About "Medial Tibial Stress" Syndrome by Sue Mell

            (Here is Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome by Sue Mell)

            Oh ho! Second person.

            After I finished reading, I asked myself, “Did that work for you?” And I couldn’t really answer. It’d didn’t not work. I kept reading to find out what “I” would get up to next, what “I” would think. But wouldn’t I be doing that anyway if the story was any good and written in first or third perspective?

I tried to imagine the story in first person, third. Would it be different really? Would I connect more with the quote unquote main character? “She” is already a fifty year old woman, which is technically a stretch, no real hurdle to any writer with skill (Mell seems to have some of that). So why then? Why second person?

I guess “I” would be a little different. As weird as it sounds, I think on some level we’re conditioned to replace the “I” with “you” in our heads. Obviously I don’t think I did all that when I read a story, so the only other option is someone else. We’ve developed a happy status quo of what I would think if I were this person in this situation, and all that can interfere with that is the issue of believability. Suddenly the story stops working if I think to myself, “No, if I were you there, I still wouldn’t do that.”

Second person, I think, moves us to that point with or without believability. We’re not trained to think, “Well, if I were me, but a different me…”

I’m beginning to suspect there’s a very good reason why stories are so rarely told in the second person. Currently, I’d say I’m in favor of that policy.