User blog comment:Magical Toddler/Second Person Perspectives - Why They're Hard to Write/@comment-25941663-20170820141851

Excellent blog, thanks for taking the time to write this!

I have written a lot of stories in second-person, most never seeing the light of day, and I have come to a few realizations of my own. While mostly I agree with you, I believe you didn't pay enough attention to the vagueness of the story. You not only have to be vague in your description, but also vague in the events in the story.

One route, I admit, is the one you hinted at: build a series of events and actions that most people would do/be part of. That is, "you went to work", "a friend visited", "you did this and that". The problem is that with each new thing, you increase the risk of immersion breaking. It's like building a coin tower. Each and every coin must be places very accurately and with great care. This is next to impossible to do.

The other route is to be vague on top of vague. No events other the ones that lead directly to the horror. No mention of friends, work, car, pet whatever. Not even mentions of character actions (walking, watching, whatever). Only mention stuff to increase the levels of horror, using only the barest necessities. That is, things that pretty much everyone passively has. Hearing, vision, having a door, a bed, a house, a mother, a father. These are the tools you must use to build your story. Sure, there is a chance a deaf person will read your story, but the chances of it happening are miscellaneous. Of course, there is the downside of creating a bland story, but you have to take your chances.

So, the two approaches to second-person is either by fleshing the world out (with the risk of breaking immersion for more people) or by using only the most basic of tools (with the risk of writing an uninteresting story). Of course, the best approach is to use a bit of both.

Another thing you didn't mention much is easing people in. You cannot thrust them into the story. Take for example the opening of my story, Darkness: "You open your eyes. An endless ocean of black fills your vision."

That's a big no-no. The reader didn't just open their eyes and they can very clearly see the text on their screen. That breaks immersion from the get-go. It can be fixed, but it is very difficult. That, I think, is the main reason my story is not that good and borders deletion. If I remember correctly, almost everything else is vague with some stuff everyone would do.

I will use as an example one of my most well received stories (here and on other sites), Mother's Love. The story I believe is actually pretty good (even though it is literally my first finished story) and it does a lot right in terms of second-perspective usage. There are three main scenes in the story, and all revolve the reader's mother and a door to their bedroom. Pretty much everyone has all those. The fallacy of the story lies in the usage of that cat and the cat bowl. It was stupid of me for obvious reasons. I believe if I rewrote the story without these parts, it would have been near perfect (I have a couple of ideas for rewriting, so maybe I will do that actually).

---

These are the main points I would add to your analysis. I have some other points (mainly about using the reader as a viewing/listening device and nothing more), but this is getting too long. Overall, your analysis is pretty spot-on. The point about twists in particular is key.

Anyway, hope to see more from you around here. Cheers!