So I'm trying to write something for a contest that's got an ASAP sorta deadline. Just getting started and I've hit a roadblock and need some quick feedback on a problem.
Starts off with some second-person very sensory description, then I want to go into first-person narrative (both perspectives describe the narrator.) The second-person bits sort of describe the effects of a sorta drug that the narrator is going through, so 2nd is to give it more of an objective weight. I know a lot of people hate 2nd in general, but that aside, do you think this would be too jarring or hokey?
So... boiled down (in present tense):
You aren't the kind of girl to sweat through a blouse for no reason, but here you are. I use the margins of my math book as an opportunity to provide myself with a play-by-play.
Thinking it out in these terms, I say go for it. You may want to style the two narratives differently to cue the reader. However, I really like the idea of using this technique it to reflect on a sorta-drug experience - especially since when one is on drugs, one's perception of self can change quickly.
I guess second person POV is kinda like flashbacks, use with caution, but if used effectively, can make a piece of writing sparkle. If you are convinced that it's going to help with the sensory description, then I say go for it. I can see how it would make it almost "Requiem for the dream" trippy. :)
Sorry, Renfield, this isn't constructive. It's a no-answer. This kinda thing depends on the quality of the work. It could be hokey and jarring. It could be beautiful and engaging. Second person can be good. I like the way Chuck does it, with the first person narrator speaking in second person. How are you doing it? Are you separating the shifts with scene breaks or are you just going from one to the other? If so, could you use a word or phrase or something to help the tansition? Plant it early and use it later to help the jump make sense. Example, and this is off the top of my head, so no judging, you bearded wonder.
"The brain stays active for about twenty minutes after death, but you never really thought about it. Like the time your teacher said ... [insert some weird story about detention with your teacher and she's tap tap tapping her pencil, and the light fades outside, and the hallway lights blink on and off, and time stretches out, and the classroom is small and you can't breathe] ... and eventually she let you go and when you got outside you looked at your Thundercats watch and couldn't believe she'd only kept you for ten minutes. Ten minutes in isolation can feel like forever, so I don't know how long these twenty minutes will last and..."
Okay, that's fucked. Too early, too much coffee, not enough beard.
I like using second person to mix things up a bit. It helps submerge the "I", and for me, I think it feels like you're talking to the reader directly. So, for things like sensory details, you're almost intructing them how to feel (although "instruct" is probably too strong a word - "firmly guiding" might be a better way to put it... Anyway, you get the point). I regularly swap throughout my prose and don't find it jarring, but I do tend to use second person sparingly. However, I've tried starting my novel in second person, and use it for the intro, as a means of attempting to immerse the reader in the story more quickly - and I think it achieves that purpose very well. I was using flashbacks anyway, so I just took advantage of that to get out of it:
"Rewind. Go back a few minutes, back to when you were me..." And from there, I switch back to first person. I haven't submitted that to workshop yet so I don't know how people will feel about it, but I'm happy with it and I think it works.
So, overall, my advice is to go with it. Best of luck.
I'd love to see how it turns out if you're up for sharing. Good luck!
When I am writing for publication, I follow the general principal that second person POV has dangers that are not encountered elsewhere. For a self-referential writer like Jay McInerney, who was an expert on spending his life drugged up in NYC, writing as the expert telling you what YOU will experience if you follow in his footsteps worked ONCE. Because it worked once, and briefly went to the top of the NY Times best seller list, writers at different schools of writing in NY universities jumped on the bandwagon and tried to make it their god du jour. This was back in the 80s when it was novel. Now it is old and hoary...like the writer himself who is no longer a thirty-something guru. It is easier to write because you set yourself up as the center of the universe and a cause celebre. Tell me, what else has he written that was successful either as literature or as a publisher's dream? Putting the reader in the middle of the scene is, to me, far easier than convincing her to jump into it of her own volition. Easy isn't what I am about. Anything obtained without effort, to me, isn't worth having...or selling.
My own preference is to write what I hope is a convincing story in first or third person POV and allow the reader to decide for herself where to invest her emotional capital.
To me, everything I write from a story to a post on a website to a grocery list is practice for "real" writing. To me, real writing is that which someone will pay to publish. I know that most of what I write will not be published, however, if it polishes a skill I need for the next piece, the time spent and effort expended is worth it. If it is simply an ego trip, I have had enough ego satisfactions in my life to be able to say, "N'est pas por moi."
the thing with 2nd person is that the meaning of "you' has changed (not sure when). It's not just referring to the reader directly, it also means "one" in a general sense. I've heard a lot of interviews where people refer to their own experience by using it. "How do you live with all this attention?" "You just take it one day at a time..."
I think this makes 2nd person more wieldy.
the italics is a good device to differentiate between the 1st and 2nd.
do it, do it right.
@Renfield - eloquetly put - I read the Head & Heart essay but don't recall the details. I'll have to revisit it.