Second-Person Point of View

"You enter a dark, foul-smelling room and immediately notice a large chest on the dirt floor. Perspiration beads on your forehead, despite the chill in the dungeon-like basement. Glancing around, your gaze falls on the broken hasp on the front of the mammoth trunk."

If you open the chest, turn to page 64.
If you turn around and go back the way you came, go to page 42.



I fondly  recall my love affair with Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books. It started in fourth grade. I would place my order, carefully marking the news-printed Scholastic Book Order form and gathering up my rumpled bills and hidden change. I'd wait anxiously until the day that, coming in from recess, I'd spy the box with the red lettering sitting on the teacher's desk just waiting to be sorted.

I remember curling up in the burnt-orange velour side chair, slurping a sticky candy cane, reading by the lights of the Christmas tree. I devoured book after book, exhausting every possible scenario. And I loved every minute of it.

Fast-forward nearly thirty years. (Stop doing the math! Just go with it, people!) Okay, I'm a little older now and a little more pressed for time in my reading for enjoyment. But as I scan the library shelf for Book 3 of a series I've been enjoying, I see another book I haven't read. It's by an author I've enjoyed in the past, it has a catchy, one-word title, and a captivating cover. I slide it off the shelf, read the back cover copy, and add it to my stack of books to be checked out.

As I open the book to read the first page, something about the point of view jars me, takes me back, and messes with my mind. Then it registers--the book is written in second-person point of view. I get my bearings and keep reading. But the reading is difficult. My heart races, but not in anticipation, but rather with anxiety. I keep reading, not necessarily because I can't help it, but because I'm a "finisher" and I want to get to the end of the book. The writing is stellar; the plot unique; the characters well-fleshed out. But I. Can't. Stand. This. Book.

Over the last few days since finishing it, I've wondered what it was about that book that I didn't like. I love the idea of trying a second-person book. I loved those Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Books, too, remember? But I think I've finally figured out what turned me off. It wasn't that it was a second-person POV, but that the character was so different from my personality that being in his head made me panic. I'm not a thirty-something married father of two (nor have I ever been or hope to be). I don't take business trips. I don't take chances; or give out my number to strangers; or feel the need to rescue attractive women in distress. While in the C-Y-O-A novels of my childhood, I could pick the path that most appealed to me, I felt drug along for the ride in this current book.

It is interesting to me, both as a reader and a writer, that the author's use of this POV to draw the reader into the story, just made me want to flee from the book, take a shower with Lysol, and smack somebody up the side of the head. The use of any other POV would have given me enough distance from the story that I may have enjoyed it--maybe.

I'm curious about the rest of you: Have you read a book done in second-person POV? Did you enjoy it? Did it pull you in to the story?

How about as a writer? Would you risk trying a second-person book? Would you rather your book evoke a strong reaction in a reader even if it was a negative reaction or would you rather go with another POV and solicit softer feelings?

Nikki Studebaker Barcus

How to Save a Ton of Narrative Headache

“If you jump into a story without considering the implications of the viewpoint you’re liable to discover that your writing becomes harder as you go along” (David Morrell, Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing, p. 91).

Morrell recommends considering questions and weighing the pros and cons of four viewpoints before writing far. I’ve distilled his advice to writers.

Whose story is this?

Who can best reveal absolutely essential information? One character? Two? A few?

Which point of view allows you to get to the depth of your story?

Third person omniscient

Pros

Narrator is all-aware.

He or she can describe the sweeping flow of history as easily as intimate thoughts of the heart of any character.

Reader can see into the mind and emotion of any character.

Cons

We live in a skeptical age.

Readers question what narrator has the ability described above.

Arriving at no satisfactory answer, readers determine the story is made-up, a sham.

They refuse to suspend belief and story is abandoned, unread.

Third person limited

Pros

Truer to life.

Specific and immediate.

Because it is limited it can reflect a story’s theme: the limitations of individual perspective.

Cons

If the viewpoint character doesn’t know it, the reader doesn’t know it.

Morrell prefers this viewpoint.

“If you’re good at role-playing, if you can imagine you are inside a character, if you can think and feel with that character and make your readers share those thoughts and feelings, you can trap your readers and make them feel they’re in the story instead of merely reading it” (p.99).

Second person

Pros

Can dramatize a character’s trauma.

Cons

Character who addresses the story with second person has disassociated from self, which distances readers.

Distance between character and reader can be overcome by using present tense, thus the reader is simultaneously taken out of and drawn into the story.

This is a difficult point of view to sustain for the length of a novel but can be sued effectively for shorter fiction.

First person

Pros

Effective for narrators who are self-deluded, liars, fools, insane or psychologically traumatized.

Brings the reader directly into a narrator’s agony.

Narrator doesn’t understand the true nature of what he or she is saying; reader has the pleasure of discovery.

Story is as interesting as the character telling it.

Cons

Encourages writers to jabber and neglect details of sound, smell, taste and touch.

Tendency to rely almost exclusively on sight details.

If the narrator is one-dimensional, the reader has nothing to discover and the story seems a string of I-I-I statements.

Writer must find a reason for the narrator to record his or her story.

Tendency to summarize and explain; harder to dramatize.

Removes suspense: reader knows the narrator survives the story’s conflict.

First person is the most trapped of viewpoints.

Morrell advises looking for every reason not to use it since it is difficult to sustain for the length of a novel.

Choose first person only if no other viewpoint will work because the viewpoint cannot be separated from the plot. (Think Huck Finn.)

Point of View - a Study in Voice

I recently read a publisher's website that stated they did not want submissions in the omniscient voice and it got me thinking about that. Who does that? Would I like it? Maybe they're throwing the baby out with the bathwater on this one. Now, I understand about no head hopping in third person, handle with care first person (The Snowflake - my Christmas novella due out in October is my first experiment with first person) but what exactly is omniscient pov? And is there really anything wrong with it?
A few days later, down another rabbit hole, I looked up one of my childhood favorites - Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and there it was . . . omniscient narrative:

"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled
Jo, lying on the rug.
"It's so dreadful to be poor!" sighed Meg, looking down at
her old dress.
"I don't think it's fair for some girls to have plenty of
pretty things, and other girls nothing at all," added little Amy,
with an injured sniff.
"We've got Father and Mother, and each other," said Beth
contentedly from her corner.
The four young faces on which the firelight shone brightened
at the cheerful words, but darkened again as Jo said sadly,
"We haven't got Father, and shall not have him for a long time."
She didn't say "perhaps never," but each silently added it, thinking
of Father far away, where the fighting was. (This appears in Jo's pov)
Nobody spoke for a minute; then Meg said in an altered tone,
"You know the reason Mother proposed not having any presents this
Christmas was because it is going to be a hard winter for everyone;
and she thinks we ought not to spend money for pleasure, when
our men are suffering so in the army. We can't do much, but we can
make our little sacrifices, and ought to do it gladly. But I am
afraid I don't." And Meg shook her head, as she thought regretfully
of all the pretty things she wanted. (Now we're in Meg's pov)
"But I don't think the little we should spend would do any
good. We've each got a dollar, and the army wouldn't be much helped
by our giving that. I agree not to expect anything from Mother or
you, but I do want to buy UNDINE AND SINTRAM for myself. I've
wanted it so long," said Jo, who was a bookworm. (Jo's pov if she's the person we are in their head, if not omniscient)
"I planned to spend mine in new music," said Beth, with a
little sigh, which no one heard but the hearth brush and kettle
holder. (Omniscient pov)
"I shall get a nice box of Faber's drawing pencils. I
really need them," said Amy decidedly.
"Mother didn't say anything about our money, and she won't
wish us to give up everything. Let's each buy what we want, and
have a little fun. I'm sure we work hard enough to earn it," cried
Jo, examining the heels of her shoes in a gentlemanly manner. (Back in Jo's pov or omniscient)
"I know I do--teaching those tiresome children nearly all
day, when I'm longing to enjoy myself at home," began Meg, in the
complaining tone again.
"Don't peck at one another, children. Don't you wish we
had the money Papa lost when we were little, Jo? Dear me! How
happy and good we'd be, if we had no worries!" said Meg, who
could remember better times. (Omniscient)
"You said the other day you thought we were a deal happier
than the King children, for they were fighting and fretting all
the time, in spite of their money."
"Birds in their little nests agree," sang Beth, the
peacemaker, with such a funny face that both sharp voices
softened to a laugh, and the "pecking" ended for that time. (Omniscient)

Okay, lots of head hopping going on here, but really it doesn't feel as if we're in any one's head. It feels as if the camera is zoomed out and giving us an overall view of the scene. I find I don't mind it. It gives me information about each character and what they think and feel, who they are. If we were only in Jo's pov it would be quite different, wouldn't it? How she views her sisters. But, wait a minute. That kind of comes through after all, with the way it is written. It's Jo we end up identifying with in Little Women as the main character/narrator and maybe that's because the omniscient view isn't really omniscient after all. Maybe it's Jo's way of telling a first person pov story. Now that's confusing! And interesting to me.

Thoughts?

Jamie Carie
www.jamiecarie.com