What about 2nd person POV?

I can't see any problem with that as it's written. It's clear that you're actually dipping into the character's head and that we are hearing her voice at this point rather than the narrative one. It would feel slightly artificial to have the character describe herself as 'her'. If you do decide to do that once in the text through, keep it in mind as you are moving through the events of the story - there may be times when the characters own thoughts expressed in this way will have a certain power which you can take advantage of to good affect.

I would use "her" instead of "your." There's nothing inherently "wrong" but you risk taking your readers out of that moment, which is hers.

I don't like the "your". It just sort of seems like suddenly the author is addressing me, personally, and it jars me a bit out of her scene.

It's done all the time, but...

Your example is so short that I'd go with "her," because in that context it doesn't look like a deliberate shift...but. no, it isn't jarring as it stands.

But, sure, moving into second-person is often used for somewhat longer passages; especially popular in noir detective novels, where it often functions as kind of a faux first-person for passages within a first-person narrative: "You figure you'll always be able to handle the last ounce in that bottle, but in the morning you wake up on the floor, and..." (etc.).

Second person is tricky. It can be used for, as you call it, 'universal truths,' but it is a little bit weasely and overconfiding--the narrator isn't really owning the statement, but is rather trying to make it something we already agree on. It isn't an omniscient statement of truth (as opposed to what is said so explicitly in the opening line of "Pride and Prejudice"), but it also isn't the narrator saying, look, here's what I believe.

The fact that the narrator resorts to "you" and doesn't own the statement can be very distancing--used to good effect in "Bright Lights, Big City," where the continuous use of second person in what should be a first-person narrative gives a chilly, alienated, inauthentic effect. (Too much of one, some foks think--some admirers of the orginal story found it insupportable at novel length.)

The confiding, we-both-agree tone of second person is a little like having someone throw their arm over your shoulder while talking to you. It's okay if you're good friends, but it can be really annoying when you hardly know them and they start using that arm to steer you somewhere (like to a more expensive end of the used-car lot).

UrsusMinor said:

But, sure, moving into second-person is often used for somewhat longer passages; especially popular in noir detective novels, where it often functions as kind of a faux first-person for passages within a first-person narrative: "You figure you'll always be able to handle the last ounce in that bottle, but in the morning you wake up on the floor, and..." (etc.).

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I'd say it's mostly used in an omniscient POV where the narrator is clearly a separate voice. In that case, the narrator is doing his narrator thing and addressing the readers: "You see, that's the secret of life!" But if you're writing in 3rd limited, you should stick with 3rd; otherwise, it becomes author's intrusion. Unless, of course, the passage is part of what the character is thinking or it implies a character's viewpoint, as in:

She leaned close to the side of the cliff, afraid to look down. When you're up so high, you just don't want to ever fall. She felt a rush of nausea, and retreated.

CaroGirl said:

It felt pleasant, floating in the warm water, red-darkness, like the feeling of the sun shining against your eyelids on a summer afternoon.

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"Your" doesn't bother me in this setting. The generic "you," within a character's thoughts, isn't really second person. It isn't the writer addressing the reader. It's the character thinking "like the feeling of the sun shining against one's eyelids" but in less formal language. If she were talking to another character, she'd say "It felt like the sun shining against your eyelids" without meaning the listener's eyelids particularly.

I agree with reph. I think using "your" in that particular passage makes it more intimate, not the other way around. If you use "her" instead, you create distance.

It's almost as if there's an unwritten, "don't you agree?" at the end of the sentence. I like it.

I'm trying to find the right way to put what I'm thinking ... if you use "her", then the experience belongs only to the character. If you use "your", then the experience becomes more universal, that it's what the reader would feel also were they to switch places with the character.

CaroGirl said:

Suppose, in the narrative (either 1st or 3rd person), you want to espouse some kind of "universal truth," is it a no-no to switch to 2nd person just for that? For example, in the following, which is otherwise in 3rd person:She turned her head. It felt pleasant, floating in the warm water, red-darkness, like the feeling of the sun shining against your eyelids on a summer afternoon.

I know I could probably just replace "your" with "her" and probably should, but is this way totally wrong?

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I don'tthink this works in thrid person narrative. It's fine in first person, and it's fine in dialogue, because both first person narrators and anyone who actually speaks, can use a second person line without changing who and what he is. We all occasionally do this when we're speaking. But it third person narrative it's jolting. You lose the narrator thread, make the reader wonder what the heck is going on, and generally create a mess. Third person narration is just that--third person. Breaking the flow of it with an unnecessary line of second person just doesn't work.

CaroGirl said:

Suppose, in the narrative (either 1st or 3rd person), you want to espouse some kind of "universal truth," is it a no-no to switch to 2nd person just for that? For example, in the following, which is otherwise in 3rd person:She turned her head. It felt pleasant, floating in the warm water, red-darkness, like the feeling of the sun shining against your eyelids on a summer afternoon.

I know I could probably just replace "your" with "her" and probably should, but is this way totally wrong?

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Ummm ... just delete "your" and it will be fine; better, even. It felt pleasant, floating in the warm water, red-darkness, like the feeling of the sun shining against eyelids on a summer afternoon.

Using 'your' seems intimate to me, and not really like second person. You're not exactly addressing the reader. It reads to me more like an internal comment by the character and something that she'd say in a normal conversation. It's not jarring to me. Using 'her' int he same sentence sounds very awkward and false, although I agree that it would be more correct.

veronie said:

Ummm ... just delete "your" and it will be fine; better, even. It felt pleasant, floating in the warm water, red-darkness, like the feeling of the sun shining against eyelids on a summer afternoon.

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This version gave me a mental image of disembodied eyelids in sunlight. Excuse me, but – eww.

CaroGirl said:

It felt pleasant, floating in the warm water, red-darkness, like the feeling of the sun shining against your eyelids on a summer afternoon.

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It felt pleasant, floating in the warm water, red-darkness, like the warmth of a gentle sun shining upon closed eyelids on a relaxing summer afternoon.

*cough* I have a little problem with the word "against," because it sounds a bit adversarial to me, but maybe I'm just being too literal.

veronie said:

Ummm ... just delete "your" and it will be fine; better, even. It felt pleasant, floating in the warm water, red-darkness, like the feeling of the sun shining against eyelids on a summer afternoon.

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To me it feels awkward without either her or your in there. My immediate response to it is "whose eyelids?"

If you really can't decide between "your" or "her" you can always use "one's."

Eh. 'One's eyelids' is rendered in my head with a weird Julia Child accent, or the querulous tones of an Edwardian butler. Not an improvement, IMHO.

I didn't say it was good. I already said I prefer "her."

Actually, I've read whole stories written in second person.


Can't remember the author's name, but the story is "Amal and the Night Visitors", and it's anthologized alot. Best example I can think of.

badducky said:

Actually, I've read whole stories written in second person.


Can't remember the author's name, but the story is "Amal and the Night Visitors", and it's anthologized alot. Best example I can think of.

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Diary by Chuck Palahniuk is pretty much witten in second person, and I loved it. The narrator's husband is in a coma and the "chapters" are are dates and her recording what took place that day, so she's constantly addressing her husband directly as "you." Another intersting thing is that Palahniuk always writes in first person, but here, the narrator always refers to herself in the third person. It's weird because it still feels like a first person narrative even though "I" and "me" are never used. I found it to be a highly inventive way to tell a story, a good one at that.

'Her," "your," "one's," or a rewrite using none of those – what's most consistent with the character's voice the rest of the time?

And, as I mentioned before...

badducky said:

Actually, I've read whole stories written in second person.


Can't remember the author's name, but the story is "Amal and the Night Visitors", and it's anthologized alot. Best example I can think of.

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Jay McInerny's "Bright Lights, Big City" is an entire novel that doesn't slip from second person for the entire length of the book.

It's well worth a read simply to look at the craft--and also to see what the limitations are. As Dr Johnson said of Paradise Lost, "No one ever wished it were longer."