You Are a Writer Who Likes to Write in Second-Person POV. Why?

[Legendary Sidekick]

That's the question I'm asking. If YOU write in second-person, why do you do it?

This isn't "why" as in you're about to be set up, challenged, told you're doing it wrong.

This is "why" as in "inquiring minds want to know."


I once read an article–which I'd link if I could find it–by an author who grew up reading CYOA books, and ended up writing regular books in second-person. Now I just read the thousand-word stories and all of them were second-person… or maybe some were technically first-person with a second-person character included (by which I mean both "I" and "you" were in the narrative). The first entry (by Steerpike) was true second-person.

I've been toying with second-person for a while, though for fiction only in CYOA stories. But it was that article that I can't find or remember the name of (hence, I can't link it and should probably stop referring to it) that sparked the flames of interest. Now I read the Paint a Thousand Words entries, which was like pouring AV fuel on the flames of interest. Now the flames of interest are rising like a forest fire of interest burning hotter than the flames of Metaphor Hell.

So…

We got second-person writers. And if you're not a second-person POV writer but you go to the Thousand Words thread, you're a second-person reader. Some of you are both.

2nd-PERSON WRITER, why do you write this way?

2nd-PERSON READER, if you care to chime in, why is 2nd-person POV awesome when it's done awesomely?

 

[Tom]

I don't really read or write in 2nd person extensively; my usual go-to POV is 1st person. But there's something about 2nd person that really suited the short I did for Paint A Thousand Words. It's intimate, which I felt was needed, but it's a little more removed than first person, which I think gives it a really unique feeling. It's like instead of being inside the character, you're seeing the story as if you're watching over the character's shoulder and listening to their thoughts.

It took a while to adjust to the idea when I started writing the piece, just because it's different. But I enjoyed how you can keep the 1st person level of emotional and mental involvement in the narrative.

So yeah, just the thoughts of someone who doesn't regularly read or write 2nd person.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I think it's because I've played so many video games. I play as, say, a Russian war criminal searching for the man who betrayed him, and I get into that character's headspace and solve problems the way he would solve them. I'm not me for the moment, I'm him.

That said, I've found that people usually dislike stories I write in second person, because they can't get into the head of the character in question. As such, I tend to rely on simpler techniques, like not naming the protagonist.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

@Tom, 1st-person is my comfort zone. I think the reason I like writing that way is because I'm in the character's head when I write. I get to be the character as I write, even if he (or she) is someone I could never really be.

Reading 2nd-person gives me that experience as the reader. No different from first or third, I cannot control the character's actions. But in second, the author is giving me bits and pieces of what I know and painting the scenery and letting my imagination do the rest. I started writing a piece using second instead of first, and it hit me that once 2nd-person POV has been established (which happens in the first line), the narrative can include commands. That's fun from the writer's side!

Whether I can truly pull off or stick to second remains to be seen, but I'm having fun with the experimental aspect, and to be brutally honest with myself... I think my current piece is less confusing than some of my 1st-person stuff. That may be because I'm thinking about what the reader needs to know for the story to work.


@Feo, you bring up an interesting point. You refer to the reader as "you," and the reader can think, "nah. That ain't me." I wonder if people find that immersion-breaking.

That won't stop me from experimenting (which makes the writing process more fun for me), but it's good to know what readers don't like about 2nd-person.

 

[Devor]

Insomuch as it's just swapping "he" for "you" without any explanation, I think it's a big drawback without any gains. It's only one part of the story, and you get used to it after a while, but I would probably put the book down before giving it the chance.

That said, when I DMed in the chatrooms back in the day, I used to DM a lot in second person. "Everywhere you look, you see...." So I'm a little fond of using it in an adventurous or experimental style. I think it can be a lot of fun to play around with, if there's a point to it. The CYOAs work fine. So does a story written in letters, or references to "You, dear reader..." But I think there's a lot to play with in having the "you" address a character in the story, and I have some ideas for following it through.

Even with my Paint A Thousand Words entry, the next scene would switch to the POV of the demon, with Kihnit's voice echoing in his head right in the prose in the 2nd Person.

So I think it's a great tool for finding new ways to play around with perspective and points of view. There's a lot of great stories to be told that way. But I don't like it when it's used matter-of-factly, in a way that doesn't try to play with its potential.

 

[stephenspower]

2nd person, as used in "Bright Lights, Big City," demonstrates the narrator's divorce from himself. He's seeing his own story from the outside and out of his control as he tries to avoid facing the tragedy that launched him into a drug-fueled downward spiral.

2nd person, as used in Carlos Fuentes's "Aura," adds to the novel's sense of disorientation and the fantastical.

2nd person is distinguished from the first person written to the reader, the "you," as "Ogilvy on Advertising" says all marketing copy should be written. This is also the "you" of prescriptive books and CYOA books. In second person, the "you" is actually the narrator speaking about him/herself. It's both intimate and alienating, the royal we of the interior self.

 

[Devor]

In second person, the "you" is actually the narrator speaking about him/herself. It's both intimate and alienating, the royal we of the interior self.

Thanks for that. We distinguish between 3rd Person Limited, 3rd Person Omniscient, and other degrees of 3rd Person. Colloquially, at least, it seems like there should be some similar way to distinguish between the different reasons people might use "you" in the prose. I mean, in marketing, we do use "2nd Person" when talking about ad copy.

2nd Person as you're defining it doesn't work with me at all. Insomuch as it's just swapping "he" for "you" and it's otherwise the same story and the same perspective, I don't really understand the point. It seems more gimmicky than experimental. But I think I've said everything I mean to above. It wasn't my intention to join the thread just to badmouth it.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

I enjoyed the 2nd person stuff I read, so I know what it does for me as a reader.

When I read SP's, I was thinking about a story I had not yet started, then when I played with the idea of 2nd person, ideas started unfolding. Without going into detail, there is a justification for 2nd person. It actually defines what parts of the MC's experience are narrated, among other things.

That said, whether 2nd person comes off as a successful experiment or gimmicky depends... Does the prose add to the story or get in the way of it?

I started writing yesterday, and I was having fun. I didn't feel like I was swapping pronouns. Word choice and flow of info are always dependent on PoV and tense, and as I said above, plot ideas were dreamed up as I contemplated how and WHY I would tell the story in 2nd.

 

[Devor]

When I read SP's, I was thinking about a story I had not yet started, then when I played with the idea of 2nd person, ideas started unfolding. Without going into detail, there is a justification for 2nd person. It actually defines what parts of the MC's experience are narrated, among other things.

I haven't read the other Paint a Thousand Words entries yet. I usually try to wait until a few days after I post my entry or else I start comparing them to mine. So if there was any confusion, my comments had nothing to do with the other entries, and I look forward to reading them.

After my post above I did start thinking of ways I might consider it to be used effectively to affect the prose and still be a by the book 2nd Person POV. I think if I was going to try that exactly for a story, my opening line would probably be something like "You're a wretch," or "Damn, everyone does love you," to try and capture that sense of self-distancing stephenspower mentioned right off the bat. I would try to make it kind of on par with way many 1st Person stories have a more colloquial prose.

I've only read the first couple of pages of Bright Lights, Big City. There were some obvious strengths in the prose, but I didn't consider the 2nd person POV to be one of them.

 

[DanJames]

I ended up changing my mind because structurally I didn't think it would work, but a non-fantasy title I began working on I toyed with second person. It was new and exciting and when it worked I found it some of the more interesting work I'd ever written, and I may change my mind again if I give it enough thought (it's still early stages and completley doable).

It's such an interesting format because rather than experiencing an adventure, you're psuedo-living it. That's very exciting - no matter your genre. For my work, in the early stages the main character is asked for a divorce, and you can generate curiosity in a reader with that chapter one start alone, but the thought of your fictional marriage, one that in your fictional life you seem very proud and happy with, to start crumbling before you, and you're not entirely sure why this is happening to you, is fascinating. Of course, the writing would have to be of the highest caliber, otherwise you'll not make people believe in their fake life.

Fiction is just lying to people about people that may or may not have existed to create an emotional response, if you're capable of creating a fiction where you're lying to people about things that they did and for the time they're reading that story, they believe what you tell them, then it's almost an out of body experience and utterly incomparable to any other perspective.

 

[Miskatonic]

Probably popular for erotica.

 

[Trick]

Now I just read the thousand-word stories and all of them were second-person… or maybe some were technically first-person with a second-person character included (by which I mean both "I" and "you" were in the narrative). The first entry (by Steerpike) was true second-person.

Since this thread has been resurrected and I missed it the first time around, I've got one thing to say about this particular Thousand Words entry. Steerpike's story was the best 2nd person story I've ever read. I can honestly say I've never gotten through another.

 

[WooHooMan]

I'm glad to see I'm not the only person who dislikes second-person. In fact, I opened this thread because the title annoyed me. Like, why would you assume I write in second-person?

I find it kind of interesting that most people here seem to prefer first-person over third-person - I really dislike first-person. I should start a thread discussing that phenomenon.

 

[Mythopoet]

I'm glad to see I'm not the only person who dislikes second-person. In fact, I opened this thread because the title annoyed me. Like, why would you assume I write in second-person?

lol I know what you mean. When I read the title of the thread my first thought was "presumably because I hate myself and my readers". Second person just feels so gimmicky to me and like you said, "How dare you put thoughts into my head!"

But to each their own. I like first and third both just fine. Though with First I tend to be more sensitive about whether or not I enjoy reading the MC's voice.

 

[Reaver]

That's the question I'm asking. If YOU write in second-person, why do you do it?

This isn't "why" as in you're about to be set up, challenged, told you're doing it wrong.

This is "why" as in "inquiring minds want to know."


I once read an article—which I'd link if I could find it—by an author who grew up reading CYOA books, and ended up writing regular books in second-person. Now I just read the thousand-word stories and all of them were second-person… or maybe some were technically first-person with a second-person character included (by which I mean both "I" and "you" were in the narrative). The first entry (by Steerpike) was true second-person.

I've been toying with second-person for a while, though for fiction only in CYOA stories. But it was that article that I can't find or remember the name of (hence, I can't link it and should probably stop referring to it) that sparked the flames of interest. Now I read the Paint a Thousand Words entries, which was like pouring AV fuel on the flames of interest. Now the flames of interest are rising like a forest fire of interest burning hotter than the flames of Metaphor Hell.

So…

We got second-person writers. And if you're not a second-person POV writer but you go to the Thousand Words thread, you're a second-person reader. Some of you are both.

2nd-PERSON WRITER, why do you write this way?

2nd-PERSON READER, if you care to chime in, why is 2nd-person POV awesome when it's done awesomely?

I can't help but think of our collaboration a few years back where I wrote in second person. As if that's not hard enough, I was writing a journal written by a time-traveler to himself and I had to match things up with the narrative that you were telling so...yeah... insanely challenging but incredibly fun.