Head-hopping. Why do it?

The degree to which I find it intrusive depends on the degree to which authors do it. I'm not going to set a book down for the occasional small POV error (I will notice them, though, and they will bug me), but if it gets in the way of the story, I'm not reading it.

For the most part, I'd say people do it for the same reason people get perspective wrong in paintings: because they screw up, or get sloppy, or just plain don't know any better.

How do you define head-hopping? Isn't it perfectly valid to "see" everyone's thoughts in 3rd omni?

Yeah, that could be an easy confusion if the author is writing in 3rd omni and sticks with a character for awhile and then "bam", another character featuring a head hop. I'd imagine it would be jarring for someone to look out for that and edit a book while their reading for enjoyment. I find that a hard line to cross because as I'm reading, I'm learning.

I'm sure if I intend to write 3rd omni and it seemed as if I was writing 3rd lim., how would one know if the narrative just worked better because of the one character I stuck with, despite the omni presence I switch too?

Big name authors do it because they can.

And many can do it well -- plus they have editors to help them fix any jarring problems.

There's also a difference between omniscient and head-hopping.

Next time when you come across one by a famous author, study how he or she did it, and figure "does it work?"

I really find it annoying. I set aside a book I took out of the library for that reason. I am going to try to read it and put up with the head hopping though because my husband read it and says it's good and I trust his judgement about books.

Aside from the obvious things mentioned already about head-hopping, there's a more fundamental one: Just plain spending too much time inside people's heads, and not enough time with having them do stuff. Too many writers find thoughts an easy way to relate stuff, and JonnyB is exactly right: It's lazy and sloppy.

caw

As Elektra said - you're forgetting third person omniscient.

Depending on the genre, it can be used to great effect. It is especially usesful in historicals, as it puts the reader in the picture right away to show who is who's enemy, regardless of what's in the dialogue.

JonnyBGood said:

So, is head-hopping a big deal, or not?

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It can make a good book bad but can't make a bad book good.

But just because it can make a good book bad, doesn't mean it will. Whether or not it's a big deal depends on how present it is, and how good the book is without it.

What's the difference between writing in third person omniscient but sticking with one character for a while and writing in third person limited? Are there any marks that can be used to distinguish between the two? (This is the first I've heard of a distinction here).

What's the difference between writing in third person omniscient but sticking with one character for a while and writing in third person limited? Are there any marks that can be used to distinguish between the two? (This is the first I've heard of a distinction here).

Edit: Sorry for the double post!

Oddsocks said:

What's the difference between writing in third person omniscient but sticking with one character for a while and writing in third person limited? Are there any marks that can be used to distinguish between the two? (This is the first I've heard of a distinction here).

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For me, omniscent is like a camera viewing the whole story. We can see everything, but at the same time, it's a little distancing from the character. Sure, we might hear what they're thinking, but we don't get much depth beyond that. From what I've seen, if it's done right, there's a subtle transition when the "camera" changes to another person.

Head hopping--and I just had an example of it in a piece I'm critting--is usually done when the writer wants to show what everyone is thinking and feeling all the same time (usually they have information they want to convey and haven't figured out how to do more effectively). Imagine a book like Harry Potter. Now imagine J.K. Rowlings doing that level of writing and switching to Hermione or Ron's POV every other paragraph and then maybe Dumbledore's to show us what everyone is thinking and feeling constantly. That's head hopping.

The default answer is that if it's done well I like it and if not then I don't. Different perspectives help fill out a story and therefore are a good thing. It has to be done carefully, though, so as not to confuse the reader.

Omniscient has a distinct narrator. Someone apart from the characters, someone with a recognizable voice and worldview. He will then look into characters' heads/hearts as he desires, often sinking deep into one character's POV for a while before coming back to the surface. There's a sort of implied "I believe" or "I think" or "I tell you this is true" to the narrator, that's always present, and you know him as a separate personality from any of the characters. He says things, tells you things (there's more telling in omniscient, much like in first person), that NONE of the characters know or believe.

Omniscient is not simply picking POVs at random, going for whichever one the author is interested in; that's simply lazy and it's derided as headhopping. Omniscient, done well, is very strictly controlled, using the choice of head and the depth of exploring what's inside that head to specific purposes, especially for pacing.

There are serious down sides to omniscient, not least of all that it's very hard to do well. Omniscient is potentially very distant, very unemotional. It's excellent for use in comedy, satire or parody, because the reader is supposed to stay on the surface of the characters, not bond deeply with the characters, get firmly inside their heads/hearts. On the other hand, it's problematic in any character-based story, where you want the reader to really care about the characters, more than about the plot or social commentary or jokes. I adore Terry Pratchett (omniscient with the author present as the narrator on most pages, although in his later books, he has delved more deeply into his protagonist's POV), but his stories don't make me cry, even when a character dies. It's just not that sort of story. He makes me laugh, he makes me wonder what's going to happen next, he makes me think about his topics. But he doesn't get me emotionally. First person or third limited are better for emotion.

JD

I totally agree with JanDarby's points - excellently put.
Omniscient is like you're hovering above the scene, knowing all, but you don't really identify enough with any character to actually care. Not even to care if they die, as Jan sez. And it's caring about the characters which make us read books, mostly.
Head-hopping is exactly that, and it's awful. Again, it jerks you out of identifying with one character and so you're back to hovering over the scene. You can change POVs with chapters, or even scenes, (although even that has to be handled carefully IMHO), but it just doesn't work in the same paragraphs. Lots of people do it, but I truly believe it doesn't work. It certainly doesn't work for me as a reader.

JanDarby, that's exactly the problem I'm having right now. I needed to use omniscient, but I'm worried now that there's too much distance from the characters, and that it weakens the story.

I often wonder if head-hopping would bother us if we didn't know we weren't supposed to do it. Before I started learning more and more about writing, it never bothered me, but it does now.

Elektra said:

JanDarby, that's exactly the problem I'm having right now. I needed to use omniscient, but I'm worried now that there's too much distance from the characters, and that it weakens the story.

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Unfortunately, that's the tradeoff. You want a know-all Godlike narrator so you can tell everything, but the problem is you create that distance. A good compromise is to use rotating/switching 3rd limited. That way, you still can find a way to tell a bigger, fully picture but you are able to get closer to the characters (one at a time). So you can tell it from the protagonist's pov, then his sister's, then the antagonist's... and so on. Add a few "fly on the wall" scenes and you're set.

I'm writing a children's chapter book using 3rd person omniscient and it's a booger! I start each chapter omniscient and then pull down into 3rd limited. It's a conscious decision and it seems to be working since the story is in the form of a fable, but I can't imagine tackling a full length adult novel with this. I don't believe I have the skill to do something like that. I say that unless you really have the writing chops to pull off multiple points of view in a literary work, then you are best avoiding it.

maestrowork said:

A good compromise is to use rotating/switching 3rd limited. That way, you still can find a way to tell a bigger, fully picture but you are able to get closer to the characters (one at a time). So you can tell it from the protagonist's pov, then his sister's, then the antagonist's... and so on. Add a few "fly on the wall" scenes and you're set.

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I have a problem going on with this very type of scenario: building up to the climax by telling three very separate stories that will come together in the final scene. My fear is when I get to the final scene -what to do? I'm not a head-hopper writer, it would be weird to do a fly on the wall in this work, and I almost feel i have to "chose" one character and write it from his/her POV.
How do you avoid head-hopping and knit multiple POV stories together without leaving the reader hanging on any of the POVs you started?

JanDarby said:

Omniscient has a distinct narrator.

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Not necessarily. Inda by Sherwood Smith is told in omniscient with no distinct narrator. She moves from person to person in each scene with no jarring effect at all. It's very smooth and natural, there's no distancing effect with the characters and the tragic moments really work.

"No head-hopping" is one of those tools that writers mistake for a rule. It's a technique. Writers shouldn't shun it; they should practice it.

Even when you have multiple POVs, you have ONE protagonist. ONE antagonist. (At least for the story as a whole; within a scene, there can be a different protag or antag form time to time; you'll have a different temporary protag for a subplot, and you may have a different scene antagonist, who's pushing or pulling the protagonist into the path of the overall antagonist).

So, even though Terry Pratchett writes in omniscient, and uses many, many heads over the course of the story, there is one clear protagonist for the story as a whole, and several secondary plots that all come together at the end.

In third limited, the protagonist will have the pov of the major scenes -- beginning, turning points and ending. Intermediate scenes may be in other POVs, either for subplots or for revealing information that the protagonist isn't on-scene for or whatever. And you'll wrap up the secondary POVs, either in a mirror image to the way you introduced them (e.g., Main character is in first scene, Character A is POV in the third scene, Character B is POV in the fourth scene; and then for the wrap-up, Character B is wrapped up first, then Character A, and finally the Main character). Or, at least, that's a starting point. And you may not need to be in the secondary character's POV to wrap it up, if, say, it's a romance, so the secondary character is the hero, and you already know what he wants, and so if he gets what he wants in the final scene in the heroine's POV, or if we know he won't say "I love you" until he's come to grips with X, and he does say "I love you," then we know his loose ends are also wrapped up. Not all loose ends have to be wrapped up INSIDE the character's head for us to know that they're wrapped up.

JD

The funny thing is, head-hopping doesn't really bother me that much, especially if it's done well. I've received some not-very-nice comments on this in the past, calling my one, clearly defined POV switch mid-scene head-hopping (I rewrote it, because being called a head hopper makes me feel dirty).


I'm in the middle of a book now, though, where it's drivin me crazy! I think bcause it isn't just one mid-scene switch--it's really head hopping. First we're in one POV, then another for few sentenes, then a third, back to he first, all on one page.

To me that much head hopping feels like telling, not showing. The author can't be bothered to show us what a character is thinking or feeling so she throws us into their heads for a minute, then goes to somebody else. We don't get to know any of these characters, though, because we never see them interpret each other through their own eyes. They feel like a bunch of disembodied heads, talking and thinking but not really interacting with each other or the reader.

Not to mention the heavy accent dialogue, which is also really bugging me.