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.
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.
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,
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.
That's the cycle.
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.
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.
Oh, and actually it's the prologue and afterward in Needful Things.
NewsBys write-up is a good example of second person.
You didn't believe Mama when she first told you about her encounter with Bigfoot, but now you do...
(Something along those lines.)
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.
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.
quote:
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.
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).
"Mom, I hate you; you've made me miserable" is a first-person statement addressed to your mother.
If you want to put that in 2nd, it's like this:
You hate your mother. She made you miserable.
and the "you" is the reader, not your mother.
I don't think it's possible to write in two POVs simultaneously.
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).]
It can get confusing when the same term refers to two different concepts.
I'm still struggling to think of any good reasons to use a second person POV.