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Mixing Persons

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infractuspennae

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If the narrator is telling a story to a specific person would he/she tell it using the second person pronoun?

For instance, I have parts of my current project where the storyteller is telling a story to his wife, about different events in their past at her prompting him with photos and other memory triggers. The man, pretty much has a photographic memory, so his telling is always detailed.

Each of these memory strolls will be their own chapter, but I am having issues with how to write them. Normally, if I tell a story that involves the person I am telling it to, I would use the second person to reference him/her.

I just don't want to upset readers by using second person, though it wouldn't sound natural for him to refer to his wife in the third person.

For example:

“Save my son!”

My focus shifted briefly toward the hysterical screams. Part of me wanted to scream back, had she not tethered her dog to the stroller the boy would not need saving. Instead, I stepped into the creek, and peered into the stroller. Still fastened in was a boy I guessed a little over a year. His brown hair wet from the creek water, and his face barely above the surface. Thankfully, it was the dry season so the creek wasn’t overly full. More a trickle as it ran under the bridge.

The bold sections don't seem natural. He would tell this story to his wife. A woman who lived the experience as well. It screams to me that it should be more like this:

“Save my son!”

My focus shifted briefly toward your hysterical screams. Part of me wanted to scream back, had you not tethered Teddy to the stroller Jamie would not need saving. Instead, I stepped into the creek, and peered into the stroller. Still fastened in was Jamie, just over a year at the time. His brown hair wet from the creek water, and his face barely above the surface. Thankfully, it was the dry season so the creek wasn’t overly full. More a trickle as it ran under the bridge.
 
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Roxxsmom

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Second person is not telling a story "to" someone. There are styles of first person or omni, for instance, where the narrator "breaks the fourth wall" sometimes or often by addressing the reader directly (now, dear reader, you have probably grown very exasperated with Bob, but you must remember that...") or think of the "Tell Tale Heart" by Poe, where the first person narrator kept reminding the reader that he wasn't mad. It read like a confession given before he goes to the gallows.

Second person is when the reader actually is the story's protagonist.

It all started on the morning of July 4th. You woke up, thinking it would be like any other day, a picnic and fireworks in the park. But then the doorbell rang and a letter arrived, addressed to you, and in it was...

I'm thinking the example is really first person, but the story is being told to someone the narrator knows (the dead wife) and who sometimes comes into the story. But he's still the main protagonist.
 
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BethS

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He would tell this story to his wife. A woman who lived the experience as well. It screams to me that it should be more like this:

If he's addressing his wife, of course he would use "you." What struck me about this, however, was that the voice seemed unnatural for a man talking to his wife. Some of the phrasing sounded writerly, and not like real speech. And some of it sounded like "As you know, dear" dialogue--telling her things she would already know.
 

Devil Ledbetter

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If he's addressing his wife, of course he would use "you." What struck me about this, however, was that the voice seemed unnatural for a man talking to his wife. Some of the phrasing sounded writerly, and not like real speech. And some of it sounded like "As you know, dear" dialogue--telling her things she would already know.
It struck me as unnatural as well for these same reasons, and for another: A baby (his baby?) is in a stroller a creek and nearly covered in water. Presumably the baby is frightened, and certainly his mother is having a natural response (panicked, screaming for help). Yet the POV character is strangely detached from the incident, "stepping" and "peering" and thinking "had she not tethered ...." instead of, I dunno, leaping and rescuing and maybe saving his Monday morning quarterbacking for, well, Monday morning--or at least until after the baby was pulled to safety.

But if the POV character is meant to be bloodless, critical, detached from the mother and baby, and completely devoid of emotion, then yeah, I guess that works extremely well.
 

Buffysquirrel

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He would address his wife as you. Or he might even use we--especially where he's blaming her for tying the dog(?) to the stroller. Unless you want their stroll down memory lane to end in a quarrel :).

Agree with Devil about the cold-bloodedness. The kid's drowning and he's pondering the seasonal weather?
 

BethS

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But if the POV character is meant to be bloodless, critical, detached from the mother and baby, and completely devoid of emotion, then yeah, I guess that works extremely well.

Yeah, context would help a lot here.
 
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