Two POV mini challenges

[StillStunned]

Author ≠ narrator. The author writes the story, the narrator tells it. There might be some overlap, or similarities at least, but unless you're writing an autobiography they're separate and distinct.

As for using 1P instead of 2P: yes, I could have. And it would have been a different story, with a different impact on the reader.

 

[AG31]

StillStunned is the authorial voice, the voice of the narrator.

I had started thinking about this before seeing your post here. In vanilla 3rd person stories, do we think of an "authorial voice," or is it a mark of skill that the author has no discernable "voice?"

In other words, is there an equivalent between an author and a narrator? I think not necessarily. I think if the author has a discernable voice, you have a different thing that if they don't.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I've toyed with the idea of some narration from the main character. Not a part of the third-person body of the text. Like the writer, on occasions, peeks into the mind of the MC, and you get, "As I walked away from the woman, having just told her her husband died in the line of duty, I wondered how she'd get along in this world." Showing the internal dialog of the MC a different thing than the standard, 'Well, if she didn't know before, she does now,' he thought.

 

[SimonDoom]

I had started thinking about this before seeing your post here. In vanilla 3rd person stories, do we think of an "authorial voice," or is it a mark of skill that the author has no discernable "voice?"

In other words, is there an equivalent between an author and a narrator? I think not necessarily. I think if the author has a discernable voice, you have a different thing that if they don't.

I think we're getting narrator and author mixed up. The author is simply the person who writes the story. There is no such thing as "authorial voice" distinct from "narrative voice." To the extent a distinct voice comes into the narration, it's narrative voice.

Somebody said that in second person POV you don't use the "he said" tag because that makes it third person. That's not so unless the actual point of view of the "he" is revealed.

For instance, this is pure second person:

You wonder what your friend wants to eat and he says, "hamburgers."

Vs. this, which is mixed second person and third person because it gets into the heads of two characters revealing both points of view:

You wonder what your friend wants to eat he says, "hamburgers," privately marveling at your inability to remember his eating preferences.

 

[XerXesXu]

Author ≠ narrator. The author writes the story, the narrator tells it. There might be some overlap, or similarities at least, but unless you're writing an autobiography they're separate and distinct.

As for using 1P instead of 2P: yes, I could have. And it would have been a different story, with a different impact on the reader.

Artistic conceit or Dissociative Personality Disorder, anyone?

Had you written it in 1P, the only difference would be that the reader wouldn't have been left wondering why you didn't write it in 1P.

 

[StillStunned]

Artistic conceit or Dissociative Personality Disorder, anyone?

Had you written it in 1P, the only difference would be that the reader wouldn't have been left wondering why you didn't write it in 1P.

Guess what? That character groping his mother in her sleep, that's not me. I'm also not a 19th century British army officer looking for his purpose, or a successful middle-aged businesswoman who's lost touch with her sexual side, or university student caught between his sister and his girlfriend, or a demon masquerading as an executive, or a murderous lowlife thief, or a sword-and-sorcery warrior woman, or any of the other characters I've written.

And call me crazy, but I believe there are quite a few other books and stories out there that aren't actually autobiographies. Other authors are doing this "writing characters who aren't me" thing too. It's probably very new, though, and it might not catch on.

Now. you might not understand why I wrote that story in 2P, or what makes it different from the same story told in 1P. But I do, and so do plenty of the people who read the story. And that's good enough for me.

 

[XerXesXu]

Guess what? That character groping his mother in her sleep, that's not me. I'm also not a 19th century British army officer looking for his purpose, or a successful middle-aged businesswoman who's lost touch with her sexual side, or university student caught between his sister and his girlfriend, or a demon masquerading as an executive, or a murderous lowlife thief, or a sword-and-sorcery warrior woman, or any of the other characters I've written.

And call me crazy, but I believe there are quite a few other books and stories out there that aren't actually autobiographies. Other authors are doing this "writing characters who aren't me" thing too. It's probably very new, though, and it might not catch on.

Now. you might not understand why I wrote that story in 2P, or what makes it different from the same story told in 1P. But I do, and so do plenty of the people who read the story. And that's good enough for me.

You are what you write, that frightens a lot of people.

 

[StillStunned]

You are what you write, that frightens a lot of people.

Well, luckily that's one abyss I'm happy to stare into.

 

[XerXesXu]

Well, luckily that's one abyss I'm happy to stare into.

Don't jump. I've called an ambulance.

 

[XerXesXu]

There was an interesting thread here which discussed the three POVs, 1st, 2nd and 3rd. For myself, I am content with the idea that there is no pure 2nd person. There's always an implied 1st person in the narrator's voice. But is 2nd person always "about" the addressee??? Might it not be about the narrator's take on the addressee?

I've been reading and experimenting with several commercially successful works in 2P POV and I 'feel' I've detected a problem with it. It's said it's supposed merit is that it draws You, the reader, in. It does no such thing. When addressed as 'You', one instinctively reacts against that accusation. 'No, it's not me, it's YOU.' 'No, it's not me, it's HIM/HER.' The latter is manifestly so when you are told you're a member of the opposite sex, and HIM/HER is 3P. Similarly, when your reaction is, ' That ain't me, but I know who it is, it's YOU,' you've rumbled that it's a clumsily disguised self- insertion, 'I' 1P, by the author/narrator. This inevitable conflict unsettles the reader.

 

[AG31]

It's said it's supposed merit is that it draws You, the reader, in. It does no such thing. When addressed as 'You', one instinctively reacts against that accusation.

Not true about me. The use of the 2nd person makes me feel like I'm getting inside the narrator's mind. Unless it's successfully written in the form of my 2nd challenge, a neutral narrator. In the latter case, as I've said before, what's the point? Write in the 3rd person.

 

[XerXesXu]

Not true about me. The use of the 2nd person makes me feel like I'm getting inside the narrator's mind. Unless it's successfully written in the form of my 2nd challenge, a neutral narrator. In the latter case, as I've said before, what's the point? Write in the 3rd person.

I can only relate my experience.

Can you explain what you mean by 'neutral narrator'? I'd thought you meant a narrator with minimal or no authorial voice.

 

[intim8]

My mini-challenge is to write a few [2p] paragraphs that are clearly about the narrator, without using the words "I", "me", "me", or "us."

So what is it you want? Do you want to wrap your body around a comforting, frightening frame of muscle and sinew and sureness? Do you want to mold your breasts to a firm chest, feel them squeezed between you, to match the hollow of your hips to the substance emanating from the other?

Do you want to feel safe, protected? Safe enough to give up that which you believe most needs protecting? To allow into your body that which you believe you must be protected against? Do you feel safe enough to surrender completely to the pure, overwhelming pleasure that leaves you utterly helpless, unable to control even your own muscles?

Do you want to call out for God, sure that he must be just outside your vision because nothing of the earth should be capable of this?

Do you feel all that when you see who stands before you?

 

[AG31]

I can only relate my experience.

Can you explain what you mean by 'neutral narrator'? I'd thought you meant a narrator with minimal or no authorial voice.

I think that's what I mean. A narrator with minimal or no authorial voice. But I'm not sure what that has to do with how I, as a reader, react to the 2nd person narrative. That seems to be the post of mine that you were replying to?