Ok this is mean of me to post. Sorry Jessica Dall.
“Short scenes are sometimes work well.” – this is a self-described editor giving writing and editing advice.
“Pretty much anyone who’s read a book has probably seen narrative written in first and third person. Some people may have even seen a couple in second. Everyone has their favorite to write in, and generally read, but I’ve always been rather partial towards third person.” – so much wrong with this writing. ‘some people may have even seen a couple in second’ sounds like about four people out there have read two texts in second-person perspective. ‘and generally read’ is awkward and the word ‘generally’ serves no purpose. ‘I’ve always been rather partial to’ is a cliché.
I wouldn’t draw attention to it – there’s lots of bad writing on the internet – but she’s apparently a professional ‘Writer & Editor’ lololol
‘some people may have even seen a couple in second’ sounds like about four people out there have read two texts in second-person perspective.
That’s not too far off. Comparatively speaking there are very, very few books written in second person. A lot of people have probably never read a single one.
Genuinely, the most popular piece of second-person literature I can possibly think of is Homestuck. All of the narration in that is second person. I’d bet that exposed more modern people to second person writing than any other single work.
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin won the 2016 Hugo Award and is second person.
Look at these two users with the knowledge
Ah, I hadn’t heard of that. I’m not aware how popular Hugo Award winners tend to be in terms of readership, though that’s certainly much more critical acclaim that Homestuck’s gotten, for whatever that’s worth.
Wattpad fanfics starring Y/N
Does the Screwtape Letters count?
Aren’t textbooks/instruction manuals considered 2nd. person? Or do you mean novels/stories specifically written in 2nd. person that aren’t widespread?
Textbooks/instruction manuals generally aren’t written in second person, but in the grammatical imperative. “You read the following sentence and fill in the blank.” vs “Read the following sentence and fill in the blank.”
Second person is extremely rare in most forms of writing. It’s mostly used for Choose Your Own Adventure books. In a similar vein, TTRPGs and text-based video games use it a lot. But I couldn’t name you a single novel that’s written in second person.
Edit: Found another use: I’ve seen both horror short stories and erotic short stories use second person. And, of course, “Shia LaBeauf” by Rob Cantor
Most self-help books are written in the 2nd person, I think. (In Jessica Dall’s defense, she is talking about “stories” only. I agree stories in the 2nd person are very rare.)
And a lot of love poems.
“In second person, the narrator refers to one of the characters as “you”, therefore making the audience member feel as if he or she is a character within the story. (“You see the man walking toward you.”)” – this is also bad writing because the example is so dull. A good writer would have used an example with impact such as “there are so many things I wanted to tell you when you returned from Vietnam – but you didn’t.” The professional editor has also made a punctuation error here: the word you should have ‘single quotes’ not “double quotes”.
“5 Places to Stop in Ireland” – title breaks AP Style and most stylebooks I know about. It should be ‘Five’ rather than ‘5’.
“If you have been following my brand(ish) new TikTok…” – yeah brand(ish) new gtfo
“An absolute must for the book nerds amongst us.” – Again reaching for the lazy cliché to express herself.
Dunno why I’m enjoying ripping on her so much. I must have a grudge against her from a past life.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Textbooks/instruction manuals generally aren’t written in second person, but in the grammatical imperative. “You read the following sentence and fill in the blank.” vs “Read the following sentence and fill in the blank.”
That still counts as second person imo. And most textbooks and instruction manuals do use “you.” “Right click and select copy to copy the file. You can also use the keyboard shortcut ctrl+c”
This write like me when I try to do jokes about writing advice as a professional writer.
At least it isn’t AI?
Stephen King was an English teacher
Do you know about alyssa matesic on youtube? She’s damn near changed my life. Not sure which video of hers to link because I don’t 100% agree with everything she says but I do agree with most of it.
Edit: sea of lentils is a cool novel that switches between first, second, and third person chapter-by-chapter.
