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this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2026
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writing
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Aren't textbooks/instruction manuals considered 2nd. person? Or do you mean novels/stories specifically written in 2nd. person that aren't widespread?
Textbooks/instruction manuals generally aren't written in second person, but in the grammatical imperative. "You read the following sentence and fill in the blank." vs "Read the following sentence and fill in the blank."
Second person is extremely rare in most forms of writing. It's mostly used for Choose Your Own Adventure books. In a similar vein, TTRPGs and text-based video games use it a lot. But I couldn't name you a single novel that's written in second person.
Edit: Found another use: I've seen both horror short stories and erotic short stories use second person. And, of course, "Shia LaBeauf" by Rob Cantor
Most self-help books are written in the 2nd person, I think. (In Jessica Dall's defense, she is talking about "stories" only. I agree stories in the 2nd person are very rare.)
And a lot of love poems.
"In second person, the narrator refers to one of the characters as “you”, therefore making the audience member feel as if he or she is a character within the story. (“You see the man walking toward you.”)" – this is also bad writing because the example is so dull. A good writer would have used an example with impact such as "there are so many things I wanted to tell you when you returned from Vietnam – but you didn't." The professional editor has also made a punctuation error here: the word you should have 'single quotes' not "double quotes".
"5 Places to Stop in Ireland" – title breaks AP Style and most stylebooks I know about. It should be 'Five' rather than '5'.
"If you have been following my brand(ish) new TikTok...." – yeah brand(ish) new gtfo
"An absolute must for the book nerds amongst us." – Again reaching for the lazy cliché to express herself.
Dunno why I'm enjoying ripping on her so much. I must have a grudge against her from a past life.
using "he or she" here is also clumsy writing, "they" works far better
it reads like she had a bad ESL teacher
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
That still counts as second person imo. And most textbooks and instruction manuals do use "you." "Right click and select copy to copy the file. You can also use the keyboard shortcut ctrl+c"