[COMMENTARY] Yes, you're a Special Snowflake... · 9:58pm Sep 27th, 2014
...just like the 6 billion or so other Special Snowflakes.
This commentary is on two things that have been bugging me about...well, Fanfiction in general, but FiMFiction in specific since the whole scene started.
2nd Person Perspective...Just Say No!
In the world of writing and authorship there are two dominant storytelling styles, and they're dominant for a damn good REASON.
There's First Person Perspective, (1PP) which is where the story is told from the point of the protagonist. (NOTE - The "pro-tug-onn-ist" is NOT necessarily the Hero, or even the Main Character in a 1PP story, they're just the ones telling the story.) This is good, and acceptable to people who are reading/listening/consuming your story, because when we hear a story like this it's like it's from the mouth of the person who experienced the events. The best Pony-related example I can think of is Banishment Decree, primarily because it's such a well executed 1PP story, as the Hero, Main Character, and Protagonist are all wrapped up in one as the storyteller. Now, obviously, we all know it's not REALLY Gilda telling the story, but we're caught up in it because we experience the FEELING of being concerned with the well-being of this particular fictional character because, "...she was, like, THERE man!"
Then there's the far more popular Third Person Perspective, (3PP) which is more popular for a DAMN GOOD REASON. First, it allows for enough of a disconnect between the teller and the protagonist that we, as an audience, find it easier to suspend our disbelief. The suspension of disbelief is of CRITICAL importance in fiction, and if you don't believe me, just try enjoying porn while thinking very hard and clearly on what your mother (or father) would do in the porn-star's place if the situation in said porn were Real Life. (NOTE - I don't endorse the use of porn on a large scale for any purpose. This example was merely to highlight this one fundamental of fiction.) Unless this is your fetish, you will NOT be able to enjoy said porn, because the entire time you will be aware just how freaking UNlikely the actions of the porn character are.
The same goes for pastel ponies and their connected intellectual property. The more disconnected the story is from the teller and the audience, the more easily the audience can suspend their disbelief long enough to grow emotionally attached to the story.
Second, this is the kind of storytelling we all grow up with, no matter the culture or background, as this is the simplest and easiest form of entertainment to do, requiring nothing but the imagination of the teller and the audience. This is how bedtime stories work, this is how campfire stories work, this is how movies work, and this is how even the least story-driven video games work. (yes, I stand by this statement for ALL genres, for reasons I'm not going into here)
But Second Person Perspective (also known as Don't Do It!) breaks ALL the rules, and is the lazy way of telling a story.
Why? I'll explain:
Second Person Perspective (2PP) stories are told from "your" perspective. And if that sentence makes you feel uncomfortable for reasons you can't quite explain, keep reading. Essentially, they strive to make YOU, the audience, the protagonist.
Agency is a fundamental force of the human mind. The more we feel a thing/idea/etc. gives us agency, the more we like an appreciate said thing/idea/etc. (Why do people still flock to America a century after half the rest of the world has done their best to embrace more "democratic" governing and capitalism has won in people's pocketbooks if not their hearts and Public School Systems have done their damnedest to demonize the country? Because America, and to a lesser degree the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, has sold the image of giving people agency) Second Person Perspective completely strips the audience of agency. It presumes the story teller not only knows the events more intimately than the protagonist, but also knows YOU so well they can decide what YOUR reactions are going to be to said events.
Allow me a moment to highlight the exception that proves the rule: Choose Your Own Adventure stories. While, yes, I did just link you to the Trademarked series that launched the genre, this is indeed a full genre of books/stories that have become quite popular since their inception a few decades back. All the stories (or at least the most popular ones) involve the reader, or "you," as the protagonist, but they INCLUDE THE CHOICE OF WHAT THE PROTAGONIST DOES as part of the story. See, well before video games made it easy to include a sense of agency for the player, CYOA allowed the reader to read a scene or event, then make a choice between two or more possible actions as the protagonist. Was this perfect? No, quite often you (as the reader) would find yourself wishing there was another option that was what you'd really do in a situation, a bug that was later worked out in the online Addventure collaborative-writing online games with the now nearly ubiquitous option "Something Else." It did, no matter the era or medium, allow for the author to use 2PP and still grant the audience the Agency that makes such a story THE ONLY WAY IT CAN BE SUCCESSFULLY TOLD.
To have an entire "story," from beginning to end, where the author tells you not just the events but what YOU do in response to them strips the audience of agency entirely, and thus fails to capture the reader for one simple reason: Every time the author says YOU do something that you clearly wouldn't, your brain plays the interupting record scratch, instead of being in the scene you're suddenly at your computer or in your chair with a block of text in front of your face going, "Wait, what?!?" Your suspension of disbelief is destroyed because the author told a lie so big you just cannot buy into it.
It's also lazy, because nearly the entirety of a good story is the characters, getting to know them, learning their quirks, and then watching them grow. (This is why story-writing for games is so hard, as it's kinda hard to tell the story of how, say, Master Chief defeated the Covenant if they can never show his face, write his backstory, or have him grow or change over the course of the games...seriously, play Halo 1 and then play Halo 4; except for the armor, the character is EXACTLY the same.) In fact, if you want to pinpoint the MAIN character, look for the character that changes the MOST over the course of the story. 2PP stories fall down for a critical reason: The character you care about most (you) never grows through the course of the story, because the author cannot predict how you will grow as a result of the events they create. Sure, they can guess, and sometimes they may even guess right, but they will never be able to know you well enough to know exactly what you will chose over the course of a series of events. At some point before the end of the story, the author's guesses will stop being accurate enough to create a rift between real-you and character-you, and that kills the disbelief.
Also, by saying "you" are the main character, there's no backstory, no characterization, no depth or texture to the character other than what you-the-audience provide, and this once again strips out any uniqueness or originality from the story. A character we would have grown by proxy to know suddenly became just a carbon copy of us, turning the fic into a Tumblr-esque echo chamber of self-agreement.
Finally, I'd like to point out that never, anywhere in the entire annals of fiction or myth or story has 2PP EVER captured imaginations. Dig into any culture, any body of literature, and you'll never find a 2PP story that withstood the test of time. There's no legacy for anyone by treading the path of the 2PP storyteller, because that way is a frozen over lake and the only people there are jumping on the thin ice.
Is there the occasional fic that becomes popular enough to grab the Feature Box? Sure. Pet Rocks and Hula Hoops were a thing, once, too.
Your Stylesheet Sucks
When I was in high school, the NES was King of Video Games and if you didn't own one you sucked, and if you were a game developer and didn't make NES games, you might was well just schedule your bankruptcy proceedings when you're writing your business plan. A game came out for the NES called Werewolf, and it was sufficiently well hyped that release-weekend sales were pretty good...but as soon as kids started playing it they tossed it back in the box and stormed back to the game store to get their money back. It wasn't quite the debacle that Atari's E.T. was, but it pretty much buried the studio that made it. Why? Well, B was jump and A was attack. The problem with this was that Super Mario Brothers used A for jump and B for attack. You know, the Mario game that CAME WITH the console. The one that every gamer who owned a NES played over and over and over and over and over again to fill time 'cause it was the first game the owned for the NES and often stayed in their system until the next game came out...which used A for jump and B for attack, since that was what all NES gamers everywhere were trained to do and did without thinking. Muscle memory. So when Werewolf got funky and experimental, it didn't matter that the rest of the gameplay was pretty neat, that the art was pretty good for the time, that the story was interesting. The audience had to re-learn how to use the controller they'd gotten comfortable with for years by that point and ONLY for one game, so they just...didn't play.
If you are unaware, of what a stylesheet is, I wouldn't be surprised. This falls under the category of "How does a fish describe water?", as in, something so ubiquitous, so omnipresent, that we just don't notice it because it's always there...until it's not.
Stylesheets are basically how we present the information we're trying to convey. (I say "try" because communication is 50% teller and 50% audience, and I can't control the audience, so I can only claim my half...which I won't know if it worked until the other 50% provide feedback...it's very Quantum Physics) For example, my stylesheet for this article is as follows:
* Use the system default font
* Each paragraph gets it's own paragraph-break and a second line-break for spacing
* Bold is used for section headers
* All-caps, italics, and underline are used for emphasis
* "Double-quotes" are used to call out text that is spoken, 'Single-quotes' are used to highlight quoted statements within quotes (note I haven't actually used this one yet)
* Oxford Comma Rules
There's more, but that gives you a good idea of what I'm referring to.
(Of course, web page designers know exactly what I'm talking about, as CSS is now a standard part of "This is how a webpage works," and any webpage that DOESN'T have CSS is a sign of the total newb.)
I recently read a story (that I am NOT going to link to) where the author decided to use the standard English-language stylesheet (that, incidentally, closely matches what I used for this article) EXCEPT they chose to use bolding for all character-spoken text in addition to the "double-quotes" that all normal story writing. When I asked, "Why?" they replied that, "[they] always have [their] characters speak with bolded text," ...and that was it. Nothing about ease of use, readability, or any other good communication reason.
Allow me to explain; the usual use of bolded text is to provide emphasis. (I've already stated that I use bolded text as a section header for this document, so yes, the use of bolded text here is used for shock value.):
"This is God speaking, could you pick up some bagels on your way here from the funeral?"
"I'M REALLY, REALLY HAPPY!!!" he shouted with a scowl on his face.
When every other story on the site, even the bad ones, uses the standard English-story convention but YOU, you special snowflake you, decide to use bolded text for your story and only your story, all the characters are pretty much yelling at each other. And that's not a good story telling technique.
You see, a stylesheet is just as much a part of the story telling process as good grammar, proper spelling, and well executed punctuation. When you deviate from the accepted norm, you create more work for the audience, and not in a way that creates engagement, but in a way that forces disengagement. You break the audience from your narrative for the sole purpose of having them re-wire their thinking enough to enjoy your work and ONLY your work. "Werewolf" all over again. Your audience leaves because you're making them think.
+100 for linking Don't Make Me Think.
I'd add a corollary to your thoughts on second-person fiction (with which I otherwise resoundingly agree): I have seen good attempts at second-person stories that are essentially monologues directed at a specific, named "you". An example. Debatable whether this is more first- or second-person, really.
2501470 Honestly it looks to me to be more of a 1PP stream-of-consciousness-style narrative than a 2PP. They are addressing another character that's already established within the context of the universe, not necessarily the reader.
Of course, at a certain point, the lines between 1PP stream-of-consciousness and 2PP start to blur, but in this case, I'd say it's pretty clear that the author isn't addressing the audience but doing the hard-to-manage-but-when-done-usually-pretty-good one-sided conversation storytelling.
And thanks for your comment. (Love the avatar, btw)
2501709 (Thanks!) Yes, like you say: a specific, named narrator addressing a specific, named second person. Quite different from nonspecific narrator addressing the reader directly. I can imagine that done well, but I can't remember ever seeing it done well.