Second Person [split from EP200: All You Zombies]

[Sgarre1]

I have to say I never knew there was this large dislike for 2nd person stories until I started reading these boards.  I still actually don't get what the problem is - is it some weird power dynamic/loss of agency thing for modern readers (modern readers, by which I mean people post-widescale internet usage-on)?  It baffles me.

[tinroof]

Second-person is inherently counter-intuitive, because no one talks like that. First person and third person both have very natural uses in everyday speech, but the circumstances under which you would actually have to explain someone's own actions to them at length are so specific and rare that it feels very weird to hear persistent second person in a story.

It can be done well but it needs finesse and it needs to be relevant to the story you're trying to tell. Otherwise it'll throw the reader straight out, and you never want to do that.

[Unblinking]

Yeah, 2nd person almost always bugs me.  It can work in bits and pieces, like an aside to the story.  Such as a single line in a 3rd person story that says "He was strong like an ox.  Well, my similes are terrible, but you get the idea." 

The ones that really bug me are the ones that just swap in 2nd where 3rd or 1st would've made sense:  "You were looking forward to skiing today.  You hadn't been on the slopes in years because of chronic vertigo, but finally you'd gotten it under control."

When I hear this I immediately get thrown out of the story.  I don't ski.  I don't like the cold.  I'm not particularly athletic.  I don't have vertigo.  Someone telling me otherwise does not make it so. 

There are cases where I could see it working, such as a narrator who is an oracle telling me what I WILL do.  As long as it's vague about my history so as not to try to tell me what I have done before today, then I could maybe buy into that.

[stePH]

Second-person is inherently counter-intuitive, because no one talks like that. First person and third person both have very natural uses in everyday speech, but the circumstances under which you would actually have to explain someone's own actions to them at length are so specific and rare that it feels very weird to hear persistent second person in a story.

It can be done well but it needs finesse and it needs to be relevant to the story you're trying to tell. Otherwise it'll throw the reader straight out, and you never want to do that.

The only person who should speak in the 2nd person is an RPG gamemaster.

[mbrennan]

I suspect we're waaaaaaaaaaaay off-topic at this point, but -- I've done two short stories that made heavy use of second person.  One was structured as a letter, and described to the recipient actions she would not remember having taken; that isn't really properly second person, as it was more a first-person address to an offstage character.  The other, though, was one of the more experimental things I've ever written; it described the application process for some (initially unknown) group.  Definitely an edge case, but one where first or third would just not have served the story.  (Though even then, I slipped over to first at the end.)

So there are times when it's the right pov to use, even outside of a game context.  But the times when I think it's justified, rather than artificial, are rare.

[Bdoomed]

I suspect we're waaaaaaaaaaaay off-topic at this point

Very true, split
Carry on.

[blueeyeddevil]

If you'll forgive me for saying, I think there's an epistemological issue with the discussion here, i.e. the terms seem to hold different meanings for separate people. If I might suggest a clarifying definition:
Second person narrative should not be confused with the second person tense within grammar. One is dependent upon the other (there is no second person narrative without the second person tense) but instances of use of the second person tense within a taxt do not in themselves constitute second person narrative, any more than a character's use of the first person tense in dialogue would disrupt or change a third person narrative.
For something to be a second person narrative, therefore, it must be continually phrased within the form of someone making personal observations about the reader to the reader.
The second person narrative is difficult and disliked because in a very real way, it almost can't exist. Narrative is not a person, its corpus is derived entirely from its voice. A voice that is talking directly to the reader does not have a central non-verbal existence like a human being, as such, a second person voice is really a first person voice talking about you.
This can be disconcerting because, unless it is done masterfully, the reader may be distanced by the 'wait, I'm not like that' factor. The form work best and most natuarally as a pychological tension-builder, because it is so  unnatural to speak continually about one subject so intensely that it belies obsession.
Aside from short stories and a few angsty pop songs, the only story I've come across that uses this form perfectly is Camus's The Fall.

[Effie Collins]

I find the above statement to be not entirely true. For one, not only have I read stories in which the "you" is an actual character within the story and not the reader, but I have written a story that way myself (a story that had even people who claimed to hate second person saying they enjoyed thoroughly, fyi). The "you" narrative needn't be directed to the reader, though many people seem to think that is the only way second person can be used--which isn't true. I think the "you" being directed at someone other than the reader makes second person easier to swallow.

Second person is, after all, just another PoV, or perspective depending on which term you prefer. (I use PoV, though that is probably wrong, it's how my brain clarifies first, second and third.) Just like first and third, when written well, it works. And a story must be told in the best way it can be. If second person is how it works, then I'd shame anyone who changed to first or third simply because second person has some strange stigma attached to it. When I wrote my second person frame-story, one beta reader suggested I change it to third. I did. It sucked. Not only by my standards, but by all the other betas too. First person didn't work either. Second person was the only way the story felt right. It lost something when that perspective changed.

In my opinion, use what tools you need to write your story as it should be written. Use only what you need. If something is used as a gimmick, as second person almost always is, then figure a way to make the story interesting without the gimmick. If the story needs it, then use it. The gimmickry is what makes second person less desirable than the other perspectives. I rarely see a second person narrative that doesn't scream gimmick.