The point is not whether it is possible to write an acceptable story in second person. The point is that the odds are stacked against you. A new writer has enough of an uphill battle without making things difficult for no clear gain. Also, fair or not, publishers are biased by what has previously crossed their desks. So even if you have written that oh so rare decent manuscript in second person, what do you think the submissions editor's initial mindset is going to be as soon as he or she sees opening pages in second person? Don't jump through hoops to be different for the sake of being different. Just tell a good story, and don't do things that will hurt your chjances of ever seeing it go to print.
Actually, that was my point in opening the thread. I wanted to know if others thought it was possible to use second person successfully. I didn't ask about publishing, and honestly, it isn't even worth thinking about in my case. However, reading your response, I know you're mostly right...but a part of me can't help but be a little irritated. I know a publisher isn't likely to publish a new writer's work that takes such a radical risk, but your answer implies I shouldn't even attempt to take any kind of risk, just because it might not be marketable. This may be a romantic viewpoint prompted by inexperience with the process on my own part, but honestly, isn't art about taking risks and being true to your own voice? If everyone held your viewpoint, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, and so many others would never have written anything worth mention. I accept that my work is not much to be proud of (though I'm proud of it all the same merely because it's mine), but at least I made a conscious choice to write something different. I wrote it because I liked it, and even now, while I'm not sure it was the right choice, I'm glad I tried. I learned a lot more from experimenting and failing than I would have if I'd just played it safe and written a simple, conventional piece. And in the scheme of things, I prefer the learning experience to being published in any case. Because after all, even without the second person, this is not exactly New Yorker material
I agree Jo - no written words are wasted words, trying new and different styles enriches our writing. Doing a 75 word challenge every month is helping me a lot, trying new genres brings fresh ideas to the ones I usually write, I can bring aspects of first person narrative to third etc
I experimented with second-person in fiction a little bit, and I found it works best in scary short-stories. The reason was that it tends to be much less important to give your character depth. You don't have to establish many facts about your character, and therefore the audience doesn't have to feel like you're telling them things about themselves that feels intrusive. Instead, you're just guiding "them" through the story towards the scary climax, and you can take advantage of the feeling created by second-person that the reader is in the story, which is good if you're trying to get an emotional response (fear, in this case) from them. And that's probably where second-person works best. Stories in which there can be less personal details about the character, and instead the actions, senses and atmosphere are important, as in short stories (and that's probably why how-to books work too, because they only guide you through actions). The problem is this gets more difficult as a story gets longer, and when I read second-person it gives me a "floaty" sense, like i'm drifting through the story in a dream. So, I think short stories are perfectly acceptable in second-person, or any story where you're not telling the reader too much about what they perceive as "them". And therefore, some kind of compilation book of lots of short scary stories is probably the most commercially viable second-person book I can think of.
Read Lorrie Moore's debut collection, Self Help. Her use of second person makes what would have been perfectly good first-person narrative more urgent, compulsive, spooky with imperatives and inevitabilities. A beautiful example of a very tricky craft.
A story about a paragraph long told in second person probably wouldn't be too bad, you're right -- because it wouldn't give me the chance to start to get really irritated. I think I get that writers want to give the reader a sense of urgency and being immersed in the story, I just don't agree it's the best way to go about it. In fact, it has the opposite effect on me. It makes me very aware I am reading a story -- a story that didn't and couldn't happen -- because I did not do or think the things the writer is telling me I did or thought. I actually didn't think your excerpt was that bad. I don't know that the perspective did it any favors, but the actual narrative was fine.
2nd person is intimidating to some, maybe challenging to some within that some. Hence why I do it. It has quite an impact. Draws readers in more.
'awesome'--NOT! not even worth reading to me, as skimming it was enough of an annoyance... i do not like to be told what to do or what i think or feel by any writer, even one of calvino's repute... so, have i made your day?
It's really not awesome. Being told 'you' are 'feeling' something emotional is not good practice. It's boring. The main problem with If on a winter's night a traveler..., is that time has not been kind to it; the main focus of the novels: the novels within the novel, are the best parts of it. Now, I have a healthy respect for the book, and Calvino - his Invisible Cities and Why Read the Classics are books I'll always keep hold of, but the narrative in If on a winter's night... that holds the book together is weak and flimsy at best, while being cartoonishly funny, and if you like that sort of thing then it's OK I guess, but the juxtaposition is too much. And the second person really doesn't help it either. It's written with the writer's contemporary world, time and setting in mind - late 70s, early 80s Italy. The descriptions of 'your' world, that 'you' live in no longer hold up; I've been to Italy recently, some of the things Calvino describes in the novel are anachronistic for obvious reasons that I shouldn't need to state. These little things can really take a reader out of the novel. The Haunted Mind by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a better example of second person perspective in my opinion.
I enjoyed it - the meditation at the beginning was fun. Do you practice meditation Lightman ? It was funny, I recognised it and identified with it. However, I give myself over to the author and get lost in a book so the narrative is unimportant. It has a similar feel to Lewis Carroll's Phantasmagoria but I am fairly sure that is in third. If a reader isn't capable of totally losing themselves in the story then I guess second person is a problem. For me when it is set is unimportant because whilst reading it I'm in the books place and time not my own. When I read first or third person I identify with a character and follow them through the story anyway.
I honestly think second POV is rarely useful or successful; it can occasionally be an interesting read but the issues behind it usually take away any benefits that you could receive from writing it.
I don't think Elgaisma means that the reader is "to blame" precisely. Just that some readers are more capable of accepting 2nd person and losing themselves in it than other readers are.
That is precisely what I mean - there are as many ways of reading as there are readers, which is why we all have different views of different pieces of writing. Just because second person doesn't work for some readers doesn't mean it won't work very well for others. There are readers that hate first person because they find it restrictive. There are readers who hate third person because they can't get into the head of the character the same. Second person is less familiar than various forms of third and first so of course fewer readers are going to find it challenging. A huge number of readers don't care about the narrative. Just because a lot of readers struggle with it is not a reason to avoid second person as a writer. There will be a number of readers who actually don't care what the narrative is and a number who enjoy reading it.
I agree completely. But maybe it's worth recognising that no piece of writing will be right for every reader.
The point is not to blame the reader, the point is that one can lose oneself more easily in some stories than others, and you want to make it easier for the reader. I think.
This particular reader happens to get rather annoyed at the extent to which so much modern writing is dumbed down because the writer thinks they need to make it "easy". If anybody wants me as a reader then they should never ever think about making it easy for me. They should concentrate on making it good.
Which is kind of my point. No two readers approach a piece in the same way. Just because a reader struggles with a narrative because it is in first, second or third does not make the narrative bad. It just means the reader didn't like it.
if you have a compelling reeason for distracting a reader from the story, by all means use odd writing styles. For what reason would you WANT to use second person> When does it ever present the story better than first or third person? Nobody is talking about dumbing down anything. Don't choose a writing style just because it's different. That's amateurville. Use a different writing style because it tells the story better than a more usual approach.
Not everyone is distracted by the style or finds the style ''odd'. You are distracted by it and that is fine just like those that are distracted and frustrated by first or third. However, more than one Scots book contains the style and is used in English classes. I had a great English teacher that year and she had me fired up about those stories. Where I think it has worked exceptionally well are the prologue to Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon; Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner used it in parts; Complicity by Iain Banks used it for the antagonist; I enjoyed the Choose Your Own Adventure books as did millions of other children; more recently Rule 34 by Charles Stross had me gripped. There are some deliciously creepy short stories written in second person. Iain Banks also wrote another story that was a first/second person hybrid - Song of Stone I think. That was good. I think it works well for mystery, horror, stories about mental disorders or there have been some good short stories that have used it to challenge attitudes to gender. Sci-Fi when the character is being introduced to a strange, new place. Like first and third some stories suit second person, and some writers are better skilled with it than others. I used it with my Loch Ness Monster story because Nessie was being compelled and pulled against her will. She was being controlled by a puppet master.
What bothers me is that I may have made a poor artistic decision that hurt the continuity of my piece, not whether it strikes anyone as amateurish. The point is not the marketability, it's the art. I agree: the question is whether the different style really makes it better. But it has nothing to do with being amateurish. I am an amateur, as I'm guessing most people on this site are. We'd do well to recognize that, lest we take ourselves too seriously. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a college essay to (amateurishly) finish.
I've already mentioned Charles Stross' Halting State. I have mixed feelings about his use of second person, but there are very good reasons for it because it's set in the world of MMORPGs, and the second person narrative helps place the reader in that world. Yes, it was distracting, but it brought big benefits too. It's got 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon (with none of the negative reviews citing the 2nd person as an issue), so the consensus seems to be that the gains outweighed the losses.
I read the second one Rule 34 - it had me gripped all the way through. Need to read the first one. I'm off to Amazon to see how many actually cared.
