YOU

[ninety6tears]

Alright. I want you all to tell me how you feel about second-person narrative.

The reaction I've seen to second person, particularly when it comes to discussion of fanfic, is pretty much "WTF are you doing," ranging from "That doesn't even make sense, who uses second person?" to "It can be effective, but who the hell do you think you are,

Comments

[cicero_drayon]

Pretty much this to verizonhorizon. I very much like to separate myself from the story and this is like an icy plunge into my uncomfortable zone especially since the vast majority of it is porn.

But of course it has been done quite effectively (although unfortunately I can't think of any examples right now :/). I wrote it once as a sort of experiment in my own writing style as an introspective character piece in first person.

Generally, though, I tend to like things mostly in third person, just to get all the details in.

[calenture]

In my experience, second-person narration only works in video games and choose-your-own-adventure books.

[greensquiggly]

Was gonna say this. Choose Your Own Ending Books are especially fun.

[ninety6tears]

Yeah, I could see Spock narration working in 2nd.
The one specific fic I can think of that was so effective that it may have in fact given me the whole idea that second person can be used well is one in which the speaker was an extremely guilt-consumed character, and it felt as if the distance from the events that were described was the only way the character would even approach talking about those things (and as you said above, it can come off an overly harsh way of wording things, but in that particular fic it kinda made sense).

[the_deep_magic]

There was a spate of second-person Star Wars fics (mostly centered around McGregor!Kenobi) that didn't pretend to be anything but self-insert. I thought it was kind of weird at first, but I got into it because it was so intentionally, shamelessly Mary Sue that it was fun. That's the only time I've read more than a few paragraphs into a second-person POV fic. I'm sure there are other ways it could work; I just haven't really seen them.

[ninety6tears]

LOL, I kind of assumed there was very Mary-Sueish stuff out there and that that was probably the reason for the stigma in fandom, which is understandable, I've just never come across it myself

[janice_lester]

Yeah, I get what you're saying. I've come across it as a way to tell the story so that it's personal, lacking the distance of third person, but it's not the character (generally Spock, when I've come across it) telling us his story (it's too personal, it would almost be out of character to have him use "I"), it's him telling the story to himself, complete with commentary. And that takes some getting used to. Can be effective, but it's odd and it's something I wouldn't ordinarily read. I always blink, but it can be done so that at least it's more interesting than it is annoying. jaylee_g has a second-person Spock fic somewhere that's in this vein--somewhere along the line my resistance crumbles and the narrative voice starts being trippy and illuminating in strange ways