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6/12/2025, 1:07:32 PM
>>24460826
The problem with second person is it's hard to write about what the other characters are thinking and feeling because you are stuck in your (protaganist's) head, which neccessarily limits the scope of the narrative and how long it can persist in length without becoming blind and muddled. In works in pic, but its more novella than novel. Calvino used alternating chapters of second and omnipresent third person to overcome that limitation: think like how Sorrows of Young Werther switches to third person once Werther has blown his brains out and can no longer write the letters of the epistolary novel, it works best with some creative switches of perspective to illuminate the blind spots of second person. But it is surprisingly viable, makes the events less distant, more intensely experienced and felt by (you) the reader-protagonist who is literally doing the things rather than reading about someone else doing them.
The problem with second person is it's hard to write about what the other characters are thinking and feeling because you are stuck in your (protaganist's) head, which neccessarily limits the scope of the narrative and how long it can persist in length without becoming blind and muddled. In works in pic, but its more novella than novel. Calvino used alternating chapters of second and omnipresent third person to overcome that limitation: think like how Sorrows of Young Werther switches to third person once Werther has blown his brains out and can no longer write the letters of the epistolary novel, it works best with some creative switches of perspective to illuminate the blind spots of second person. But it is surprisingly viable, makes the events less distant, more intensely experienced and felt by (you) the reader-protagonist who is literally doing the things rather than reading about someone else doing them.
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