You and Yours: In Defense of the Second Person

I recently listened to an episode of a fiction-writing podcast discussing point of view (POV) and which narrative perspective to use when writing a story.  The podcaster explains your standard first and third person in detail, explaining the benefits of each as well as the distinctions between third person omniscient and third person limited.  The more elusive second person, however, she glosses over, referring to it as a “novelty” that, while “interesting and engaging when done properly…can be jarring to the reader” due to its rarity in fiction.

Now, I consider myself something of a second person enthusiast, a connoisseur, if you will (perhaps even a “stan”).  So while I understand the podcaster’s trepidation—her goal, after all, is to advise beginning fiction writers, primarily novelists, looking to break through commercially—I’m a bit dismayed by the haste with which she dismisses second person as a viable narrative lens.  I feel compelled, therefore, to make a case for second person, a perspective I gravitate towards so strongly that I used it in two of the three prose pieces included in my senior creative capstone project.

What do you think of when you think of the second person?

Some might say “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, a childhood staple for readers of a certain generation.  The podcaster cites “short stories, instructional narratives, and how-to books” as other places where second person appears frequently.  Fanfiction enthusiasts no doubt associate second person most strongly with “Y/N” or “your name,” the reader self-insert who embarks on grand adventures with boy band members and fictional werewolves.  While each of these niches has their devoted audience, none of them connotes the smashing success an aspiring novelist might crave—hence second person being dismissed as a (ahem) novelty, a children’s gimmick that allows authors to eschew substance for convenience, exploration of character for indulgence of readerly whims.

(When even Y/N, Esther Yi’s cheekily titled send-up of K-pop fandom, is told in first person, can a beginning writer be blamed for playing it safe?)

These examples demonstrate that second person generally serves one of two purposes: in nonfiction, it instructs; in fiction, it immerses.  Both contexts typically assume the character is some version of the reader’s actual self, even if that version is a deep-sea explorer or an English detective.  Rarely is the reader asked to transform into a completely different person, and when they are asked to do so, particularly when that transformation requires them to assume responsibility for questionable decisions, they might bristle.  It’s one thing to read about someone unlikable—it’s another thing entirely to become someone unlikable, especially when you have no choice.

And yet there’s something about the second person, that in-between space it occupies, that allows for more flexibility, more honesty than might be possible in other perspectives.  Where first and third person hold the reader at a comfortable distance, the proverbial fourth-wall break of second-person POV firmly situates the reader not as observer, but participant.  In some cases, you inhabit the mind of the POV character, assuming their perceptions and worldview; in others, the POV character (a first-person narrator) addresses you, either as a reader or as an important person in their life.  The result is a strange, disquieting intimacy, one I wanted to invoke consciously in my creative capstone pieces: one is a take on Charles Yu’s “Standard Loneliness Package,” which takes place in a world where call center workers are paid to adopt clients’ physical and emotional pain; the other is a glimpse into a codependent queerplatonic relationship between two housemates.

Second-person narration allows you to be a bit more playful with your descriptions, poetic in ways that might feel forced or overbearing in first person but wouldn’t quite have the same punch in the third person.  A first-person protagonist can attempt to navigate complex relationships and emotions through conversation with an unseen second person, like Little Dog in Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.  Or the second-person narrator can take on the voice of a taunting subconscious that slowly overwhelms, as in Leslie Pietrzyk’s “Headstrong.”

Admittedly, I haven’t read a ton of novels written in second person, and I realize much of the hesitation might be concerns over the (ahem) novelty of the perspective growing tired after a few chapters.  Nonetheless, it’s possible to incorporate second person into longer works of fiction, and it can be especially effective in shorter fiction, whether speculative or more straightforward literary realism.  Here are some excellent examples of second person I’ve read:

• Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu is not only a second-person novel, but it’s also formatted like a screenplay.  Using these unconventional elements in tandem, Yu immerses the reader in the inner monologue and psychology of his protagonist, Willis Wu, a Chinese-American actor attempting to ascend from bit parts as corpses in police procedurals into the widely idolized Kung Fu Guy.  Willis perceives the world, and himself, through the lens of his career and its relationship with his racial identity.
• A Visit from the Goon Squad and its sequel The Candy House by Jennifer Egan are novels that read like kaleidoscopic short-story collections, with each chapter a vignette told from the perspective of a different character from Egan’s sprawling cast.  The POVs of each vignette range from third person to first person plural, with the occasional venture into second person, which Egan uses primarily for characters experiencing (conscious or unconscious) psychological dissociation.
• Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin is a shining example of how second person can be wielded to great effect in sci-fi.  It’s told in the imperative, a series of commands and eerie assurances issued by a hivemind narrator (the Founders) implanted into the reader-protagonist’s brain.  The story’s tension emerges from the protagonist’s attempts to overcome his programming as he is confronted with a reality that does not align with what the Founders have led him to believe.
• “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang employs a combination of first and second person, with the main character, Dr. Louise Banks, narrating to her unborn child—the “you” whose life story is being told.
• “Esmeralda” by Mia Alvar is one of my personal favorites, a short story about 9/11 told from the perspective of a Filipino immigrant employed as a custodian in the Twin Towers.  I’ll let Alvar’s 2016 interview with the Reading Group Center speak for itself:

I wrote “Esmeralda” in the second person to invite—even force—the reader to identify with a kind of character who often becomes marginal and invisible in many people’s daily lives, and also to reflect on how difficult and awkward and imperfect it can feel to walk in someone else’s shoes.

This quote really captures the essence of second person, what makes it so effective as a storytelling tool: its confrontational nature, when handled well, can evoke a uniquely strong form of empathy.  Second-person writing grants you permission to either live someone else’s experience, or to assume a strong enough emotional bond with a first-person-POV character that they trust you with some of their darkest secrets.

So how might you go about dabbling in the second person?

You might start by writing a letter: from a mother to a child, a lover to an ex, an ornament to a Christmas tree.  Or you might comb through some of your existing stories and rewrite them in the second person, see what changes—what new insights emerge from the narration that third or first person might have obscured.

Or you might take an entirely different angle, and refer back to those more conventional uses of second person mentioned earlier: instructional narratives and how-to books.  Emulating the style of mundane documents is a common device in contemporary speculative fiction, an excellent way to ground your reader in a world that might be very different from our own.  How might one go about hatching dragon eggs or summoning an eldritch deity in a college dorm room?  Could you find ways to draw out an intriguing character from these mundane, impersonal formats?

Maybe over the course of your experiments you say, “The second person isn’t for me,” and return to the world of Is and mes and mys, hes and shes and theys.  Or maybe something clicks, and you find yourself engaging that hypothetical reader, constructing their spectral, conceptual presence into something tangible, something concrete.

Ultimately, the choice is yours.  But why not give it a chance?