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.

When I write it, it's to put that space between self and characters.

Well written, I like all POVs. First person is something I've done a couple of times, and it's not that much different from, say third person limited. (The show itself went back and forth between TPL and TPO, the most extreme examples of TPL being The Zeppo and much of AYW. AYW fell down for me in a lot of ways because it felt like it was trying to show things from an exagerrated Buffy POV, but kept that POV up even when she was off camera. Had Sam seemed more normal/less perfect when Buffy was off screen, it might not have stunk up the show.)

Cindy, that sort of thing is what I handle doing 3rd person limited with overlapping POV swaps.

It isn't arrogance, it's bravery, period. You have to drape that character around yourself like a second skina nd shed your own, if you're doing it properly. If that character gets hurt? So do you.

Yeah.

That's is right. And I'm aware how weird my continued "I like it" is going to sound in light of that.

Third person, GAH. My brain is really, really disengaged this morning and it's going to be a very long day.

I like it as well, Am. But it has to be done properly. What really makes me crazy, in fic or lit or screenplays or anything at all, is the author putting themself into the story without the courage to tell it. And yes, sorry, Sayers fans, but writing herself in as Peter Wimsey's love interest so she could boink her favourite peer of the realm still makes me cringe. If she'd told Harriet's story first person, I'd have liked it better.

Cindy, that sort of thing is what I handle doing 3rd person limited with overlapping POV swaps.

I don't think I know what that is, or rather, maybe how it's done. Isn't third person the impersonal voice of an observer? How do you overlap PsOV and/or swap PsOV, Plei?

deborah - sorry you're having a bad day.

the author putting themselves into the story without the courage to tell it.

You're right, you know. The first-person Mary-Sue is something I've never met.

Perhaps because she has to be 'the same as all the others, only better'?

Deb, I'll ping you tomorrow as my machine didn't lazarus until yesterday at 2am.

I get as wrapped in character heads 3rd person limited as I do in 1st person, maybe more so. I don't really write third person omniscient because it doesn't let me into the heads as well.

I don't think I know what that is, or rather, maybe how it's done. Isn't third person the impersonal voice of an observer? How do you overlap PsOV and/or swap PsOV, Plei?

Scenes. Almost all, okay, hell, all of my longer stuff had POV swaps. Switching POV when I switch a scene. Occasionally having the events of the scenes overlap.

Argh. Hit post before completely explaining. Hrrm. Not good at explaining. Hrrm.

Plei, yes yes yes on the getting as wrapped in third person; so do I. It depends on the writer. But with third person, I sometimes realise that I'm looking at those characters with an odd sort of split, and I have to be careful not to be too arrogant in how I handle them. In first person, when I have the courage to put them on and let their experiences get at me, I'm essentially along for the ride.

That's why Amanda Lisle is such a trippy character to write. I have damned near nothing in common with her except some geography when young and her ability to detach from the world when needed, but putting her on opens things out in me, as a writer. That simply wouldn't have happened in third person POV.

The first-person Mary-Sue is something I've never met.

Here.

I'm a little obsessed with POV. The not-quite-for-pornanthology story that I have almost finished (thanks, Deb!) switches between two explicitly limited 3pPOVs, merely because I don't have what it takes to switch between first persons and make it vaguely intelligible. But I still want each section to feel like the person, smell like the person, and be tainted by the personality.

Well, I'm working on it, anyway.