Complex Numbers

Writing Workshop, Week 4

This week's authors: Junot Diaz and Lorrie Moore.

Fascinating thing about this week's reading: Both stories are written in the second person. You don't see that much, do you? Most stories you read are first or one of the myriad varieties of third person.

I use the second person occasionally for effect, but always in poems or, well, blog entries. These stories are quite effective in engaging the reader. They're both "how-to" style narratives, so the second person point of view actually enhances the story.

Neither is written in a particularly "literary" mode, though, so I could read them without gagging. Maybe I'll get through the rest of the course after all.