ita's was lovely.

Oh, it was. That was the kind of blanket statement that happens when there's no coffee.

Another thing about second person, for me, is that it's great for the writer, who can just say to the character "you do this, you do that" but harsh on the reader, who is faced, if their brain works the way mind does, with trying to be the one ordered around.

For me, it's not ordering. It's experiencing.

When I read a story for pleasure, I'm reading as an escape, to be someone who is not me, to be someone who is leading a different life and has a different world view. Their life and thoughts are interesting purely because they are different to mine, and by trying to experience, through reading, someone else's life, I am learning about how other people work, and by comparision, about myself.

This is second person for me.

And I do the same thing, I just don't do it well with first person.

No, that's not what I meant to say. I have both. But with first person POV, there's Sue's character, which I get, and there's Jim's character, which I get. Thinking about filtering Sue's character through Jim's? That's where I go.

Okay, misunderstanding. We're very different; I can occassionally being with plot and work from there, but mostly I start with character, already filtered, add situation, which may invovled working out some things that the character doesn't know, and wind up with plot, if I'm lucky.

All narration is unreliable. That doesn't have to be a point of the story, but it's still unreliable. If it's unfiltered, presented as just a subset of knowledge -- that's not a character. That's just where the camera was positioned when it all went down.

Yes; first person, narration, is filtered, and may have missed important stuff. Third person omnisonedayIwilllearntospellthisent has a responsiblity to make sure the camera sees the important stuff, which tends to feel to me like too much working out before starting on the telling.

For me, it's not ordering. It's experiencing.

I find just the opposite -- which is why this may come down to a different strokes thing. I'm used to people saying to me, "I did this." It's a normal conversational mode; when I run into it in narrative, I can hear it as that person telling me their story.

If someone says to me "you did this," my immediate instinct is to say, "who the fuck are you to tell me my own experiences? Step off!" It's not what I've experienced -- it's what I'm being told I should experience. So, yeah, it reads like an order. Or like a huge stinkin' presumption. Either way, the story has to be damned good to get around the severe hackles-raised reaction.

For me, it's not ordering. It's experiencing.

To me, it sounds like ordering (edit: or, like amych just said, a huge presumption). I have a much easier time experiencing if it's 'I' statements than if it's 'you' statements.

I have no idea why this is, and I think my analysis button is broken.

I have no idea why this is,

Insctinctive, probably. Different perceptions, stokes, all that. To be honest, there isn't a lot of second person I will read. People bungle it up all the time. But a good example is Elena's new fic. I think to really use it well, it's gotta be poetic. It's gotta have a rhythm, otherwise it's Choose Your Own Adventure without the Choose Your Own. Another example (selfpimp ahoy) is Rise, which is that Faith-centric remix fic I wrote a coulpa weeks ago. There's a style there that weaves itself in with second person, makes it good.

melymbrosia writes excellent second person. So does Suela.

I love good first person and limited 3rd. Omniscient, I've read it too many times where it broke down and the omniscience was missing when the author didn't want you to know something. I find, when a second-person story is done well, that it feels like I'm a ghost in the head of the main character, or like I'm sitting listening to an intriguing story told by an unsophisticated person. I can't remember the fic I read that used it so well but it was Farscape, linked from the Phoenix, and I'm sure someone here knows. It had been a long time since I'd read second person done well, so I was especially impressed by it.

I don't even know if I've read second person. The concept itself is confusing me.

ita - I agree that 3rd person omniscient is easiest, but sometimes I run into telling too much, rather than showing when I use it. My characters are always talky!meat as it is. But then the narrator becomes the talkiest meat of all talky meats. I'm hoping that for this story, the first person might help me limit exposition to when it's needed. It's not that fp is easier per se, but the device serves as a constant reminder.

Third person omnisonedayIwilllearntospellthisent

Here's how I remember how to spell omniscient. Omni is all and we know the narrator in this person is all knowing. For the knowing part, we have science, conscience... which gives us scient. Omni-sci-ent - omniscient.

melymbrosia writes excellent second person. So does Suela.

Holli wrote that wonderful one that was recced all over LJ about a month ago.

And thinking of melymbrosia and Suela, somehow Farscape seems to lend itself well to 2nd person POV.

What Elena wrote maybe thirty posts ago is second person.