For clarification
First person: I did
Third person: he/she did
Second person: you did
I recently read a short story in swedish writen in the second person and well it feels like such a unic and unusual way for a story to be writen in and now I wan’t to read more of it.
by Back_From-The_Dead
2 Comments
NK Jemesin’s The Fifth Season is a recent and (becoming) canonical example of this done well. The whole novel isn’t second person but it’s a significant component.
The Friend, by Sigrid Nunez, won a lot of critical acclaim and I believe integrates second person.
But it’s rare because it’s hard and idiosyncratic. It’s hard to immerse yourself in a story if the ‘you’ isn’t a priori ::similar to you::.
I’m a mid 30s middle class white male. It would be extremely difficult for me to mentally be told I’m a [fill in the blank anything other than that] cause my imagination and empathy just doesn’t work that effectively. That’s why first and third are so much more popular. Bring me along the journey, tell me what you (or they) feel, and I can link up and follow along. But 2nd is a pretty harsh one – you better be this person now, and feel what they feel and know what they know, or you’re getting left behind.
Executed well, brilliant. But there’s a reason writers are warned about it.
Harrow the Ninth, which is the second book in the Locked Tomb series by Tasmyn Muir, is a brilliant example of second person! I would also second N. K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season.