Thank you for this enlightening comment! It’s good to hear not only speculations about general fandom preferences, but also what people with bias against first-person POV really think.
While I can’t remember seeing much of second-person narrative anywhere, I think it needs a very good reason. And perhaps it would still be hard to stop paying attention to the technique while reading.
In my view any device should become transparent, so that the reader only experiences the story. This can be more difficult when the reader is also a writer and aware of the choice of devices.
I wouldn’t mention first-person POV as a warning or in a tag, making readers pay unnecessary attention to it, even though maybe some fanfic readers would like to be warned. And my titles must have sometimes functioned as warnings, because I always pick a phrase from the story text.
I’ve had readers (years ago, and I hope you don’t condemn me for bragging) who’ve admired my first-person(and-present-tense) fiction voice, and some among them have pointed out that they’ve noticed only afterwards that I’ve used the grammatical person they normally dislike in fanfic.
Taking the reader to the midst of the story is my aim in both first-person and third-person POV, and I think I can make it work quite as well in both. Or perhaps not, if I can get no readers for my firs-person fics! And perhaps my third-person narration, too, would be too closely in the character’s head for some people’s liking.
I hope I don’t sound too defensive. Explaining all this to myself helps me make my conclusions. One is perhaps that I’d better not choose first-person POV for gift fics, at least not before asking the recipient if it’s okay.
Of course, for my own indulgence I write what I like best. But because I stick to my belief that fiction is interaction and I seek some in the fandom, I also read and review all kinds of fics, and not only those rare ones with absolutely spectacular opening paragraphs.
As for tense, I can’t help paying attention to any inconsistency when reading. That doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes make mistakes, particularly when editing. What I’ve said about transparency should work for the tense, too, and sometimes I’m afraid that the present tense is bound to be less transparent at the very beginning of the story – unless the opening is so spectacular that the readers almost forget they’re reading. The past tense perhaps sounds more natural in most written stories, but if there’s need for telling a lot about what had happened before, it’s another challenge to balance between using the clunkier past perfect and shifting to the past tense for longer sections of such backstory.
Thanks again for giving me a chance to ramble on. (I’m glad this is my journal, so I don’t need to apologise for wordiness!)
no subject
While I can’t remember seeing much of second-person narrative anywhere, I think it needs a very good reason. And perhaps it would still be hard to stop paying attention to the technique while reading.
In my view any device should become transparent, so that the reader only experiences the story. This can be more difficult when the reader is also a writer and aware of the choice of devices.
I wouldn’t mention first-person POV as a warning or in a tag, making readers pay unnecessary attention to it, even though maybe some fanfic readers would like to be warned. And my titles must have sometimes functioned as warnings, because I always pick a phrase from the story text.
I’ve had readers (years ago, and I hope you don’t condemn me for bragging) who’ve admired my first-person(and-present-tense) fiction voice, and some among them have pointed out that they’ve noticed only afterwards that I’ve used the grammatical person they normally dislike in fanfic.
Taking the reader to the midst of the story is my aim in both first-person and third-person POV, and I think I can make it work quite as well in both. Or perhaps not, if I can get no readers for my firs-person fics! And perhaps my third-person narration, too, would be too closely in the character’s head for some people’s liking.
I hope I don’t sound too defensive. Explaining all this to myself helps me make my conclusions. One is perhaps that I’d better not choose first-person POV for gift fics, at least not before asking the recipient if it’s okay.
Of course, for my own indulgence I write what I like best. But because I stick to my belief that fiction is interaction and I seek some in the fandom, I also read and review all kinds of fics, and not only those rare ones with absolutely spectacular opening paragraphs.
As for tense, I can’t help paying attention to any inconsistency when reading. That doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes make mistakes, particularly when editing. What I’ve said about transparency should work for the tense, too, and sometimes I’m afraid that the present tense is bound to be less transparent at the very beginning of the story – unless the opening is so spectacular that the readers almost forget they’re reading. The past tense perhaps sounds more natural in most written stories, but if there’s need for telling a lot about what had happened before, it’s another challenge to balance between using the clunkier past perfect and shifting to the past tense for longer sections of such backstory.
Thanks again for giving me a chance to ramble on. (I’m glad this is my journal, so I don’t need to apologise for wordiness!)