Writers spend a lot of time worrying about point of view, unless they don’t, in which case they are destined to be rejected by literary agents and editors everywhere.
Point of view is critical to a book’s success. It’s also one of the most common things new writers trip over, right up there with “show, don’t tell.”
So you want to learn how to write in second person point of view?
You’ve come to the right place.
What is 2nd person point of view?
Second person point of view is when the writer uses “you” as the main character in a narrative.
Example using the first line of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man:
It’s not as easy as you’d think to write in first person.
Although it seems natural to speak in the voice of a single character, since you’ve practiced all your life, there are some tricks to learn and pitfalls to avoid.
For instance, there isn’t only one kind of first person writing. There are actually four different ways to do first person point of view! (We’ll break down those types later).
Historically speaking, most books pre-1900 were written in the third person (with some notable exceptions). Now, if you look at the last five years of prizes like the Pulitzer, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Man Booker, you’ll find about 30% of the finalists are written in the first person. If you look at genre and commercial fiction, you’ll find the percentage is even higher, at about 50%.