Which is your favorite: first person, second, or third person?

I have to say mine is first person--lately! I have written several things in third, but first just seems to flow for me these days.

Which is it for you?

I can't read or write in second person. Hurts my brain.

I've always imagined it as taking the form of a
novel-length note to a lover or ex-lover, or
perhaps a detective-type story where the guy who
figures out whodunnit explains how he came to
understand the truth and what he intends to do
about it.

But I've never sketched out any details of any
of those schemes. (And why not, it occurs to me
now, do both? A note to a lover explaining how
he figured out what she's done and why he's willing
to keep it quiet and what has to be done to make
it right?)


I guess the model for second person is Bob Dylan's
deliciously venomous rant, "Positively Fourth Street"


You got a lotta nerve
To say you are my friend
When I was down
You just stood there grinning

You got a lotta nerve
To say you got a helping hand to lend
You just want to be on
The side that's winning

You say I let you down
You know it's not like that
If you're so hurt
Why then don't you show it

You say you lost your faith
But that's not where it's at
You had no faith to lose
And you know it

I know the reason
That you talk behind my back
I used to be among the crowd
You're in with

Do you take me for such a fool
To think I'd make contact
With the one who tries to hide
What he don't know to begin with

You see me on the street
You always act surprised
You say, "How are you?" "Good luck"
But you don't mean it

When you know as well as me
You'd rather see me paralyzed
Why don't you just come out once
And scream it

No, I do not feel that good
When I see the heartbreaks you embrace
If I was a master thief
Perhaps I'd rob them

And now I know you're dissatisfied
With your position and your place
Don't you understand
It's not my problem

I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment
I could be you

Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You'd know what a drag it is
To see you

Or else it just flat-out doesn't work. Too many concessions are required of the reader, too profound a suspension of disbelief. If there's a good example of 2nd Person prose that I'm missing, somebody let me know.

Poetry and songs are different in this regard; their comparitive brevity and specificity of focus tend to lessen the clumsiness of the POV.


YMMV, of course.

in reading and in writing.

First person is limiting, I think. Nothing much can happen without the POV character being there.

Second person sounds like a big turn-off to me. I can't imagine trying to read a short story, much less a novel, directed at some "you" or other, and if the "you" is intended to be the reader, I would probably keep arguing with the story teller: No, I didn't. or No, I'm not.

Much more intimate with the POV character, imho. However, I believe the entire work needs to be in that POV. I've seen things where one POV is first person and the other is third. Doesn't work for me.

As to tense, we tell stories in the past tense. I like present for general statement of facts, "Strange things always happen to me on Mondays," but when you're showing the story, go to past. "So, that Monday, I wasn't surprised when..."

On the rewrite, sometimes it changes, sometimes it doesn't.

That one :thumbsup: