Ellen Terry was born in 1847 and became a very famous actress. She acted in many of Shakespeare’s plays. This is written in the 3rd person. Someone else is writing about Ellen Terry. She is not telling her own story so the personal pronoun used in the second sentence is ‘she’. A book written about Ellen Terry by someone else is called a ‘biography’. The only books written in the 2nd person are instruction books. These include recipe books and ‘how to’ books: Take two chicken breasts and, using a little fat, brown them in the frying pan, turning them frequently. Mix the sauce in a saucepan and gently heat it through. When it simmers, pour it over the chicken. The ‘you’ in the recipe is ‘understood’. ‘You’ (the 2nd person) are being told what to do. All instruction books, therefore, are written in the 2nd person. 8 / PART ONE: THE BASICS Using the 2nd person Writing novels Using possessive pronouns Novels (books that are fiction although sometimes based on fact) can be written in either the 1st person where the main character is telling the story, or the 3rd person where the author tells a story about a set of characters. Possessive pronouns are related to personal pronouns and indicate that something ‘belongs’. They replace nouns. They are identified in the following table: