2nd Person Narrative

As some of you may know I'm currently doing an MA in creative writing. One of my ambitions when starting it was to put a few more colours in my palate (this is a metaphor, I can't paint. Crayons are more my style). I was hoaking through some hands outs recently when I came across so pages from Jay McInerney's novel. Bright Lights Big City. Now if you follow that link it'll take you to the DVD but you being smart can find the book from there. You will also notice that you're now reading second person narrative. Yeow! The book is famous for being written in second person narrative. In my experience as a writer I've only ever used first and third. And even when I've taught creative writing I've only ever covered first and third. I've now loaned the book out of my local library. Yay me and yay the library for having it. It has a much less embarrassing cover than the DVD so I can take it out when I'm out for a coffee and be an interesting bookworm and not look like I'm reading a Dawson's Creek - The College Years style page turner.

I hope that reading the book might make me want to try my own second person narrative, we'll see. I hope it does. I wonder have any of my readers read or written second person narrative. The only fiction I've came across before in second person is the find your own adventure books I used to read as a kid. The second person worked because of how they involved you in the plot. You made choices for the characters and thus shaped the plot. I'm wondering how this will affect my reading of Bright Lights Big City, I'll soon find out.

BTW - Please don't put any spoilers in the comments section if you have read it. This is what dickheads do.

I Remember Dawson's Creek

I was going to do this blog all about various aspects of pop culture that clutter my head up when I should be thinking of "deeper" things. It seemed like an easy place to start to talk about Dawson's Creek. There's one school of thought that if you lived in Dawson's Creek, Pacey would have been the only one you'd have gotten on with. I however believe this isn't so. So to disprove this I went on youtube looking for the clip where Pacey names his boat "True Love", because let's face it, it's a very empty barrell you're scrapping the bottom of if you want to hang around with a guy who names his boat "True Love". Asshole.
Let's imagine you're at the boat launch. Pacey saunters up with the rest of the witless asshole gang. Dawson's there with his big oompah loompah head babbling on about some pish movie and how it reflects on the essence of everything his life has been leading up to til this point or some other vague pish that's designed to keep the hard on he doesn't know how to use yet at bay. Asshole. Joey's there wittering on about Xanu or some other bag of balls and Jen's there, well doing nothing, because they never really figured out how to give Michelle Williams something decent to do. Oh and Jack's there, being gay, because they never figured out how to develop his character either.
So you're there and your mate Pacey smashes a bottle of champagne over his boat and says "I name this boat True Love" and gives a half assed look of dejection at whatever Dawson's Creek lady he couldn't get it together with. And you're there trying to find someone in the crowd to share a "what an asshole?" look with. All you can find, however, is the rest of the Dawson's Creek gang beaming with pride and love at Pacey and his badly named boat.
You see, Pacey seems vaguely alright when you only see him for an hour a week, but if you were round the guy all the time you'd see him for what he really is.
It's at that point you realise that you're an asshole too because you've been spending time wondering what it would be like living on Dawson's Creek. Asshole.
Anyways, yeah I found the episode and here's the bit where they name the boat but I'd really forgotten what a moaning heap of shit it really is. Everyone there just loves being a wanker, they roll around in it all gleeful at what a load of balls they've just said.

How the fuck I made it through one episode now escapes me but there was a time that the Dawson's Creek gang were like old friends, albeit friends I was glad to have because it made me feel superior during those long dark hours of "teenage life".