By author Xanzibar is tremendous. Looking forward to the next part in which we discover how the school bully made nerd's mom a fuck slave.
Great descriptive set up of the narrator's complete and utter humiliation at the bullies ownership of his hot MILF principal mother. Keep it t going!
This is a hot story! Wish a mother son tag was included, because if it wasn't for this post I would have never read it!
Wish a mother son tag was included
He did include the "2nd POV" tag — however, it is written in 1st-person, not 2nd. I sent him a message but he didn't respond.
Could he have meant that the story is told from more than one viewpoint? That seems to be the principal reason for such a miscode.
AJ
Could he have meant that the story is told from more than one viewpoint?
I have no idea. I didn't read it after the first word in the first paragraph was "I" and the "2nd POV" tag was listed.
But if that's why he listed "2nd POV," he should change it.
I was under the impression 2nd POV meant Second Point of View, or am I missing something?
1st person is easy to understand, 3rd person is easy too, but what is 2nd person and why would you expect anyone to write in 2nd person?
It's supposed to be for 2nd person POV, which is a strange one – the narrative is as though speaking to another (possibly the reader). See Shakes Peer2B's Feeling: https://storiesonline.net/s/41348/feeling
1st person is easy to understand, 3rd person is easy too, but what is 2nd person and why would you expect anyone to write in 2nd person?
It's all about who is being addressed/described by the narrator:
1st: Narrator is MC.
2nd: MC is reader, Narrator is someone else.
3rd: MC is neither the narrator nor the reader.
1st: I did this.
3rd: He did this.
2nd: You did this.
It's very rare to see 2nd person POV used in written fiction, generally limited to choose your own adventure books.
I agree it's very rare, though Tom Robbins' 'Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas' uses it. I absolutely could not get into that book even though I mostly like his work.
To my ear it's also the only POV that works well with present tense narrative.
To my ear it's also the only POV that works well with present tense narrative.
To my ear, 2nd POV never works for written fiction with the sole exeption being choose your own adventure books.
Half Asleep was the first Robbins work I read precisely because I had heard it was written in 2nd person. It was interesting. I liked it.
I do not like second person pov for erotica.
It's very rare to see 2nd person POV used in written fiction,
I agree. However, there are numerous stories on SOL written by authors who do not understand 2nd person POV. I suspect, they code their stories as 2nd person POV because they use the word 'you' when one character addresses other characters.
I suspect, they code their stories as 2nd person POV because they use the word 'you' when one character addresses other characters.
I suspect most are miscoding based on Reluctant Sir's misunderstanding of the 2nd POV tag.
"I was under the impression 2nd POV meant Second Point of View, or am I missing something? "
That is the story bounces back and forth between 2 or more POV characters.
That is the story bounces back and forth between 2 or more POV characters.
That would be "two points of view" not "second point of view."
That would be "two points of view" not "second point of view."
Yes, I agree. However, I was referring to a prior comment on the thread by Reluctant Sir:
I was under the impression 2nd POV meant Second Point of View, or am I missing something?
So complain to him about it.
It is my understanding that 2nd POV is, the narrator is telling the reader to place themself into the story as a particular character and is telling the reader what activities his character is to perform.
The reader can then fantasize himself performing that character's portion of the story.
It is my understanding that 2nd POV is, the narrator is telling the reader to place themself into the story as a particular character and is telling the reader what activities his character is to perform.
I would describe it as the narrator is telling the story as if the reader was/is the main character.
If the reader is placing themselves into the story as the MC, then the reader is not the MC and the story should, in my opinion, be in 3rd person POV.
"I was under the impression 2nd POV meant Second Point of View, or am I missing something? "
That is the story bounces back and forth between 2 or more POV characters.
I was quoting a comment by Reluctant SIR and describing how I think that misunderstanding of the 2nd POV tag drives miscodding of stories wrongly tagged as 2nd POV.
I did a search on 2nd POV and several articles that said about the same thing. I thought the masterclass website explained it best.
"In literature, second person point of view breaks the fourth wall by directly addressing the reader with the pronoun "you." It goes a step further by creating an interactive literary experience, bringing the reader into the story.
What Is Second Person POV in Writing?
Second person point of view uses the pronoun "you" to address the reader. This narrative voice implies that the reader is either the protagonist or a character in the story and the events are happening to them."
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-second-person-point-of-view-in-writing-how-to-writer-in-second-person-narrative-voice-with-examples
"In literature, second person point of view breaks the fourth wall by directly addressing the reader with the pronoun "you." It goes a step further by creating an interactive literary experience, bringing the reader into the story.
Yes, but that treatment, in my opinion, does more than just bring the reader into the story, it necessarily makes the reader the MC.
it necessarily makes the reader the MC.
There was one example of a novel in an article I read that said the novel was written from multiple point of views. Some scenes were written in 2nd-POV, but the "you" wasn't the main character. It just brought the reader into the story.
second person point of view breaks the fourth wall by directly addressing the reader with the pronoun "you."
I think "breaking the 4th wall" is a stretch for 2nd-POV. The narrator isn't talking to the reader like breaking the 4th wall. The reader is a character in the story.
second person point of view breaks the fourth wall
I found this on Quora. Although I don't consider that site a great reference, I thought the answer to the difference between breaking the fourth wall and 2nd-POV was spot on.
2nd person is putting the reader INSIDE the narrative i.e. you see this, you see that… this happens…
4th wall is the character inside the narrative temporarily transitioning to a the metaspace between the narrative and the reader… They address the audience outside the framework.
2nd person is putting the reader INSIDE the narrative i.e. you see this, you see that… this happens…
4th wall is the character inside the narrative temporarily transitioning to a the metaspace between the narrative and the reader… They address the audience outside the framework.
How is the reader put inside the narrative?
Breaking the 4th wall in a play is when an actor steps outside their role in the play and addresses the audience directly. In literature, it is when the story's narrator addresses the reader directly. This is done to describe to the reader what their part is as a character in the story (e.g., you see or do this, you see or do that… this happens…) The reader can then envision themself in the role of that character in the story, following the narrator's description what they are to do as the character. The character is typically the MC but can be one of the other characters.
Breaking the 4th wall in a play is when an actor steps outside their role in the play and addresses the audience directly.
Which is not what 2nd-POV is in literature.
Authors like Jane Austen would address the reader with something like: "Dear Reader, if only so-and-so knew that…" That's breaking the 4th wall by stepping out of the story to address the reader.
But in 2nd-POV, the reader becomes a character in the story. Part of the narrative.
I would disagree. The narrator is addressing the reader by using 'you' and telling the reader what their character will do. The reader uses what they are told to visualize themself as a character in the story.
The reader does not change the narrative and dialog, as if it would in an interactive story. The story does not change due to the reader's visualization. It is just their personal experience.
the reader by using 'you' and telling the reader what their character will do. The reader uses what they are told to visualize themself as a character in the story.
The reader does not change the narrative and dialog, as if it would in an interactive story. The story does not change due to the reader's visualization. It is
It may be just my perception, and not the author's intention, but when reading a story written in the second person, it never seems that it is addressing me as the "you."
It always reads to me as a narrator addressing/referencing a second person within the story.
it never seems that it is addressing me as the "you."
It should. 2nd-POV puts the reader into the story.
That may be the intention, but with me it fails. To me it is as if they are addressing a third person in the room with them, not addressing me.
Part of the problem may be that they most seem to be written in present tense: "You bend your head and suck my nipple."
I just find them all awkward.
That may be the intention, but with me it fails.
I believe it fails with most readers of fiction. It's not used much in literature. It's used in marketing. It's used in training materials. It's used in games.
I've noticed that the vast majority of the stories on SOL coded as 2nd POV are actually 1st or 3rd person stories.
I suspect that is also true of other websites.
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I did a search awhile back on 2nd POV. I forget how many stories were in the results, but it was well over 100. I checked the first 15-20 stories, but none of them were written in 2nd POV.
Think about the disagreement in this thread about what 2nd POV means. Many of us seem to have different opinions that the others. However, one thing we all seem to agree on is that the narrator uses the word 'you' to describe what a specific character will be doing in the coming scene.
The reader does not change the narrative and dialog
Maybe this is where we disagree. The narrative is the story. Talking to the reader is outside the story and that's why that quote said it wasn't part of the narrative.
... why that quote said it wasn't part of the narrative.
Earlier in the thread you posted a quote from Quora to show that 2nd POV is not breaking the 4th wall.
2nd person is putting the reader INSIDE the narrative i.e. you see this, you see that… this happens…
Now in a different post, Talking to the reader is outside the story and that's why that quote said it wasn't part of the narrative.
I agree that talking to the reader is outside the narrative addressing the storyline. However how do you define what the narrator is saying to the readers if it is not part of the story's narrative for it is definitely not part of the story's dialog?
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A second point in regard to your Quora post, there is a wall between the narrator and the readers; you can define that wall however you wish. In 1st and 3rd person, the narrator never breaks that wall by deviating from the narrative addressing the storyline and its characters. In 2nd POV, the narrator provides information to the readers regarding what they will see and should do (e.g., you see a sword on the floor, you pick it up). To me providing descriptions and instructions to the readers is breaking that wall; I define it as breaking the 4th wall.
I believe that 2nd POV requires the narrator to break the wall between the narrator and the readers; regardless of whether you want to call it breaking the 4th wall or something else like putting the reader in the narrative.
Since we seem to disagree on terms and a few additional things about 2nd POV, I plan to end my part in this discussion with this post.
However how do you define what the narrator is saying to the readers if it is not part of the story's narrative
This is not 2nd-POV, right?
How is it done? It's called "author intrusion." I learned early on that that was bad writing. For example:
Joe lit a cigarette. The Surgeon General determined you can get cancer from smoking cigarettes. Joe took a long puff and let the smoke ooze from his parted lips and float past his nose to his eyes.
The second sentence is the author talking to the reader. It's not part of the narrative. It even uses "you," but it's not 2nd-POV.
Jane Austen was famous for talking to the reader more directly. She actually addressed the reader with a "Dear Reader." She took the reader out of the story to tell them something. People praise her for the way she, the author, became intimate with her reader. But it's not 2nd-POV. I guess it's breaking the 4th wall even though it's not a character talking to the reader.
I think theater is more suited for the character talking to the audience. You can't have the author of the play jump out from behind the curtain to talk to the audience. But in literature, the author can do that more easily than a character in the story.
The Quora quote basically said that 2nd-POV was making the reader a character in the story (narrative), but breaking the 4th wall was jumping out of the story (narrative) to talk to the reader.
You can't have the author of the play jump out from behind the curtain to talk to the audience.
Actually, in the movie "Here Today," that happens. Billy Crystal's character writes jokes for a show like "Saturday Night Live." One of the characters in the skit keeps putting the accent in the wrong place in words. It drives the writer crazy and he can't take it anymore and jumps out from behind the curtain. He goes on a rant, speaking to the audience about it.
Joe lit a cigarette. The Surgeon General determined you can get cancer from smoking cigarettes. Joe took a long puff and let the smoke ooze from his parted lips and float past his nose to his eyes.
That's probably a poor example. 'You' doesn't necessarily refer to the reader because its second definition in my dictionary says it refers to any person in general. One could replace it with 'one', for example.
AJ
That's probably a poor example. 'You' doesn't
The original example that I recall didn't have the "you." I threw it in because of the discussion. How about:
Joe lit a cigarette. He sucked the smoke into his lungs—not that you would smoke—and let it out as two white streams through his nostrils.
Em-dashes and parentheses are ways to break the 4th wall in literature.
He sucked the smoke into his lungs—not that you would smoke—and let it out as two white streams through his nostrils.
With no other context, I think it's ambiguous whether that is breaking the 4th wall or 2nd-POV.
How about:
He sucked the smoke into his lungs—turn the page if smoking offends you—and let it out as two white streams through his nostrils.
Yes, I know that's hideously clumsy.
AJ
Yes, I know that's hideously clumsy.
So was mine. I found the following that explains it better than I can:
Authorial Intrusion is a literary device where the author intentionally breaks from the narrative and addresses the reader directly. Used correctly, this device can create a relationship between the author and the reader adding an additional layer to the story. Used incorrectly, it becomes an annoying nuisance.
In the classics, authorial intrusion was more common. Hawthorn in The Scarlet Letter, Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby, and Hugo in Les Misérables are a few examples. (These intrusions also exist in plays as an aside or other forms of breaking the 4th wall.)
In these examples, the authors would interject commentary about a social or political issue into the prose. These comments were not intended to come from the POV character and often were used to illustrate how a character's or society's views were mistaken. These interjections could be a short as a phrase, or, in the case of Victor Hugo, could go on for pages. Usually, these were related to the theme or were otherwise politically motivated.
Authorial Intrusion in contemporary literature is more commonly used for comedic effect or to portray the author as a character. Books like A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket uses frequent Authorial Intrusion. On the first page, Snicket begins the story by addressing the reader directly.
If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. … I'm sorry to tell you this, but that's how the story goes.
Snicket pops in and out the narration frequently, either to comment on the direness of the situation or to explain the meaning of a difficult word. This creates the illusion of Snicket, not as an invisible author, but as a living person who has discovered this story and is sharing it as a warning to others.
In most stories, the author is invisible, intent on creating an immersive experience for the reader.
If you are writing in 1st person POV or deep 3rd, you shouldn't use authorial intrusion. (If anyone has an example of this working, I want to see it.) You will break the illusion of immersion. In these POV's, there is no omniscient narrator who is allowed to interject his/her thoughts into the story. Every word that is written must come from the POV character's thoughts.
In these examples, the authors would interject commentary about a social or political issue into the prose.
I think it might be hard to distinguish intentional author intrusion from exposition or world-building.
AJ
I think it might be hard to distinguish intentional author intrusion from exposition or world-building.
Only in omniscient. And it's only author intrusion when it's outside of the plot so talking about social or political issues relevant to the plot is fine. But imagine talking about the social injustice on a planet in a SciFi story and the author throws in something about George Floyd. That would have nothing to do with the narrative of the story and be author intrusion.
writing in 1st person POV or deep 3rd, you shouldn't use authorial intrusion
I don't have example of that, but I could imagine a situation where a 1st person pov is telling a story from, supposedly, significant distance in time or personal growth, and occasionally comments on the life or views or whatever of his younger self out of narrative.
Or, in a story I'm currently writing I have a few intrusions that stress that the actual language the characters are using isn't English. Like, confusion if a word "daughter" is actually used in a meaning of "maid" or "whore" in a dialogue. It's still a confusion in the pov character's head space in real time, but he does address reader with words "in our language..."
In Latvian it isn't too uncommon to provide instruction, like: how to conduct business with authorities, behave at an exam, what to expect during a medical procedure in a bit convoluted compound time/mod that's apparently called second person future quotative debitive.
The narrator conveys explicitly unreliable information acquired from another source about a possible future necessity the addressed person will or may face.
Such telling may easily incorporate branching and describe different options or possibilities or doubt of the narrator. In my opinion it could be the best, if not even the only way to make use of second person in narrative fiction palatable.
However, even in Latvian long passages in that rendering become tiresome because each verb is specifically prefixed and preceded by a heavily modified form of "to be." Teller will likely fall back to simpler future forms most of the time and only occasionally employ this fully to emphasize lack of trust in reliability of their sources and uncertainty of the future events.
I believe, it may be rather difficult to approximate something like that in English fully, but it's about like:
Supposedly, then you must be provided with an address. Supposedly you should go there. Supposedly there may be a red brick house you will have to go into. Supposedly you will have to go to the room on the right. Supposedly there should be those people there. Supposedly you may have to undress right away, or they may talk to you first. Possibly any of the following questions may be asked. You will have to answer in this certain way.
...and so on.
Could be a very effective horror story.
but what is 2nd person and why would you expect anyone to write in 2nd person?
2nd-person POV is when the reader is part of the story.
"I" is 1st.
"He" is 3rd.
"You" is 2nd.
2nd is typically used for short stories, but novels have been written in it as well. It's to draw the reader more into the story.
Dungeons and Dragons is 2nd-POV. "You take the left tunnel. You pick up a sword."
Dungeons and Dragons is 2nd-POV. "You take the left tunnel. You pick up a sword."
For actual table-top RPG gaming. It is not typically used for fiction books based on D&D.
It is not typically used for fiction books based on D&D
I was trying to explain what 2nd-POV is.
Aren't the Sherlock Holmes stories written in the 2nd POV? If not, which POV.
No, they are mostly 3rd person. Watson is the narrator. There may be some sections that are 1st person because Watson is describing his own actions.
You determine POV by the pronouns the narrator uses for the protagonist/MC.
I/Me = 1st.
He/Her/Him/She = 3rd.
You = 2nd.
