: Re: What is it called when the reader is the focal point? Here is an example of what I mean in present-tense (though narrative time is irrelevant): You walk into the empty room, you should be

@Looi5811334

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It's second person. It can be found in Choose Your Own Adventure Books. When I think of truly great literature I cannot think of a single work in the second person. (Unless you count the Neil Patrick Harris Choose Your Own Autobiography book.) ;)

Here's a list on Good Reads, but I recognize no authors from lit classes, though some of the titles refer to famous authors (like Kafka).

Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas from American novelist Tom Robbins is a fun romp, but I think the POV is the gimmick for the most part. And that's the thing--it can seem a very gimmicky type of writing and can be jarring for the reader in most forms of fiction.

It may seem like it draws the reader in, but in the end, it can feel...artificial. A description of a scene and what the people do in it, or even being in someone else's head feels more real. The longer it goes on, the more likely the reader is going to say to themselves "Nuh-uh, I would never do that!"

To combat that, you have a choice: 1) The you is ultra generic, perhaps even without gender. 2) The you is specific. With #1 it's not that interesting. With number #2 , you might as well go really wild with it. Like Robbins.

Where it does get used, and effectively is in poetry, but it is unusual in fictional prose. It often shows up whenever advice is given, especially in non-fictional self-help books in passages like these "You go to work, you come home, you eat, you sleep, but without a spiritual center, it all seems hollow." And then they go on to tell you how to change that.

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