Are there any special rules for writing in the second person?
- Thread starter Loeman
- Start date
Zingiber
Really Really Experienced
Second-person present tense is good for the immediacy of a choose-your-own adventure story.
It's a less familiar way of telling a story for most of us than than first-person + third-person past tense.
In second-person present tense, I find it easy to veer back to past tense, and then I go back and catch and fix it.
Why? Familiarity, probably. What the folks who study slips call "capture error", it's easy to fall into the more common phrasing.
It's a less familiar way of telling a story for most of us than than first-person + third-person past tense.
In second-person present tense, I find it easy to veer back to past tense, and then I go back and catch and fix it.
Why? Familiarity, probably. What the folks who study slips call "capture error", it's easy to fall into the more common phrasing.
Javalar
Really Experienced
Strangely, that's a problem I never had, but maybe that's because I am used to writing reports and features, where the idea of "being right at the spot" is key.
I guess that's also what might help while writing stories: Imagine yourself (or the protagonist) right there, at the spot. That's, after all, how the reader should feel: He is right there, in that moment, and now has to decide what do to. Everything that happens, happens in real time. It's not a story, that's been told afterwards, it's a description of a situation which is happening NOW.
I guess that's also what might help while writing stories: Imagine yourself (or the protagonist) right there, at the spot. That's, after all, how the reader should feel: He is right there, in that moment, and now has to decide what do to. Everything that happens, happens in real time. It's not a story, that's been told afterwards, it's a description of a situation which is happening NOW.
