Showing posts with label The First Person. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The First Person. Show all posts

Monday, 4 June 2012

the first person and other stories by Ali Smith

Goodreads link
I love, love, love short stories. I love writing them; I love reading them. Over the years, I've had a few published, although they are probably all long forgotten now :-(

It's not quite so easy to find good collections to read, though. As a result I grab them wherever I can and hope for the best. When I picked up this Ali Smith collection, I hadn't read her novels but I knew her name.

These stories are an experiment in viewpoint - many of them are written in the second person, which is why I picked it for today's recommendation. (If you don't know, I'm highlighting books which have influenced me in some way - these posts are not intended to be book reviews.)

The second person viewpoint interested me because I'd already had my story That Sadie Thing published - a story written partly in second person. It's a viewpoint that challenges the writer - fingers crossed that I got it right, then! As with anything, when done well you hardly notice that the story is being written in an unconventional way; when done badly, it's the only thing you notice!

Have you read Ali Smith's short stories or novels? Have you written a story is second person? Do you enjoy reading stories written in second?