Cindy, please note that this has nothing to do with you.

I really, really hate first person POV. That is probably the first thing that will make me run from a story, even faster than two words misspelled and bad grammar in the first line. I don't know why--just the whole "I" statement thing makes me shudder like I've got a spider crawling up my spine.

I imagine it's the same for people who detest the second person, which I love so very much.

I imagine it's the same for people who detest the second person, which I love so very much.

Yep, pretty much.

Ah, irrational dislike, you are such a friend to me.

Wow, SA. That's pretty absolute. Is it instinctual, or can you articulate it?

When I was younger, it didn't bother me. But I think it's really fuelled by fanfic.

Hm. Articulation. Okay, what I think it is, is that I want to experience the characters I watch on the television the same way for both screen and page. Other than a few random occourences where the narrative has been changed (in Buffy, for example, when Andrew has his camera, or when we saw Brodie filming the department in HLotS) you have pretty much an overarching sense of third person narrative, often 3p omniscient (sp?) narrative. With that, also, you can put yourself in a character's place and it becomes second person--"you" are doing the action, and someone else is controlling what is happening; it's not a placement of self into first person.

I guess, with regards to fanfic, I see first person as making yourself that character, which makes me run in the opposite direction so fast you'd think I was road runner. And now that I think about it, that reaction is pretty closely confined to fanfiction, because I've enjoyed original novels with first person (the Kushiel trilogy comes to mind); but even then I've always disliked it in general. It seems...unsophisticated. Or something.

Is that coherent?

I see first person as making yourself that character, which makes me run in the opposite direction so fast you'd think I was road runner.

Um... yes, first person is sort of about making yourself that character. For me, though (I love first person, just so we're clear) that's about understanding them, getting inside their head and knowing what they know, seeing the way they see. Walking in their shoes, if you like.

It seems...unsophisticated. Or something.

It's simple. Direct. Which, really, is 'unsophisticated', only viewed as an advantage.

you can put yourself in a character's place and it becomes second person--"you" are doing the action, and someone else is controlling what is happening; it's not a placement of self into first person.

And there, right there, you've articulated exactly what I hate about second person: someone else is controlling what is happening, the character (in the second person 'you') are not responsible any more. This may be fuelled by having read fanfic (don't ask me where; I lost the link on purpose) that used second person to make it seem like evil characters (Spike, for example) weren't responsible for what they were doing.

t /rant

Sorry, that's an old one.

I don't think there's anything intrinsically simple about first person ... to write it well, for instance, requires filtering everything through character, and that's not simple.

I'm not in love with second person, for reasons Am states -- I'd rather feel like I was watching (3rd) or doing (1st) as a reader, rather than puppetted (2nd). I feel like I'm being told how to be.

I don't think there's anything intrinsically simple about first person ... to write it well, for instance, requires filtering everything through character, and that's not simple.

It's not simple to *do*. It is, as you say, filtered-- made simpler by taking out the parts that are not known by the character. I find limited 3rd much harder, because if I write in first I remember to filter; in third, I tend to forget, and it becomes omniscient third.

And there, right there, you've articulated exactly what I hate about second person: someone else is controlling what is happening, the character (in the second person 'you') are not responsible any more.

I'm not in love with second person, for reasons Am states -- I'd rather feel like I was watching (3rd) or doing (1st) as a reader, rather than puppetted (2nd). I feel like I'm being told how to be.

Huh. I always read 2nd-person POV as a distanced form of 1st-person. Not that there's a controlling narrator dictating what the character does, but rather that the character wants to be distant, possibly disaffected, from the action of the story.

the character wants to be distant, possibly disaffected, from the action of the story.

Which in very selected settings, can work. Just.. not very often, in my experience. I think it's the PWPs in second that get me there: wanting to be distant and disaffected when you're having sex? In one way, understandable; in another way, bizarre and off-putting.