Second Person Narration

[vaznetti]

Or, further Haven issues. I raised this problem in a feedback letter; the author opened up the question on the Haven, but as I tend not to go there (except for the specific purpose of watching slapfights) I thought I might as well discuss it here. I know that some people who read this will have already posted there--sorry. Feel free to repost here, or not. The Haven thread is here. I'm not sure that I'm the supposed "inexperienced reader" of the responses, but it's true that I've never written in second person. It does seem to me that in my rather limited view of the world I've seen more second-person narration in fanfic recently (over, say, the last six months). It feels a bit like a fad to me.

The following two paragraphs are an edited version of my feedback letter:

I have to admit that I don't care for second-person narration. I find it intrusive, I think: that is, I happen to know for a fact that I am not the character, and I do not feel the things that the character feels, and so I have no idea why I am being expected to read as if I were the character. And so I become disconcerted. I usually manage by mentally replacing the second person pronouns with third person pronouns in my head, and read it as a tightly focalized third-person. Oddly enough, it ends up distancing me from the piece, probably because of the mental gymnastics I need to put myself through.

I find it easier to read in certain cases, for example if there's a strongly implied "I" narrator to match the "you" of the story. I can see why it might be used in other cases, as well, for instance where the identity of the second-person narrator is kept secret. The authors who use second-person narration tend to be fairly talented, and I'm certainly capable of sitting back and trusting them. I'm just not sure why a second-person is superior to a tightly-focalized third person narration, and can't help feeling that it's a piece of overt manipulation by an author.

I'd welcome responses by authors who use the second person and readers who like it as well as anyone else out there who finds it difficult. Or, you know, whoever wants to comment.

Comments

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, it ends up distancing me from the piece, probably because of the mental gymnastics I need to put myself through.

The distance factor is exactly why I use second person. Though I never use it as if the story were narrated by someone watching another character. I use second person as an almost-omnipotent narrator, who watches the main character, judges him or her, and usually finds him wanting.

When you're doing something like that, a bit of distance is a good thing.

[vaznetti]

I use second person as an almost-omnipotent narrator, who watches the main character, judges him or her, and usually finds him wanting.

That's interesting. I'm going to have to go back and read your stories and see what I think of it. My real problem is with the use of the second-person for a specific, canon character; I don't mind an "anonymous you" because I don't have the sense of disjunction between me and the character.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

The best (erm, only) example is "Just Like My Daddy" (http://elizabeth.gatefiction.com/daddy.html), which was my first serious attempt at second person. It's a difficult way to write -- the English language has no grammatically acceptable second person plural.

[(Anonymous)]

Hmm, it sounds painful and complicated as you describe (reading) it, kind of like trying to play Twister with a story. So I can understand why it would interfere with your story enjoyment.

It just never seemed that way to me. To me, second person is a psychological mindset--the character telling about himself with a little cushion of distance... or at least this is the way I use it. The distance allows that character to examine or express things it might be difficult (painful/traumatic/embarrassing/?) for him/her to address directly.

No plan to dominate the world or deliberately manipulate anything involved. Though certainly I wasn't aware until now that it sometimes presents this kind of problem for readers.

-bardsmaid

[spican.livejournal.com]

I've mixed feelings about 2nd person POV, too - the gist of it is that I can only enjoy it when I feel that there's a concrete aspect of the story that can be illustrated through that particular angle. I liked it in your "Half-life", Susan, because it added to the mood of Krycek being in a shock state and incapable of processing his grief consciously - that feeling of dissociation which the mind can seek refuge in, in order to get through extreme emotional stress. So in this instance, the 2nd person POV felt to me like a kind of narration processing of a survival mechanism in the character.

I had the same feeling first time I read Rah's "Next of Kin" which is a 2nd person POV dealing with Scully's experience of the aftermath of TINH - needing to dissociate herself from her grief while dealing with the harrowing, practical details around Mulder's death and funeral. There, too, I could see the POV as a manifestation of an escape/survival mechanism of the mind, and it definitely worked for me.

In Eo's "Oil" which was just posted to RATales, there's the variation of having the 2nd person POV related through a discreet, but visible 1st person narrator, which gave a rather different effect again - but very impactful for that piece, I thought, as it brought a gradual and teasing revelation of who the personal narrator of the story was and the nature of the narrator's relationship with the 2nd person character.

Where I have issues with this POV and often will just stop reading is, as others have said, if it seems purely like an affectation/writing exercise or just an unjustified complication of the reader's access to the story matter. And often that seems to be the case, but I do think there are instances where it can highlight the concerns of the story in a valuable way, and I'm willing as a reader to give a story a chance on that basis. I definitely feel that the 2nd person POV works best when it's used to contribute to a given effect for shorter, very focussed pieces, though, as it does draw attention to itself and it's harder to justify the need for it through all the varying moods and levels of intensity in a longer story.

[k2daisy.livejournal.com]

I've mixed feelings about 2nd person POV, too - the gist of it is that I can only enjoy it when I feel that there's a concrete aspect of the story that can be illustrated through that particular angle.

Exactly. Most recently, the most effective usage of it that I've read was Xanthe's "Human". There, Krycek is utterly divorced from himself and his humanity, and having it be in second-POV drove home that fact. He couldn't even refer to himself as "I" or "me". To me, it made the story that much more powerful.

I'll admit, most of the time I'm not that aware of POV tenses unless it's poorly-written and it sticks out, or (more often the case) unless the author notes it in their headers. For example, the first time I read Deslea's Dream A Crystal Moon, I wouldn't even have noticed it was second-POV except that she said it would be. And I love About the Maimed, but until I just read her comment here, I hadn't even realized it was second POV. *g*

Hrm. Maybe I am just unobservant. Probably why I'd never rate myself as a pure Type 1; writing styles matter to me, but not to the point that I tend to notice them very much. And I've never tried to write a second-POV; most of the time, the narrator telling me the story in my head determines the POV. On rare occasions, it's first-person, but most of the time it's third.

[deslea.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that I'm the supposed "inexperienced reader" of the responses, but it's true that I've never written in second person.

I certainly wouldn't call you an inexperienced reader in any broad sense. OTOH, I wouldn't say that of me either, but it's only since I wrote extensively in the POV last year that I grew really comfortable reading it (despite having quite a bit of earlier exposure to it as a reader).

I think second-person POV differs from first and third because we see those all the time, no matter how much or little fiction we read - it's in our media, our educational materials, educational discourse, LJ entries, and so on. We were reared in those voices. They feel more natural IMO, purely from a day-to-day perspective.

I've used second person in five complete fics. The two short ones in XF are Dream A Crystal Moon, a couple of years ago, and About The Maimed. Dream A Crystal Moon was a deliberate exercise in 2-POV, which I had never used, and frankly it feels contrived when I read back on it now. I don't dislike it, but it feels uncomfortably close to literary wankery. About The Maimed wasn't a deliberate choice - it was the voice that the first fragment came to me with, and I kind of thought, huh. What the hell, okay. By then I'd written two, maybe even all three of my non-XF ones, so I had a much higher comfort level with the voice. It came naturally, and I think it reads reasonably naturally too - at least as naturally as that voice ever does IMO.

What's probably more interesting here are the three non-XF pieces I did in this voice, written for an audience where this POV is practically unheard of. Combined, the series comes out to maybe 10,000 words. The first one was really short, and the second-person POV was a spur-of-the-moment decision. I most definitely would not have done it that way if I'd known it was going to grow into a series. Nearly every feedback I get on that series passes comment on the POV. The feeling I'm getting is that this really was an initial stumbling block. Some liked it once they got used to it, some continued in spite of the POV but it irked them.

It does seem to me that in my rather limited view of the world I've seen more second-person narration in fanfic recently (over, say, the last six months). It feels a bit like a fad to me.

I'm not sure whether that's true. (I'm not saying it isn't, only that I haven't noticed it). There was a burst of it in 2001 with the PURity Challenge (that was what prompted Dream A Crystal Moon). I think my first exposure to second-person was Pinned Butterflies by Rachel Anton in 1999 or 2000. I'd never seen it used before that in fandom, and before that I'd only seen it in lesbian erotica.

[vaznetti]

I'm very cautious of my impression that there's been an increase in the number of second-person fanfics, because once one starts to notice something it starts popping up everywhere. I do think that I'm becoming a more critical reader of second-person fanfics, though. I approach each one with a certain amount of suspicion and the question "Does this story need to be in this person?" And I'm certainly willing to accept that sometimes the answer is "yes," but I also think that answers of "no" and "maybe" are also possible.

I think you're right that 1st/3rd are the more natural narrative voices to us. That's not a reason not to use 2nd person, but I think it is a reason to be careful about how one uses it. Oddly enough, I can see the point of using it in erotica--especially where the characters are anonymous. My problems tend to come at the point at which the "you" is identified as a specific, known character.

About The Maimed wasn't a deliberate choice - it was the voice that the first fragment came to me with, and I kind of thought, huh. What the hell, okay.

Hm. I find this interesting on because I often start a story in first-person present and then, as I write, change to third person or at least to narrative past. But I can see that sometimes a specific voice just seems to work for a specific story.

[jood.livejournal.com]

I'm just not sure why a second-person is superior to a tightly-focalized third person narration, and can't help feeling that it's a piece of overt manipulation by an author.

Hrm.

A couple of years ago I wrote a piece in second person because it seemed to ask for it - I didn't ask myself a lot of questions about it at the time, but a beta reader said she wasn't comfortable with second person.

So I rewrote the entire piece in both first person and third person, and we went through all three. Once we were done, we agreed it needed to be in second person.

The two reasons became clear when we started to talk it through:

1) Distance. Others here have said it already, and for me it was important as well. In my story, Scully was chronically sleep-deprived, desperate and absolutely, thoroughly hopeless. She was acting not on her own sense of volition, but rather on a semi-internalized imperative. Must keep going. Must not sleep. Must protect the baby. It begged for the second person, because most of the piece was her simply living and breathing and following inferred commands to do these things. She had nearly no will of her own left because she had made herself so exhausted.

2) Gender issues. I didn't want to use any names, because at that point Scully was in a huge amount of emotional pain that she was avoiding by making herself numb. So no names. That left me in a personal-pronoun quandary. How could Scully be "she", Mulder be "he", and the baby be either "he" or "she" as well? Too confusing. The second person then left Mulder as "he" and the baby as "she". (Post-Requiem, natch.)


First person was too active a voice for this, and third person presumed too much. Second person implied her following a semi-internalized imperative just right. It wasn't a manipulation or gimmick at all -- it felt like the only effective way to tell the story.

In the end, I think the piece is strong because of it.

[vaznetti]

What really impresses me about your comment is the amount of work you put in to the decision. I'm certainly not saying that second person is never appropriate, and it's very clear from what you've written here that it was the only way for you to tell that story.

It also seems (from your comment and others) that the sense of a "semi-internalized imperative" lies at the heart of a lot of effective uses of the second person. It may become easier for me to read these stories if I keep that in mind.

[kellychenault.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. The only second person (sorta) narration story that I've read in a looooong time that's decent and done well is Oil, recently posted to our own RATales. But there IS a well defined I in that story to balance out the YOU.

Of course, I'm from the old school, and feel the format should not be more important or noticable than the story. The story matters, not the way you tell it.

Well, unless the way you tell it sucks.

[cofax7]

Hope you don't mind me dropping by, looked like an interesting conversation.

just not sure why a second-person is superior to a tightly-focalized third person narration, and can't help feeling that it's a piece of overt manipulation by an author.

And yet isn't all fiction manipulative? Every story is written to make the reader feel/experience/care something. I see how you feel distanced, although I don't tend to get that sense when I read second person. The writer has to nail the voice, and allow the reader to inhabit the narrator, because it's the narrator telling herself the story. So I find second person to be very intimate if done well. That's how I see it anyway.

I did just post a story written in the second person. I'd only tried 2nd person once before, in something very short. But what I wanted to do with this story demanded the use of second person, to draw the reader in as the audience of the story within the story, and then to allow the twist where the You of the story is also an actor within the story. I ended up with something which was third person limited within omniscient within second person, and it made my beta's head hurt. It wasn't done for faddish reasons, but for reasons related to the structure of the story.

Sometimes overt manipulation can be a problem, I agree -- the never-ending argument about Kipler's "Strangers and the Strange Dead" being a case in point -- but so much of fiction, of storytelling, is manipulation. It's re-arranging the words to have the greatest effect on the listener. If it's done well, the listener/reader falls into the story and the manipulation is seamless; when it's done poorly, the reader bounces out because the voice is off or the plot is implausible or the hand of the Writer is too obviously moving the curtain.

Which I think comes back to: done well, it works excellently. Which, um, isn't a very meaningful statement now that I think of it.

Errrr, did that make any sense?

[vaznetti]

I'm glad you decided to comment, as "The Money-Changer's Tale" was in my mind as I thought about second person narrative and its strengths and weaknesses. I hope you don't think this is an inappropriate forum for feedback--I'd been meaning to write to you about this. (I hadn't associated your lj identity with your authorial pseud, either.)

But what I wanted to do with this story demanded the use of second person, to draw the reader in as the audience of the story within the story, and then to allow the twist where the You of the story is also an actor within the story.

And for me, that moment worked very well. I don't mind an anonymous second person and had been carried along by the story, and when I got to the point where everything fell into place and I suddenly identified the second-person I was very impressed. It made me happy. The problem for me was that after that I went into my bizarre gymnastic reading game to separate myself as reader from Crichton as narrator/actor; that made the second half of the story less enjoyable for me as a reader. It made my head hurt, too.

I can't see any way you could have written the twist without the use of the second person, and for me the twist itself led to one of those moments of pure readerly pleasure which I treasure. To me, that was worth the whole of the story.

On the larger issue, yes, of course all fiction is manipulative; so is all nonfiction, I suspect. But different genres are manipulative in different ways, and each reader has his or her own comfort level for manipulation. (One of my thesis advisers, for instance, really doesn't care for the novels of Iain Pears, because he feels that they're too manipulative, whereas I enjoy them precisely because the author is manipulating me.) I think what bothers me about second person, at least some of the time, is the sense that the story is crying "feel this now!" at me. A good writer will make me feel regardless of the narrative person.

Which seems to be coming back to your "when done well, it works excellently" point, which may not be very deep but is at least true.

I suspect that my problems with second person narrative are something of a personal squick--one of those things I need to be aware of, as a reader.

[cofax7]

I hope you don't think this is an inappropriate forum for feedback--I'd been meaning to write to you about this. (I hadn't associated your lj identity with your authorial pseud, either.)

Heh, it's a bit of an open secret in the LJ community. My "official" webhome is my blog, and I usually just use this identity to read & comment on other people's LJs. I remember you from XF, though, so I hope you don't mind I added you to my friends list. Dunnett fans need to stick together. *g*

when I got to the point where everything fell into place and I suddenly identified the second-person I was very impressed. It made me happy

Makes me happy to make you happy. Thank you.

The problem for me was that after that I went into my bizarre gymnastic reading game to separate myself as reader from Crichton as narrator/actor; that made the second half of the story less enjoyable for me as a reader. It made my head hurt, too

See, that's where we part company. I think I must be a freak, because I read second person very much like first person: it's me the reader inhabiting the narrator. If the voice is done right, I'm right in there, gliding along with the story. Maayan's "Sleep While I Drive" would be a good example of that for me. I guess I don't read second person as imposing on me that way. It's not a command.

But different genres are manipulative in different ways, and each reader has his or her own comfort level for manipulation

True enough. I'm more comfortable when the manipulation is by way of the character hiding information from himself/others than when it's obviously the writer cutting away in order to hide information from the reader. Something like the famous "Mulder, I'm fine." line in "Strangers and the Strange Dead" didn't strike me as too manipulative because once I thought about it, it worked with where the character was at the moment. And the narrator was as misled as the reader was.

My case study for Overt Manipulation is Guy Gavriel Kay, who's been far too obvious in his recent novels about cutting away from action in order to hide important information from the reader. Because he's working in traditional omniscient perspective, it's very obvious what's going on, and I end up angry and resentful. Not the desired effect, I fear.

Thanks for the good discussion.