A question about point of view

Duskford

Duskford

CHYOA Guru
So, I was wondering, which point of view do the readers and fellow authors here at CHYOA prefer? 2nd person or 3rd person? My only story here at the site needs to be written in 3rd person because I compile my threads in chapters to post in other places as well, but lately I've been thinking about writing a fantasy story with multiple paths and characters exclusively for CHYOA, so it got me wondering which point of view do you guys think it would be best.
 
I prefer reading and writing in 1st and 3rd person, no matter if focused on one person or if switch view

For me, 2nd person always sound strange, as someone tells me, what I have to do. (I write in german, so maybe it's some different in english)
I usually choose by the things I want to tell.
With 1st person you can mention much assumptions your character makes and can describe his feelings. On the other side you can ship around difficult situations (e.g. if you have a group scene with 4 girls and 4 guys... most times it doesn't matter, who of the girls touches you, if you don't see the owner of the hand... so you can prevent to describe really difficult and complex scenes and concentrate on the immediate environment (see, hear, feel))
3rd person doesn't allow that much feelings and tell more facts. Some situations are hard to describe, if you want to show the whole scene.


Currently I'm thinking about a story written in 1st person switch view, but I'm not sure, if it would work well with more than two characters. Below a example with two characters; the girl is written in italics; some actions overlay and give another point of view.

[...the male character tells, how he came closer with a nice girl...]
Avidly I pressed my mouth on her beautiful lips. They were warm and soft and my tongue slipped easily between them.

*Oh my god!*, i thought, when he kissed me.
His mouth smelled like a old fish, but I was so shorttaken, that I couldn't parry his unexpected attack and felt his slimy tongue in my mouth.
[...she tells how she tried to get away from him...]
"NO!", i screamed, as he ripped my panty down and pressed my face in the dirt.

*Now your mine, little slut!*, i thought.
I forced the coquette down on the floor and pulled her sweet dotted panty down.
"Noone will hear you!", i said with a smile, while she screamed that I shouldn't touch her.
I was way beyond that level!
 
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I agree with you on 2nd person, Trugbild. I don't really like it, but it seems as a lot of stories on chyoa are written using that particular PoV, which was what made me wonder about the readers and writers' preference. My guess is that the story feels more like a game using the 2nd person PoV.

That said, I really like 3rd or 1st person stories, although I feel that each one fit different types of stories. For example, on my story "At The Cabin", I switch the focus around the characters a lot, so I write in 3rd person, but in a story with a sole protagonist or one where the PoV doesn't switch too much, I would prefer 1st person.
 
2nd person, without any doubt. Maybe some of you read (I did in my youth :)) "gamebooks" (Lone Wolf and so on)...all in 2nd person, for as much as I can remember. There's much more empathy (hence better description of his\her feelings) with the main character and his\her choices.
3rd person is good too, less empathy but you aren't linked so strictly to the main character (hence it's easier to write about the thoughts of multiple characters)
I don't like 1st person in interactive fiction too much (on the other way I love it in the regular fiction)
 
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I think the appeal of 2nd person is rooted in 1st person's association with a fully established character who addresses the audience. 1st person in mainstream entertainment is usually read like a diary entry, or associated with dialogue, the perspective of somebody else. In interactive fiction, 1st can be reader or diary, but it's this blur that makes it unappealing, as well as the existence of 2nd person that should have us default to non-reader.

2nd person is the true immersion. Unlike 1st person, it's clearly defining the reader as the protagonist. It's slightly more challenging due to the limited nature of a second person story, but when done right, it's magical.
 
I feel comfortable doing 2nd person POV in these stories because it hearkens back to those Choose Your Own Adventures books which put you in the story and had you make decisions on where the story would lead. What irritates me is when a story is in one point of view and suddenly switches to another point of view. It's jarring and takes me out of the narrative.
 
I have one I took over on chyoo that is 2nd persepective, and I really really wish I could change it. I'd have to re-write every thread, or start from scratch, however. 3rd is probably my favorite, though 1st is still far better than 2nd.
 
I would suppose that like most people I am more familiar with the 3rd person POV. It seems the most natural to me as, with a few exceptions, the vast majority of books I have read have used this POV. To digress slightly beyond the literary usage, movies too, from which many stories here get their inspiration are rooted in the 3rd person POV. Video games, another source of inspiration can of course be 1st person POV.

It may be that with technology that is now coming in to use there will be a shift towards the 1st person. VR systems will soon be in a lot of peoples homes. The Oculus Rift for example should be available in it's market form this year hopefully and others will be close behind. I spoke to someone recently who has used one of the developers versions on his PC and words quite literally failed him as to the difference in experience virtual reality, at least where vision and sound are concerned, makes.

Movies for VR systems are also in development, where you would view the action through the eyes of a protagonist. I realise you could always shoot a film using 1st person POV with conventional cameras, but when you can look around and see the real world around you the effect is rather shallow. Or getting away from fiction you could stroll through a city on the other side of the world, looking around you. Experiences such as skydiving or white water rafting could be tasted in your living room. In the future people may be just as familiar with use of 1st person POV as we are with 3rd person POV today.
 
Funnily enough, the movie "Lady in the Lake" was on TCM the other night. Excellent and interesting--the movie is almost exclusively viewed through the eyes of the protagonist.

Perspective probably depends upon the size and importance of the cast. Second-person perspective either forces a reader to conform to a role, or must bend around an open-ended role that can hypothetically be filled by an individual with any sort of proclivities (which is why it's neat that we can write stories with endless branching).

A second-person perspective relies on the reader's ability to throw him or herself into a single role, while a third-person perspective may disconnect readers who feel they have a god-like control over other characters. Personally, I can see how the third-person perspective permits stories to extend further by taking brief excursions into the narrative of a different character. Story creators could always emphasize if they want a story to remain limited to a single character in third-person, where as in second-person this limitation is unusual to breach. The two perspectives could perhaps be blended if one takes into consideration the notion that they're controlling a party of allies similar to a role-playing game or such--in fact, interactive fiction is a sort of role-playing game (at least, from my perspective).
 
As some have already stated, the 2nd person view is great for immersion and makes the story feel more like a game where the reader is the main protagonist. It works fairly well with the chyoa type of stories, which are often very much like those text based games already mentioned. That said, it doesn't always fit with every story, and I'd easily prefer any of the other two in certain situations.

1st person feels a bit more weird, at least to me, in this kind of set-up where one story may have several different authors. It works pretty well for certain stories, but it makes it more difficult to add to as a secondary writer - again, at least in my own opinion.

3rd person should clearly be the best for standard novel-like stories. It allows better insight in how different characters interact with one another, and can easily include more than one person as the main protagonists.

So, if reading/writing your chyoa stories like you would a normal book, then I'd clearly suggest 3rd person - while if you prefer the text based game style, then go for 2nd. It's all up to the original author how they want to present their story though. ; )
 
There's some interesting points of view here, some of which totally conflict with my own.
Kaitou says "2nd person is the true immersion. Unlike 1st person, it's clearly defining the reader as the protagonist". I however, couldn't disagree more. For me, 2nd person always feels forced and impersonal; however I feel that I am the protagonist in first person view. Explicitly telling me the reader, I think something or other, totally ruins the immersion and hence the story.

For me, either first or third person is the way to go.
 
I was sure I had written on this subject before but I have disagree with dirtytyke, however brilliant his name is ;) For the reader 2nd person is true immersion but I did not realise how much first person writing becomes immersive for the author. It did not really afflict me until the last story possibly because the commentary threads seem even more personal. I have really started to side with the character rather than just seeing things from his point of view and that has begun to drain me emotionally. I think I may switch to 3rd person writing in the future just so I can be a little more impartial.
 
I think, that the depth of immersion is also a matter of tense.

If a story is told in 1st person past, it sounds like direct speech, so the character is the storyteller.
I think, most 1st and 3rd person stories are written in past tense, like it is usual in novels.

Which tense is usually used in 2nd person stories?
If it is present, it could be comparing apples with oranges.
 
Beeble42 said:
I have disagree with dirtytyke, however brilliant his name is ;)
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Thanks for that. :-)
I might have to try reading more 2nd person stories. I generally stop reading them immediately as I find them annoying (and usually badly written) but perhaps I'll give them a chance again and see if I change my mind.
Can you recommend any well written 2nd person stories?

Trugbild, the 2nd person stories I have seen have been present tense, and you're right 1st/3rd tend to be past tense. Perhaps someone who's read more 2nd person may be better qualified to comment though.
 
dirtytyke said:
I might have to try reading more 2nd person stories. I generally stop reading them immediately as I find them annoying (and usually badly written) but perhaps I'll give them a chance again and see if I change my mind.
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The writing is key. Your feelings aren't entirely wrong. A poorly told story completely ruins the feel no matter what, and it's especially true for 2nd person. The greater immersion makes the flops harder on the mind. But like I said, if it's well done, it's magical. Some people object to the ambiguous physical descriptions used in these to let the author truly become the protagonist (myself included), but even so, a solid prose makes it manageable.

But I don't mean only stellar syntax and dialogue. It has to be logical. Again, you're not entirely wrong. If the writer oversteps a logical extension of a given choice, it dulls the immersion. The problem there is writers can forget this and dictate the character's actions by themselves. The standard in fiction is clearly defined characters who can be predicted by anyone who knows their characters. A story with established characters shouldn't offer any of the choices a choose your own adventure would, but if the characters have not yet been established and the choices dictate their personalities we should have breaks to make those decisions. A 2nd person story's protagonist is always the latter, and some writers forget this. That said, once the choice is made a logical extension would be analyzing why the character is reacting this way and can be expressed without any other choices preceding it.

On top of that, some writers do play god in a more suitable capacity. If the reader decides to forgo a chance, some writers can decide they don't get it back and create a new situation, some requiring no choice in their own right. A simple example, the end of a doctor's exam. Once it's been established the protagonist won't be stopping the doctor, some writers will mush the character out of the exam room, others will have the staff stop the character. This too is acceptable, since it's not the character making this decision, it's the situation and common sense; since the character already decided to end this exam, the character will naturally clear out unless someone stops it. In fact, the exact same thing can be said about students at the end of a class who decided to not talk to the teacher for extra help and office workers who decided to not stay late.

It all comes down to how far is too far, balancing the logical behind the choice and situation against separate choices. A 2nd person story needs to stop when the logic behind the previous choice and the current situation can't carry the story any further on its own. This way, it expresses what's already been established without establishing anything on its own. It's a little tricky, and some writers forget this, but a proper story is magical.

That said, some stories have the wrong format. Some stories attempt to have clearly defined characters, yet they present them in 2nd person and generate contradictions - sluts get a prude choice, exhibitionists question situations for more than legal ramifications, etc. I'm not against defining the physical appearance - it makes for consistent storytelling and erotica itself is about exploring fantasies - but writers that dictate protagonists' personalities defeat the whole purpose of the perspective. Add to it, we have writers who give the reader the ability to choose how other characters react to situations, which makes no sense if readers are only controlling one character; break this rule to establish the character's gender and situation, but after that it has to be the reader who makes decisions.

I'm not going to say this perspective has the best writers - in fact I think it's the hardest to write for - but I love the concept and it epitomizes interactive fiction.
 
Very interesting discussion there Kaitou. I do agree it is rather jarring in a first or second person story to suddenly be presented with choices for other characters, with the exception of mind control of course.

Personally, I'm much more concerned with grammar and spelling than tense or point of view, as long as they're consistent through the story.

I was thinking about this in bed last night, and wondered what a story where the reader was implicitly cast as the protagonist would be like.
Every story I've ever read has been explicit using terms like "I" or "you" to define 1st/2nd person, but it should be possible to drop these terms and leave the point of view open to the reader. As an example instead of "To the left you see a statue, floating above the floor" or "I looked left and saw a statue floating above the floor" you could simply have "To the left a statue is visible, floating above the floor".

This clearly implies 1st or 2nd person, but leaves it open, and may be even more immersive than either.
While some situations may prove challenging to the author, some clever writing should make it work. I might try this someday.
 
dirtytyke said:
I do agree it is rather jarring in a first or second person story to suddenly be presented with choices for other characters, with the exception of mind control of course.
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Eh, I'm only halfway with you on 1st person. As I said before, a 1st person story can be about character protagonists, not reader protagonists. If it's a character protagonist, I don't see anything wrong with readers making decisions for something other than the protagonist. However, I do accept your view, that a 1st person story can be told with a reader protagonist, in which case reader decisions have to reflect only the choices of the protagonists. It all comes down to whose story we're reading.

dirtytyke said:
Personally, I'm much more concerned with grammar and spelling than tense or point of view, as long as they're consistent through the story.
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Well, if that's the case, CHYOA has some decent 2nd person with story choices. Try anything in this perspective that has threads by by Torg, tantrikenetic, and gunde. They've each made a few gaffes in their breaks and continuing questions, but otherwise their threads are immensely enjoyable.

dirtytyke said:
I was thinking about this in bed last night, and wondered what a story where the reader was implicitly cast as the protagonist would be like.
Every story I've ever read has been explicit using terms like "I" or "you" to define 1st/2nd person, but it should be possible to drop these terms and leave the point of view open to the reader. As an example instead of "To the left you see a statue, floating above the floor" or "I looked left and saw a statue floating above the floor" you could simply have "To the left a statue is visible, floating above the floor".

This clearly implies 1st or 2nd person, but leaves it open, and may be even more immersive than either.
While some situations may prove challenging to the author, some clever writing should make it work.
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Now that's an interesting idea. Empathy and playing on character's emotions off of the protagonist would be a little tricky, but I think it could work and nullify most of your reservations. Starting a story and strictly enforcing this rule would be an interesting experiment regardless of outcome. When I finish up my current projects, I just might join your venture.
 
It's a bit surprising this hasn't been tried before, at least as far as I'm aware.
I do read a limited selection of novels though, almost all of which are sci-fi and 3rd person, so I may be wrong.
Perhaps it breaks 'required' sentence structure in correct English grammar? Again I don't know as I never got taught grammar at school, hell they didn't even teach me what nouns were. English classes for me involved watching Die Hard and making posters explaining the perils of mixing alcohol and driving, which I thought was a complete waste of time.
 
If the protagonist is interesting, third person. If they're a blank slate (not a bad thing!), then second person. If there isn't a clear protagonist, then third person.

There's some exceptions and blurred lines between these categories, but that's my rule of thumb.
 
I really like Squelchapron's distinction here. It's helping me articulate my own thoughts. Bear with me.

I adore second-person voice unreservedly, and not just in the context of a game or choose-your-own-adventure. I've read books and short stories told in the second-person that do an unbelievable job transporting you into the middle of the scene. ("Your girl catches you cheating," anyone?) I personally find it more immersive than the first-person voice: to my ear, second-person voice sounds more intimate when describing emotion than first- or third-person because it isn't telling me what I should feel about what's happening, it's telling me what I am feeling, and that distinction, the simple description of my character's thoughts and actions, does so much to make me a part of this world being presented. Even if I personally don't feel what the character is feeling, I still understand their feelings and I use that to familiarize myself with the person they are. It creates a fascinating effect in which the reader alternately is observing and participating in the story just as a character within the story would.

The thing is, as Squelchapron says, I suspect that second-person works best when your main character is something of a cipher. They don't have to be a stoic who has no personality beyond the reader's, but they should be "roomy" enough to let the reader fill in some details for themselves. It's risky to definitively say, "This is who you are," and lead the reader through the story by their nose. When your main character does have a clearly communicated identity, second-person is frustrating because you don't want to see this interesting person insist on the reader's permission before they do something interesting, but first-person sends the main character off to the races and brings the reader along for the ride. Similarly, when you have multiple main or otherwise important characters to follow, second-person gets disorienting as to who "you" are in the current scene, while third-person makes it painless to swap the focus between characters from moment to moment. Each voice is a tool, each has an appropriate use under different circumstances.
 
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