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As the topic asks, how would people feel about a non-2nd person story, likely 3rd person, reminiscent of choose your own adventures? Except the story is quite serious and while there is branching, there's no mad cap adventure, and minimal, if any deaths.

That means choices would be relegated to choosing character gender you control (possibly), you choose the dialog and actions the character takes, but that's all.

The reason I ask is because I do find that I'm fearful of writing poorly from the second person perspective. Tense slip-ups as an example, but I also think my actual writing would be better when not using the 2nd person perspective.

Of course, the downside is that with 'you' not being used, players may not feel as involved, as in not thinking they're the character. But plenty of computer games ask you to name the character, and people don't seem to have many problems when it comes to enjoying their story or roleplaying. As I play games myself, it's never bothered me nor do I sit there and think I'm the toon. I'm just sat there making choices on behalf of a character, seeing where the story goes, and I enjoy the games fine.

So, any thoughts? I'll possibly try and publish a short story here from the 2nd person, but I simply don't have high hopes for it. If people are against the idea of writing with 'he/she said', then it looks like I'll have to get much better at it. (As an aside, I've been looking into it a bit. There's an ebook on Kindle http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Adventures-Whatley-Tupper-ebook/dp/B00408ASO6/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1381857555&sr=1-2&keywords=whatley that uses 3rd person narration. Doesn't seem to receive any complaints. Then there's more literary stuff that can be found from Inklewriter, like Frankenstein http://www.inklestudios.com/frankenstein and The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual, a Sherlock Holmes story, http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/musgraveritual told with the 1st person perspective.)

Anyway, I'd appreciate any feedback, especially as I'd like to sell some interactive stories at some point. Hence me wanting to make sure it's something that appeals to people and I figure you're some of the best people to ask. :)

Edit: I've also noticed that there's one or two stories on this site that aren't told from the 2nd-person perspective. Doesn't seem to have negatively impacted the ratings, if I remember correctly.

I can't really keep myself in the second tense (English class really drilled it out of me), I'm personally fine with third person, and lets face it, in Endmaster's stories (especially Eternal) you really aren't the character because he has his own philosophy that a person who wasn't raised like him would rarely share. So making the  main character an actually character as opposed to the reader isn't necessarily going to break your story (at least in my opinion).

Thats actually the only thing i dident really like in Eternal. But he also said it IS more story than a game so i dont really mind it

I actually enjoyed it, it kind of made the protagonist the antagonist as I tried desperately to make him see the flaws of the empire (which didn't work so well often =P)

Couldn't give a quarter of a crap less what person you write it in.

Use good grammar, and write an interesting story. Anything else is nothing worth caring or worrying about.

Gotcha both. :)

It's just that I'm new to interactive fiction and many stories are told from that perspective. So, I just worried about readers not being able to get into a 3rd person perspective story.

And it's funny really, Drakilian, my motto always is to not worry about 'rules' or what others think. Yet I'm doing just that here.

Anyway, thanks! I won't worry about it. :)

you should also note: The differences between IF and CYOA

For me IF is more mechanical in nature, something like First times (available for free from android/ios/amazon marketplace) is IF, or Colossal Cave adventure is IF.

Where Endmaster's Eternal is more CYOA, or Give yourself goosebumps is CYOA.

not sure if that will make a difference for you but, if it does cool.

I've always viewed interactive fiction as being the same as choose your own adventures really, but it differs (in my view) in the sense that it tells a coherent story rather than one that's light-hearted and can go down many paths. Like, say the main story of the book is to hunt down big foot, you end up choosing to be a monk or do some time travelling. That would be classed as being a CYOA in my view, because of the radical divergence from the main goal.

So, while interactive fiction can branch, the story is always kept in sight and coherent. I guess I view interactive fiction as not having plenty of deaths either. (So, it's more about shaping the narrative, character relationships and such, rather than trying to find a path where you don't die and seeing what sort of wild adventures you can get into)

But yeah, I'm aware that the term interactive fiction is also used to refer to text based stories where you solve puzzles, input text commands, roll dice and such.

So, I suppose in a sense, you could say that what I'd produce would be similar to Endmaster's work, in terms of how it's put together because of the emphasis on story. Ultimately, I guess you could say it's more akin to choose your own adventures.

Granted, the first work I'm looking to produce is quite weak story wise, and short. It's just to test the waters really. I'll save more ambitious things for later. The number of pages required to tell a story can easily become unwieldy, especially if you don't have many deaths, meaning branches don't get closed. I'm sure I'll get to that point, but not really a good idea as a test run.

It's all quite confusing really anyway, as one (at least I don't) never knows the correct label to apply to their work. I know I couldn't use the 'CYOA' tag anyway, as I believe it's copyrighted, which leaves the interactive fiction one, even if it's more akin to 'CYOA'.

It's fine but its seems like most original stories have been posted. To get a high rating now these days you really have to think outside the box with stories. Using good grammar and spelling isn't the only thing that makes a story although is necessary.  2nd person or third person doesn't matter if the story the story is good so go ahead. Good luck. 

The problem with one of my upcoming projects is, I can't figure out which PoV to write it from, so I'll be using excuses, like explicit narrative,(Me talking about everyone by their names and actions, in the 3rd person, pretty much,) then recordings,(the characters talking in first person) and flashbacks, (me narrating your actions as a particular character.) It's all over the persons. It's a literary foursome... (If I count as one of them)

I don't give a damn. Other people too: Homo Perfectus 8 was written in first person.