want to go in there? A Grue might eat you.”

It needs to involve the reader and not tell the reader how they feel. First I felt left out because I don’t know what sex I am. Very disjointing, as I’m really male, but I kept feeling that I was being pulled in to a female roll. Don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong with that, but in 2nd person there needs to be a clear definition of self upfront. Without it the reader will be bouncing in and out of character, causing the story to halt.

I’m not sure which POV you are going for here. If its 1st person omnipotent, is there a reason why main POV can see in to others heads, or why they are telling me what I am doing? If its 2nd person you need to consider revising it to be only through the eyes of the ‘you’ we need to be seeing through their eyes.

What you have here is some one sitting on a couch telling me what I am doing.

quote:
You sit beside me on the couch, your feet crossed on top of my mahogany coffee table. The TV in front of us is on. You ask me if we have to watch this stupid documentary about the supernatural.

‘You sit beside me on the couch’, is trying to establish 2nd person POV. ‘The TV in front of us is on’ puts the story in a shaky 3rd person. ‘You ask me if we have to watch’ puts the story firmly in 3rd person. Because its no longer ‘you’ doing something, it’s now ‘me’ telling ‘you’ what ‘you’ is doing.

What I see that needs to be done. Establish the MC’s person quickly so the reader will know how they are to feel. Maybe something like ‘you adjust the hem of your dress across you knees.’ That establishes a female POV with out saying it, even if it is a little old fashion to assume only women wear dresses. Describe the area incorporating emotions and themes to force the reader to feel what you want them to, but leave the ultimate reaction unsaid so the reader fills in the blank. 2nd person shouldn’t be as if I have lost control of my body, and I am being controlled completely. It should be that I am being steered in the right direction to come up with my own conclusion (at least an allusion of such).

Posted by rickfisher (Member # 1214) on :

To clarify the 1st/2nd person discussion, I think we need to realize that there is a distinction between person and viewpoint. Third person, for example, is told by a narrator from outside the perspective of all the characters; that does NOT mean that we are in the narrator's viewpoint. Most of the time, these days, the viewpoint belongs to one of the characters, and the narrator comes as close as possible to being invisible.

Person, on the other hand, really is more of a grammatical label than anything else. It's purpose is simply to tell who is being referenced: the speaker/writer (first), the listener/reader (second), or somebody else (third). Thus most first-person stories contain plenty of third-person references, and any story may contain some second-person references (such as: "But do not think, gentle reader, that. . . ."). However, an occasional such reference is not enough to distinguish the story as a whole as "second person," any more than an occasional self-referential statement by a narrator would make a story first-person. (Example: midway through a third-person book, you encounter a statement like: "That was in his nineteenth year, only two years before I met him for the only time." It might come as a surprise, but it shouldn't if done well--a book like that should clearly have the narrator be visible (though not a character) from the beginning. Another, less obtrusive first-person statement might be "He looked older than my great-grandfather." The purpose of such a statement would not be to give you any information about the narrator or his ancestors, but to give you the feel for the actual presence of a story-teller, even though the story itself is not about the narrator at all.)

It's clear in this story that the POV resides in the first-person narrator; one might say that it is in second person with a first-person point of view, which is certainly an unusual combination.

[This message has been edited by rickfisher (edited December 18, 2007).]