PW: Lately I’ve been taken in by some great second-person POV stories, including your story, “13 Boxes.” Would you talk about why you chose second person and the creative process behind this decision?
CW: I use second person POV to most honestly control a story’s perspective. First person needs a unique voice as a pull-through for the story or else a reader may mistake the narrator for the writer, which is sometimes true. A reader may not necessarily connect with that voice, though. Third person requires a fully fleshed out character, which takes time in the page. A reader may just want to get into the story’s plot, which is imperative. So, instead of using first person’s voice-driven narrator and third person’s character-driven plot, I use the actual imperative of “you” to make the reader empathize with the character by becoming them.