Second person in fiction

Talking of voice, as I did in my previous blog, one of the lesser used techniques is second person.
Second person relies on the pronouns you, your, and yours and is more often used to address the audience in technical writing, advertising, songs and speeches.
In fiction it would allow lines like ‘You feel uneasy the moment you turn into the street.‘
It differs from first person, which uses pronouns including I and me, and third person, which uses pronouns such as he and she.
It’s odd that it is not used more in fiction; it is a direct way of addressing the reader, putting them in the middle of the action and challenging them with every word.

 

John Dean