My navel, let me gaze at it
So, umm, I posted this fic the other day, yeah? And I still can't seem to talk about it in "public" (you all are public) without turning red, but somewhere in between all of the embarrassing omgdidireallyjustwritethat parts, I ended up discovering that I actually kind of loved writing in second-person POV, and to explain why, I'm just going to c&P my entire reply to something acquiescence_ said.
I'm going to quote part of her comment:
And you know what it really is pretty great, the second person tense sort of disappears after a while. And I think a large part of that is due to the really great characterizations you have here - because it's not about you but the you ends up being a real character instead of just a sort of self insert the way a lot of fics do who use this tense.
My response:
Hey, thanks for reading, and I totally get the reluctance, because I still can't really believe I wrote this myself. Once I decided to write it, though, it was almost like I gave myself permission to just write whatever came to my mind, which, I think, is why the second person POV actually worked.
I generally avoid 2nd person fic as well. In the ten+ years I've been in fandom (now I feel old...) I've read maybe half a dozen second-person POV fics that didn't make me want to poke my eyes out. Even in fics that were well-crafted, so many times it just felt like the whole mood of the fic just turned way too melodramatic, or it just seemed like the author was using second-person in a "Ooh, look at me being edgy and different" sort of way when the whole thing would have worked better in first or third.
I always kind of thought that second-person POV was just about inserting the reader into the mind of the character, until I read this book in the spring on the history & construct of the novel as a literary form (can't remember the title, but I should really go dig around my bookshelves for it). That's when I realized, that, yeah, you do need to do that, but that there also needed to be a distinctive tone behind the narration. It's almost like "you" is a puppet, and somewhere, completely hidden away, there's a puppet-master whispering "and now you dance." The puppet isn't in control of the story, and they're not even in control of the way it's being told.
In that way, it's the most intimate POV of the events that are unfolding, because it's very much a stream-of-consciousness thing, and I have actually attempted stream-of-consciousness fics in both first and third person before, and this one definitely felt the most natural to write.
Very shortly after reading the book I mentioned I played around just a tiny bit with second-person POV by writing a little (unfinished) drabble where I wanted to be purposely vague about exactly who "you" was, but I didn't think I'd ever actually try my hand at anything longer, because I just didn't think the POV would hold up for more than that. While I was watching the WWFM video (over and over...), and watching fan speculation about "who" exactly "the camera" was, I realized that the video was, in essence, well-done second-person POV. So when I found a couple of scenes popping into my head - only intending to type them out in that "maybe if I actually try to write it I'll be able to stop thinking about it" kind of way - I thought this might be another good opportunity to fool around with second person.
Then, like I said, it was like I had already turned off all my inhibitions just to get over the fact that I was actually writing this, and before I realized it I was a thousand words into the fic, and the second-person was the perfect POV to flip back and forth between past & present tense (again, something I'd played around with in the past that had felt much more awkward), and then I realized that I didn't have to stay in Adam's mind, but could actually make statements like "you don't know what's going on" or "you didn't realize it until later", and then I realized that this POV was actually kind of fun for showing an imperfect narration.
And that's the really, really long version of why I'm secretly kind of proud of the literary skills I used to write this fic.
Interpreting a music video.
About pop stars.
Being emo.
With bonus porn.
I'm going to quote part of her comment:
And you know what it really is pretty great, the second person tense sort of disappears after a while. And I think a large part of that is due to the really great characterizations you have here - because it's not about you but the you ends up being a real character instead of just a sort of self insert the way a lot of fics do who use this tense.
My response:
Hey, thanks for reading, and I totally get the reluctance, because I still can't really believe I wrote this myself. Once I decided to write it, though, it was almost like I gave myself permission to just write whatever came to my mind, which, I think, is why the second person POV actually worked.
I generally avoid 2nd person fic as well. In the ten+ years I've been in fandom (now I feel old...) I've read maybe half a dozen second-person POV fics that didn't make me want to poke my eyes out. Even in fics that were well-crafted, so many times it just felt like the whole mood of the fic just turned way too melodramatic, or it just seemed like the author was using second-person in a "Ooh, look at me being edgy and different" sort of way when the whole thing would have worked better in first or third.
I always kind of thought that second-person POV was just about inserting the reader into the mind of the character, until I read this book in the spring on the history & construct of the novel as a literary form (can't remember the title, but I should really go dig around my bookshelves for it). That's when I realized, that, yeah, you do need to do that, but that there also needed to be a distinctive tone behind the narration. It's almost like "you" is a puppet, and somewhere, completely hidden away, there's a puppet-master whispering "and now you dance." The puppet isn't in control of the story, and they're not even in control of the way it's being told.
In that way, it's the most intimate POV of the events that are unfolding, because it's very much a stream-of-consciousness thing, and I have actually attempted stream-of-consciousness fics in both first and third person before, and this one definitely felt the most natural to write.
Very shortly after reading the book I mentioned I played around just a tiny bit with second-person POV by writing a little (unfinished) drabble where I wanted to be purposely vague about exactly who "you" was, but I didn't think I'd ever actually try my hand at anything longer, because I just didn't think the POV would hold up for more than that. While I was watching the WWFM video (over and over...), and watching fan speculation about "who" exactly "the camera" was, I realized that the video was, in essence, well-done second-person POV. So when I found a couple of scenes popping into my head - only intending to type them out in that "maybe if I actually try to write it I'll be able to stop thinking about it" kind of way - I thought this might be another good opportunity to fool around with second person.
Then, like I said, it was like I had already turned off all my inhibitions just to get over the fact that I was actually writing this, and before I realized it I was a thousand words into the fic, and the second-person was the perfect POV to flip back and forth between past & present tense (again, something I'd played around with in the past that had felt much more awkward), and then I realized that I didn't have to stay in Adam's mind, but could actually make statements like "you don't know what's going on" or "you didn't realize it until later", and then I realized that this POV was actually kind of fun for showing an imperfect narration.
And that's the really, really long version of why I'm secretly kind of proud of the literary skills I used to write this fic.
Interpreting a music video.
About pop stars.
Being emo.
With bonus porn.