Another POV question

I think switching POV in mid paragraph is head hopping. You should give some small break there. I've heard this complaint before about her too.

Yeah, that sounds like hopping to me. If you were able to follow the hopping she probably managed it okay. I've noticed Marion Zimmer Bradley does it sometimes. I follow her okay, too, but I am now keenly aware of it, given all the POV discussions around here. I think it is hard to do well, so is best avoided. I know my own writing has improved as I have made an effort to limit POV. You might try the search option and look up old POV threads, it is a topic that comes up a lot.

For some reason, I always thought Danielle Steel wrote in omniscient, but I just went and read an excerpt, and it was clealry intended to be third limited. Didn't see any headhopping in the excerpt, but it my happen later, of course.

Bottom line, though, it doesn't matter if someone else does it and manages to sell the book anyway. Headhopping (or any switch of pov within a given scene, if you're writing in third person limited) is a bad idea in almost all cases. Don't do it unless you're absolutely sure of what you're doing, and you're doing it for a good reason, something more than "because I can" or "because it's easier than not headhopping."

ETA: I should add, too, that the excerpt I read contained all sorts of things that an unpublished author should avoid: starting the story with the main character waking up, starting the story with the main character lying in b ed and thinking about her past, starting the story with one or two paragraphs in the present and then jumping straight into a flashback a/k/a infodump. Just because this author was able to sell the book, despite these frequently-cited "don'ts," is no reason to do them yourself.

JD

One of the things about head-hopping that doesn't get mentioned often enough is why it's a bad thing, especially for a new writer: It's lazy. It's a way of skipping the hard work of having things happen and narrating those, and falling back on thought, in which you aren't as constrained by the discipline of having to accurately represent dramatic reality. Lazy writing, boring reading.

caw.

If you're selling as many books as Danielle Steele, you can do whatever you want because her fans will keep buying.

I have never read her before so I can't say, but it sounds like head-hopping to me. However, if she does maintain a distant narrator, then she's probably writing in omniscient -- nothing wrong with that, but not my favorite POV.

Ms Steele's success is based on her storytelling ability rather than flawless technique. People don't buy her books because they like her style (although they might, heaven help us); it's because they're gripped by the tales she tells. She's a fine example of the dictum (UJ's?) - "Story trumps all."

Educated readers enjoy the conscious or subconscious challenge of working out what characters are about from the subtle cues the author supplies, in dialogue, reported body language and behaviour etc. Head-hopping is the lazy way out, and thus unforgivable - except where 'it works'. The continued success of DS and others, such as Nora Roberts apparently, suggests that their flawed technique works with a certain type of reader, who are not few in number. It's not to be recommended, however, for anyone without a track record.