Hey, you!
A kiosk vendor addressed a woman that way at the mall recently. She ignored him. Unless that guy needed her to call 9-1-1, it was a rude way for a stranger to approach someone. Especially when he wanted to sell her perfume. It was an in-your-face way to communicate.
So too, is the second person POV in writing. In second person POV, the narrator addresses you the reader, out there in Reader Land, as if you were a character in the story. It involves the reader in a personal way that the other POVs don’t.
You bring home the money, but you know she’d already been there, packed, and gone. You drive to her mother’s, hoping you remember the address and that she doesn’t call the cops on you light she did the last time. You only make it to the first step before you hear the siren.
Second person is the least common POV in use, but continues to appear in literary works such as short stories and chapters within longer work. Writers often pair it with present tense usage to heighten the sense of urgency. Novels are rarely written entirely in second person, but there are some successful exceptions. Novels-length works run the risk of wearing out the reader.
We use second person almost exclusively when giving instructions or directions. It’s also used predominately in advertising and song lyrics. Even when the word, you, is not present, it is often implied:
You take a 9mm socket wrench and pound the keyboard until the cursor stops moving on the screen.
You turn left at the corner with the Cocker Spaniel racing against the two boys in the red wagon.
Bring the extra cement down to the wharf at midnight. Then take all the violin cases and load them on the ferry. (you, is implied)
Second person POV. You get the idea. You know you do.
Added note: This is not to be confused with authorial intrusion where the writer addresses the reader directly. Such as:
Dear reader, Miss Scarlett was quite remiss in meeting Colonel Mustard in the billiard room at all, but bringing the candlestick was pure stupidity.
Have you read anything in second person POV? If so, what? Did you like it or hate it?
p.s. Photo by JanneM