"Research published in the journal Psychological Science suggests that, while frequently annoying, the use of the second person in fiction compels readers to form more vivid identification in literature."In the comments, author Charlie Stross writes,
[There is a] trick I had to learn to write HALTING STATE -- namely, when you're writing second person narrative, the one thing you absolutely must avoid doing at all costs is to tell the reader how they react. (You can describe their actions and physiological symptoms, but their internal emotional state is strictly off-limits to you, the author, lest you set them up for cognitive dissonance.)The study itself comes to us courtesy of the US Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center (NSRDEC) and Tufts University:
In these experiments, volunteers read sentences describing everyday actions. The statements were expressed in either first- ("I am..."), second- ("You are...") or third-person ("He is..."). Volunteers then looked at pictures and had to indicate whether the images matched the sentences they had read. The pictures were presented in either an internal (i.e. as though the volunteer was performing the event him/herself) or external (i.e. as though the volunteer was observing the event) perspective.
The results, reported in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, indicate that we use different perspectives, depending on which pronouns are used. When the volunteers read statements that began, "You are..." they pictured the scene through their own eyes. However, when they read statements explicitly describing someone else (for example, sentences that began, "He is...") then they tended to view the scene from an outsider's perspective. Even more interesting was what the results revealed about first-person statements (sentences that began, "I am..."). The perspective used while imagining these actions depended on the amount of information provided - the volunteers who read only one first-person sentence viewed the scene from their point of view while the volunteers who read three first-person sentences saw the scene from an outsider's perspective.
The researchers note that "these results provide the first evidence that in all cases readers mentally simulate described objects and events, but only embody an actor's perspective when directly addressed as the subject of a sentence." The authors suggest that when we read second-person statements ("You are..."), there is a greater sense of "being there" and this makes it easier to place ourselves in the scene being described, imagining it from our point of view.
Between Charlie Stross's experience and this military research, perhaps I can add a touch of Psy-Ops to my tale. To a certain extent, fiction is about manipulation. You're telling a story, yes, but if you're being crafty you also have a desired impact, and you work towards achieving that. Sometimes it doesn't work. I doubt that Charles Dickens intended to make Oscar Wilde laugh, for example, which could be attributed to a failure of execution or the unfortunate intersection of sentimentalism and cynicism. Either way, as an author Dickens had an intention, although only he could ever be the true judge of his success or failure in that regard.
In my case, I'm using second-person to set up the narrative framework of the story and to convey certain information about characters. It's a peculiar device, and I'm not sure that I can pull it off. But the tasty data I've excerpted above gives me a much better sense of how I might be able to use it as a tool to achieve what Poe called "the unity of effect or impression."
1Damn. I went through three titles trying to come up with one that didn't ape Cory Doctorow's actual post...and ended up nearly duplicating the post's title, without noticing. I are creative and observant like!
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