Ok,

So you've written a book. Well, nearly written one, you have it down, it's almost done, in first draft at least. You know it's dark and it's meant to be. It deals with lonliness, depression, suicide and death, and not in any kind of Nick Hornby I-know-it's-suicide-but-it-can-still-be-funny kind of way. It's never going to be a bestseller, it won't be a three for two kind of book, Richard & Judy won't be knocking at your door, not this time. In all likilihood you know that it'll never get published.

But anyway, it's in the first person. And well, it's pretty swell, at least you like to think so, but you're now thinking that there are some sections that would be better in the second person. Because second person seems to carry something extra, it gives the detachment but also the emotion, it give you the show and the tell. But what you want to know is, would people get it? Would they be put off by it? What you want to know is how people feel about the second person and what their experience of it is.

For God's sake don't do it!

Or if you have to, then do it in homeopathic doses!

(Try reading The Dark by John McGahern, partially written in the second person)

I think it can - well-handled - be effective in very, very small doses - yes, we're talking parts per million, here.

It's really tough to read, and many people just find it intensely irritating. Having said that, almost anything that's a bad idea can be made into a good if challenging one by its being done really, really well, which is why I'd never say never to anything.

Emma

Done well, second person is the one I most enjoy reading. But its fair to say its probably the hardest to write well.

If the book is never to see the light of day (quoting your post!) why not just write it as you feel right, and dont worry about what others think?

That way it'll be stronger.... arguably.

v

Personally, I don't like second person at all. It reminds me of those choose your own adventure game books that I used to read and cheat with when I was younger.

But - there are three paragraphs in my novel that my first person narrator speaks in second person - I just could not think of any other way to do it. She does address her reader now and again throughout the book, but this extended part is her trying to explain what being lonley is like, and I thought her having only the reader to talk to would emphasise this. Like I say, second person isn't to my taste and if there was a better way of pulling this off I would have done it, and if there is, I couldn't think of it.

I think in tiny doses and for the right reasons, its okay - but like others, too much would be irritating for me.

B

No, I don't like second person AT ALL.

I don't like being told what I'm doing, especially when I'm clearly not doing it.

I think it only really works, as Blackbird says, in little bits, and they're likely to be very intense stream-of-consciousness passages. After all, if you think about how people think, you realise that they all think of themselves as 'you' a lot of the time.

Is the second person the narrator talking about themselves in that way - which is a colloquial form of 'one' - or are they actually addressing another character in tehir head, or are they addressing the reader?

I think it would make a difference to how comfortable I was with such a passage.

Emma

Yes, certainly in 'The Dark' the sense is that the narrator is talking to himself as 'you' and not the reader. It gives a sort of out-of-body feeling to the bits that are written like that and I think can be effective if the scene is a very intense one.

It would be in the form of the self referential you.

I've just read Bright Lights, Big City which is written entirely in the second person and it seems to work out quite well.

I guess it all seems to be down to how you use it.

I also think it would work quite well as my MC is recovering from a haemorrage and putting in the second person allows me to add a layer of distance to it, which is a common side effect of the resultant amnesia. Amnesiacs are often unable to associate their memories with themselves. It can often feel as though they were experienced by someone else. Which kinf of neatly links in to a plot twist later in the book.

I think I'll rewrite the sections and then post the first and second person versions and then beg for feedback.

Amnesiacs are often unable to associate their memories with themselves

Oh, well if you put it like that, geoff, then yes, it makes perfect sense.
Go for it!

You've got to do this, Geoff, if nothing else than for the challenge. That opening post alone shows you can do it, so go for it!


Best of luck.

Colin M

I think it depends very much on the subject matter of the story. I think there has to be a point to making it second person. 1st and 3rd are natural ways of storytelling, but using 2nd p needs a point to it.

For instance, that old cliche of the perv looking in through the windows at a nubile woman and mentally talking to her does demonstrate a good use of 2nd p, despite it being a cliche.

Personally I think it it made sense within the story you could do the whole novel in second person, though I've never read a whole novel done like that. If it works, do it. Be different. Don't play safe!

You say there are sections you feel would be better in second person. Is there any rationale you could employ to make those sections 2nd p and the rest still in 1st p?

Deb

<Added>

Obviously "if it made sense within the story" not "it it made sense within the story"...!

Ok, so you've got this wife who you think is the nurse, and this nurse who you're hoping is the wife, and who you need little encouragement to chat up, because, as everyone can see, you don't have two brain cells left to rub together....

Naomi!?! Not sure I'm following there.

I've decided to go with and write the sections in the second person. I never knew before just how many books used it but there are tons

There's even been a study done

Feeling particularly creative at the mo so have had a go at kncoking out a one page synopsis in the second person.

It's not in the same style as intended in the book but I'd appreciate any feedback you on this one.

Feeling Gravity's Pull Synopsis

Cheers