night Deb, sleep well.

Am, lovely to see you too. Isn't it awfully early there? oh, no, not now it's not, but I could have swore I saw a post from you earlier that would have been made around 5am your time. I'm up because Kara woke up crying about the window, though I'm not sure why. I rearranged things and rocked her and gave her a graham cracker and some milk and she seems to be going back to sleep.

I could have swore I saw a post from you earlier that would have been made around 5am your time.

Um... unless I was posting in my sleep, this seems unlikely. You may be on crack, darling. I hope Kara gets back to sleep soon. (Edit: I'm guessing from Bitches that she has.) And t /natter

Ah, the PoV debate. My PoV preferences are all personal and reader-centric.

Anyway, for me 3rd person narrative is like watching a story. The prose acts like a camera. I find it easy to fall into this kind of text because all it takes is one point of lasting interest -- a character (usually), a plot line, or an idea -- to keep me in the story.

First person narrative is more like listening to a story on the radio or from a person next to me. Not only do I have to find something in the text to like, I'm also much more strongly affected by the narrative voice. There may be a fascinating charcter going through amazing events culminating in a rewriting of all I thought was true. But if the person/character narrating the story does something to turn me off I'll probably never know. This doesn't mean that first person stories aren't good or are any harder or easier to write. But it does mean that there's a better chance they'll lose me.

And then there's second person. Every time a second person narrative says, "You do [X]," I hold it up to a mental chart. Am I doing [X]? No? Odds are you lost me. If I never have done [X], or likely never will do [X], then I'm out of there. It's almost impossible for me to get lost in a story, no matter how well written, if I'm constantly getting thrown out of it by internally contradictory statements.

"You lick the drops of blood from the shallow cuts you made on Wesley's abdomen." Nope.

"I licked the drops of blood from the shallow cuts I'd made on Wesley's abdomen." Maybe. If "I" is Faith, you betcha. If "I" is Andrew, I'll need some really convincing backstory.

"Gunn licked the drops of blood from the shallow cuts Faith had made on Wesley's abdomen." You betcha.

"I licked the drops of blood from the shallow cuts I'd made on Wesley's abdomen." Maybe. If "I" is Faith, you betcha. If "I" is Andrew, I'll need some really convincing backstory.

See, I take this on, er, faith (there must be another non-Buffyish way of phrasing this!). If I'm going to bother to read the story, I have to begin by trusting the writer. If I can't trust the writer to be who they say they are, I can't imagine bothering to read the story anyway, so the POV doesn't come into it for me. It wouldn't matter.

Totally with you on second person POV. That one always kickstarts the internal blinkies, as a reader. As a writer, I virtually never go there.

As a writer, about 99% of what I write is third person. I'm just aware how easy it is to plump up and play God that way, so I have to watch out that it doesn't turn masturbatory and self-congratulatory: ooooh, lookee, I can make the characters dance!

Nothing intrinsically wrong with that, I suppose, but as a personal taste? I dislike reading it, shrug and move on when I see it, and I always want to kick myself when I catch myself doing it. I don't mind references to the same things in serial fiction or fic, mind you; I just don't want to see the writer leaning over the top of the puppet theatre, yanking strings maniacally.

Again, your reader/writer mileage will almost certainly vary wildly.

"Gunn licked the drops of blood from the shallow cuts Faith had made on Wesley's abdomen." You betcha.

Can he be nekkid?

Randomly:

I think I was having POV thoughts in the shower, relating to the notion of POV, 1st person, as being seen as more narcissistic than, say 3rd person, and realizing that the Single Most Narcissisitic Self Insertion I've ever seen was decidedly third person. (CoughLevinSueCough)

While I'm more with Calli on 1st person as a reader (it's easier for it to lose me than 3rd person), I have read a lot of 1st person, The Color Purple, I Have No Mouth, Yet I Must Scream, Surfacing, that sucked me in deeper than 3rd person.

This is me, avoiding site redesigns.

Run, Plei! Run from the evil site redesigns! There are cookies coming atcha!

BTW, I should say that in the rare cases when second person is perfectly suited to its task, it can be ghostly, staggeringly effective for me to read becuse of its very detachment. But alas, I rarely see it done that well.

And in drabbles, the ultra-short form? I've seen superb stuff in all shapes and voices. Everything seems to work when the form is that taut.

(edit" GAH! I typoed "site" three times.)

See, I take this on, er, faith (there must be another non-Buffyish way of phrasing this!). If I'm going to bother to read the story, I have to begin by trusting the writer. If I can't trust the writer to be who they say they are, I can't imagine bothering to read the story anyway, so the POV doesn't come into it for me. It wouldn't matter.

With a writer whose work I know, this would be true. I'll give a writer I like all kinds of rope, because I'll trust they won't hang themselves with it. If I ran into a story by a writer who I'd never heard of, she'd have to earn my trust. There are all kinds of ways to do that with me if the writing's good. But I won't take nearly as much on, um, faith, in trusting the first person narrative or anything else.

But I won't take nearly as much on, um, faith, in trusting the first person narrative or anything else.

We so need to invent a word for this. Maybe Eliza? We can take it on Eliza?

Where I was going with that was, literally, that the writing has to take me in the first few paragraphs, be it fic or fiction. I generally know pretty early on if I'm going to want to read beyond that point; something in the voice, in the ability to back away and let the characters be, will usually declare itself early on.

Alas, the inverse of that is true, as well. If I writer I know and trust screws it up early, I throw the book across the room and say rude things and then it really takes awhile to get my trust back.

I see second person less as the author telling the reader what she herself is doing than the character internally narrating they own selves.

Like....

TWO

"And that's the other thing," Amy says. "Sunlight. Crosses, stakes, and sunlight, that's all that can hurt us. Today is really overcast but you still can't be sure, so that's why I have these blankets. They're thick, we can walk around under them and be safe. We'll look a little weird, but it's just temporary." Pauses. Makes her voice a little whiner. "Willow, please pay attention."

You don't look up. "What about holy water?" you ask. "Can we cross rivers? If your necklace breaks, will I have to count every little bead?" Now there's an idea. You stop stirring your fingers in the dirt. "Hey, can I break your necklace?"

She makes a little sound of unhappiness.

"Then can we go get new clothes now?" You pick at your sleeve. "You kind of ripped this. And... I don't know. I think I want some different colors."

You remember being pulled into the bushes, on the way to the high school, early morning. You imagine how it might have appeared to any observer: your little kittenish limbs flailing for a moment, her arms tight around your ribs, the desperate shock on your face as she pressed the fangs inexpertly into your throat. It took you a while to die.

You remember waking up. The cool weight of another body on top of yours, someone's tongue against your neck. You'd never admit it, but your first thought was a happy, drowsy *Xander?*. Your second thought was, *This is not my bed.*

Now: your skin is cold. You're sitting under the bower in a neighbor's flower garden, middle of the day, wearing the remnants of your own pink fuzzy sweater. Examining the flowers and listening to Amy talk.

Your throat's still scarred. You can feel it. Rub your fingers over the lines.

You stroke the long stalk of Mrs. Floesen's tulip, slide your fingers down next to the ground and break it off neatly, at the base. Proffer it to Amy, who scoots back imperceptibly. You know she had a crush on you, but really, she should have never chosen a girl who could make her so nervous. You think about telling her this; but you are, after all, sitting in a flower bed with a wooden frame (it's a good thing Mrs. Floesen works mornings), and you're not exactly sure how good Amy is with a makeshift stake.

You think about finding Xander, also. You wonder if Amy'll do him too. You wonder if biting his sweet, pale neck is something you could do yourself.

You maybe think so.

But Amy's looking around, looking like she has some definite ideas about what the two of you are going to do next, and so you don't bring that up. Instead, you look down at the tulip in your hands, consider its smooth green stem, its soft petals. "This is the most poisonous flower in the Western Hemisphere," you tell her. "It's so red. See? That yellow piece is a warning stripe to bees. It says, do not taste this flower or you will be killed. The nectar's so sweet you'll ache when you drink it. It says, if you touch this flower, you will die wanting for more." You show her the velvety petals, the soft red inner parts, then place the tulip's head into your mouth. Sever the stem with your neat, sharp teeth, chew once or twice, and swallow.

She forgets herself, and draws in a quick breath by nothing more than force of habit. "Willow? Is that a lie?"

Yup - and Liz, that's exactly what I mean by a ghostly separation. That piece is beautifully done, and I don' think it could have been written in any other voice to the same potency. This suited it perfectly, and for me? Burned from the first note. Loved it.