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Is there a name for this?

ButlerianHeretic

Troubadour
I've been experimenting with an alternative perspective, and I feel like I can't be the first person to have thought of this. I don't think English grammar wants us to write like this, but violating grammar rules occasionally seems worth it to me. The idea started with writing more like a first person perspective in a game instead of either first or second person in literature. First person describes what the character experiences which isn't the same. And second person tells us what the reader is supposed to be experiencing but IMO since as a reader I'm not actually experiencing it that always seemed jarring to me when I was reading Choose Your Own Adventure books as a kid. Here's a recent example I was messing around with using it:


A sudden awareness dawns, of how dark the night is in spite of the street lights. How empty the streets are. How chill the breeze. Nervously looking around, even while feeling foolish to have been spooked, reveals no obvious threat. But upon resolving to proceed, a tall woman stands in the sidewalk ahead, illuminated by the nearest street light.

She is tall, would be tall even for a man. A glance at her boots shows it is not a trick of high heels, indeed she wears sturdy polished boots under black slacks. A long black coat wraps her shoulders and hangs behind her like a cape. Open at the front reveals a black blouse open low to show considerable cleavage - both the tops of ample breasts, and above that evident pectoral muscles rising to a muscular neck. Her skin is dark and her hair black, but she has striking silver eyes that pierce the night. The sharp strong lines of her face seem balanced on a razor's edge between beauty and cruelty.

Her eyes are captivating, and there's nothing to do but stand transfixed as she approaches. Her stride speaks of physical power and total confidence, her boots clicking softly on the sidewalk.

Her hand reaches out, giving a glimpse of perfect sharp black nails before they lightly raking the side of neck, then catch chin. She steps close, lifting chin to meet her gaze, and there is power in her eyes. Power beyond the natural magnetism of her height, physique, and demeanor. All conscious thoughts are washed away by that gaze, leaving only acceptance. The acceptance of prey before a predator, when all hope of escape or defense is lost. She walks a circuit as if examining from all sides, then back to the front, she leans close, sniffing.

Then she straightens and smiles. Her face shifts to the beauty side of that line her features were riding, and she becomes radiant with pleasure. But still there is the threat of terrifying darkness should she be displeased. A powerful desire grows to please her as much as possible, and avoid her displeasure at all costs.

"So you are the one they've all been looking for." She scoffs softly, then it becomes a chuckle. Her smile widens showing fangs. But though fear rises, there's nothing to do, no hope of escape. "But I found you. And with time remaining before the end comes to train you to my service. Truly fortune smiles." Those words are terrifying, but the desire to please her is too strong to summon the slightest defiance.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
I think this is still 1st person. Its just the modifiers are implied.

All conscious thoughts are washed away by that gaze, leaving only acceptance.

All of my conscious thoughts are washed away by that gaze, leaving only acceptance.

The 'of my' is implied.
 
Heh. To me, this reads like second person, present tense, and the "you" is implied.

I like it. I could read a whole novel written like this, assuming other elements were handled well.
 

ButlerianHeretic

Troubadour
I kinda think of it as a mix of first and second, but really it could be third: "All of his conscious thoughts are washed away by that gaze, leaving only acceptance." It's weirdly amorphous, but reading it I feel pulled into it. Though I'm hardly objective since I wrote it.
 
Briefly, I had thought maybe it was a third omniscient style but without referencing the main character. There is certainly a narrator. But then again, there's a narrator in first and second person also. I think the present tense adds a lot of the ambiguity.
 

ButlerianHeretic

Troubadour
I can't really see doing it in past tense. It's very much a stream of experience. That's good at helping with showing too.
 

ButlerianHeretic

Troubadour
There's stuff is easy to shorthand in normal writing like "I draw my sword." But that comes out clunky. The result of working around it that feels most natural ends up being a bit slower paced than I'd think a fight scene should be, but it encourages sensory descriptions that one would tend to gloss over, like "hand to the sword hanging at hip, the twisted wire wrapped around the hilt digs into palm and fingers as it is gripped and drawn."
 
There's stuff is easy to shorthand in normal writing like "I draw my sword." But that comes out clunky. The result of working around it that feels most natural ends up being a bit slower paced than I'd think a fight scene should be, but it encourages sensory descriptions that one would tend to gloss over, like "hand to the sword hanging at hip, the twisted wire wrapped around the hilt digs into palm and fingers as it is gripped and drawn."

So here you see how all other objects become the active agents in the telling, if the character (I, You, He/Her/They) is not referenced.

OTOH, "it is gripped" is a passive voice construction. Gripped by .... who? Heh.
 

ButlerianHeretic

Troubadour
There's a couple of ways to handle it. One could go with some sentence fragments. "Sword out. Ready to fight." But, that doesn't feel as authentic to me. Especially if one is highly trained, technique feels like it is doing itself. We may set a goal to accomplish something if we have time, or we may respond automatically to a threat, or in between to see an opportunity and decide to go for it, but there's seldom a sense of walking through anything step by step as a conscious act. It's actually one of the things I like about this, though yeah it isn't technically how we are supposed to write about things.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
Reading it again (and now that I am not watching Columbo at the same time), I think it is implied second person.

There's stuff is easy to shorthand in normal writing like "I draw my sword." But that comes out clunky. The result of working around it that feels most natural ends up being a bit slower paced than I'd think a fight scene should be, but it encourages sensory descriptions that one would tend to gloss over, like "hand to the sword hanging at hip, the twisted wire wrapped around the hilt digs into palm and fingers as it is gripped and drawn."

I would challenge this as a false comparison.

I could write the sentence as, 'My hand goes to the sword hanging at my hip, the twisted wire wrapped around the hilt digs into my palm and fingers as it is gripped and I draw it. (or you, if you want second person). There is no reason why the more formal presentation has to be devoid of sensory stuff.
 
You can't actually tell based on this section. The viewpoint character doesn't do anything. Hence, you can't say if it's first, second or third.

A sudden awareness dawns, of how dark the night is in spite of the street lights. How empty the streets are. How chill the breeze. Nervously looking around, even while feeling foolish to have been spooked, reveals no obvious threat.
In this passage for instance. The sudden awareness can dawn on me, on you or on her. Which you pick determines if it's first second or third. How does the viewpoint character walk into a building? Answer that and you've got your answer.
 

CrystalD

Scribe
I like it. It feels like a mix between 1st and 2nd person to me, but it definitely reads like a text RPG. It brings the suspense of the scene more to the foreground, so if that's the style of the narrative you're going for it totally works. If it's done well it could carry a story for sure, but it seems like a viewpoint that we would cut from to go to a different POV later. It reminds me a lot of the OTR show TheWhistler, where a story was happening but The Whistler was the narrator - a spectator that somehow knew what was going to happen. So it totally works well for thriller or suspense genres.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
She steps close, lifting chin to meet her gaze, and there is power in her eyes.

I think it can be known by inference. I think it is second person implied. But the sentence above is bothersome to me, because a word is intentionally left out to keep it vague. I think it lifting chin, should be lifting my/your/his chin. Not including the modifier is intentional, but it makes the sentence read incorrect for me. I'd call it an error in a short work, in a long one, I am not sure if it would grate or not. I might become acclimated.
 
I think it can be known by inference. I think it is second person implied. But the sentence above is bothersome to me, because a word is intentionally left out to keep it vague. I think it lifting chin, should be lifting my/your/his chin. Not including the modifier is intentional, but it makes the sentence read incorrect for me. I'd call it an error in a short work, in a long one, I am not sure if it would grate or not. I might become acclimated.
Agreed on this. It feels like it's being intentionally vague and just ommiting words to keep it vague.

It worked okay for me in this short piece, but like I said, it felt like the viewpoint character didn't actually do anything. In a longer piece I think I would get annoyed. I believe you can't write a complete novel without a modifier.
 

ButlerianHeretic

Troubadour
I've been playing with it some more. I'd done a 1 on 1 fight before and that worked ok. But when it gets to three participants in an action scene it breaks down. Even specifying the other two precisely, it gets confusing and requires a moment of "who is this again" when the action gets back to the protagonist. Thanks for the feedback all around!
 

S.A. Meek

New Member
I really like this. As many have stated above the tense could be assumed many ways. I would definitely read something written like this. At least in the example the tense is really left up to the reader. Also, it give me nostalgic vibes of reading choose your own adventures as a kid.
 

Stepgingerly

Dreamer
I think this might work for a very short piece, but the entire time reading it, I was waiting to hear who the subject was. Anything longer than this would turn me off as a reader. It's just so passive voice, with no concrete subject doing the verbs, that I would get annoyed pretty quick.
 
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