Head-Hopping. HELP!!!

Are you writing in third limited or third omniscient?

If in third limited, as long as each change in POV is accompanied by a scene break, I don't think you need to worry. Personally, I prefer to stick with one POV during any given scene. Jumping from character to character gives away too much information. I don't think six perspectives on one scene is necesssary.

But that's JMHO.

Just a thought...

if you are really head hopping a lot, in every chapter, it might be a sign that you haven't picked the right POV.

Sit and have a think. Whose story is it that you are telling? What's the best POV to tell hir story?

I had a write once tell me to 'put a video camera on your shoulder'. If it swivels too much, you're head-hopping too much. I think two would be okay, if you are doing it with scene breaks...as chaos has said. (Oh God. I'm agreeing with Chaos!)

I think it depends on the context and how well written it is.

For instance in a “locked door mystery” it might work quite well showing the POV of every suspect in a room. (As long as each is change of POV is clearly marked as mentioned before.)

Don't hop heads. Change point of view where needed. Make the change clear.

Easy.

I head hop. Which ever character is "on stage" and NEEDS to speak, is given the POV. But, I never, ever, head hop in the middle of a scene and never without a clear line break. That said, most of the story, still comes from my MC.

What pdr said.

Figure out the best viewpoint for each scene then TRAIN yourself to stay IN that person's head for the duration of the scene.

It's not rocket science. Pretend you're an actor playing that part. You won't surrender the stage to another character until you've taken your bow.

I have my editor hat on today and can let you know that nothing makes me reach for a blue pencil--or the return envelope--faster than writing that wanders all over the place.

Yes, there are books in print that head-hop.

I never buy those.

I suggest reading writers who use a similar VP to your style and see how THEY did it. One of the best is Lois McMaster Bujold. Third person, but you can feel the character's sweat, no wonder she's won so many awards!

POV

I've always been told to limit one POV for each chapter. That has several purposes. First, you can really develop your character's internal dialogue and get the reader acquainted with them. Second, that helps you avoid having a minior character take up more area than your chapter's main character. Lastly, it's just easier for the reader.

I don't like head-hopping when I read. Some authors can do it inside a chapter, but even so, it can get a little chaotic. There are probably exceptions to the rule, but, it makes it much simpler just to limit it. If you have ideas for other characters, skip ahead and start the next chapter with that. You can come back and finish the one you're on and you won't lose your place in the book.

Omniscient or Unlimited (head hopping) within a scene is usually done when a character has information the reader needs to know but the MC may not know. It is why head hopping is often done in historicals -- to give the reader a view of both sides of a conflict.

This might help: http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/glossary/g/omniscient.htm

I agree with the others. Separate pov through scene breaks, though you may have several in a chapter.

I write in third omniscient. As long as you are making it clear who has the pov then it's fine. I like reading third omniscient and don't consider it head hopping unless the writer isn't making it clear who's head she/he is in and it ends up being such an endless tirade of disembodied thoughts, voices and emotions, that you finally throw the book across the room into the waste basket. I really like knowing all the different thoughts of the characters in the scene while the scene is going on, not rehashing what another character said or did in the last chapter because the writer didn't want to change pov in the scene or chapter. The pov I refuse to read is 1st person. My most favorite is third omniscient.

POV

Monet said:

I write in third omniscient. As long as you are making it clear who has the pov then it's fine. I like reading third omniscient and don't consider it head hopping unless the writer isn't making it clear who's head she/he is in and it ends up being such an endless tirade of disembodied thoughts, voices and emotions, that you finally throw the book across the room into the waste basket. I really like knowing all the different thoughts of the characters in the scene while the scene is going on, not rehashing what another character said or did in the last chapter because the writer didn't want to change pov in the scene or chapter. The pov I refuse to read is 1st person. My most favorite is third omniscient.

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That is exactly the kind of books that make me want to yell. It's back and forth, many even in the same scene, with no real way to distinguish who is thinking or doing what. We're seeing through the eyes of the hero and suddenly, the villian is standing off to the side and we're reading what he is thinking, then back to the hero.

Also, if a scene is complex or pivotal to the plot, it doesn't have to be limited to a single chapter, especially if two people are heavily involved at that moment (i.e. a fight scene). There are always ways to exit one character's pov and end a chapter without leaving the scene altogether. Likewise, you shouldn't start the same scene all over again with a new chapter, just start from where the chapter ends. If the character is wounded by another's words, just refer to that and move on. That falls heavily into pacing.

I'm not a fan of first-person, either. Reading a book in that perspective feel restrictive in some ways.

Echo what Laura just said. Most people who claim they like to write in "omniscient" POV often either A) don't really know what that really entails, and/or B) just plain spend too much time inside various characters' heads, narrating thoughts, rather than in the narration of descriptive action and dialogue.

caw

Omniscient is not the same thing as head-hopping. In true omniscient (as opposed to writing what's supposed to be third person limited but includes head-hopping), there's a distinct narrator, separate from the characters, who knows everything, and we're always, to some degree, inside the narrator's head, aware of the narrator, even when we're experiencing the thoughts of the other characters. The narrator is recognizable and usually has a worldview and is a distinct, godlike character on his/her own. There's no breaking of POV, because we're always in the omniscient narrator's pov.

The problem with head-hopping is that it breaks the bond between the main character and the reader and creates an emotional distance between the reader and the characters. Every time you change POV, you're breaking the intensity of the bond with one character to offer up a new character for the reader to care about, except that, like people in real life, readers tend to be a little wary about caring about a new person, especially if the reader was just jerked out of the head/heart of the last person she cared about, and then, just as the reader is settling in to really get to know the second character, she's jerked back again and offered yet another character (or even the first one) again, and this time the reader's going to be even MORE reluctant to settle into the pov, and may well stay distanced for the rest of the book, for fear of being jerked around, and in the end will think something like "Hmm, I never really bonded with any of the characters," and they won't come away with a really good impression of the book.

In some stories, that bonding doesn't matter; in emotional stories, it does.

Terry Pratchett does omniscient, and he does it brilliantly, but his stories aren't particularly emotional. Fast-paced and funny and brilliant and satirical, but not particularlly emotional. His later books have been closer to third limited in many ways, and the reader will get deeply into the head of, say, Sam Vimes, but then, every once in a while, Terry The Author (the godlike narrator), will pop in and do a riff on some issue, and while it's brillliant and funny and probably intentional for comic relief, it definitely pulls the reader back from the building emotion in the scene. Because Pratchett's books, at least the adult ones, aren't meant to be emotional in the way that romance or suspense are; they're meant to be funny, with some socio-political commentary thrown in.

Anyway, if you're going to write omniscient, then run with it, use it for all the benefits it can offer, taking advantage of the reader bond with the strong narrator's voice, but also be aware that it will result in a relatively unemotional story. If you're going to write third limited, then run with it, use it for all the benefits it can offer, taking advantage of the reader bond with the pov character, and you'll have an emotional story and you'll have to do a little extra work to reveal the inner workings of the non-pov characters.

But if you try for both, most times you end up with only the flaws and none of the benefits of either one.

If you've chosen third limited for your story, and you're tempted to switch pov, ask yourself why. Sometimes, it's because the emotions are getting too intense for you, as the writer, to deal with, so it's easier (for you, the writer) to switch to someone else's pov, but that robs the reader of the really good stuff of the story. Other times, it may be because you want to be able to tell the reader what the other character's reaction is to the pov character, but note that "telling" is just what you'd be doing, and it's a lot more effective to show it. You don't need to be in someone's head to know he's scared, angry, thinking the pov character is an idiot or whatever. Show that that's how he's feeling/thinking. And stay in the initial POV, observing those reactions.

There may be times when changing POV within a scene will gain you something that's worth risking the loss of closeness between reader and character, but the default should be to stay inside the scene protagonist's pov, and switch within the scene only if by doing so you will accomplish something that justifies breaking the bond between reader and character. It's got to be something that makes the story better for the reader, too, and not just easier for the author. It's all about the reader's experience.

JD

Writing third omniscient flows much the same way as watching a movie unfold on the screen. I find reading and writing third omniscient books/stories very emotional driven. True, I have read boring paste characters in some third omniscient writings just like in any other pov writing, but I have read just as many or more true to life emotional, bring tears to your eyes third omniscient characters and books as well. I tend to find the most boring non-emotional pov to be 1st person. The rest of the characters are like a second thought, mindless, thoughtless, for the most part. I want to feel what the characters are feeling. I want to know why they are acting like they are. I want to root for them and root for the other characters to get them to understand and realize the pain or happiness the other character is feeling. I want to know what he/she feels in their heart and guts, not just read what the pov character tells me what she/he thinks they are feeling or have every word out of the other character's mouths to be explaining their reactions/feelings.

We each have our own likes. None are wrong. What works for one, doesn't work for another. Mine just happens to be third omniscient.

Monet, you need to read JD's post a little more carefully. Especially the first sentence. Which is exactly true.

caw

Reader Identification

You lose reader identification every time you change viewpoint. It reminds the reader that he is reading instead of experiencing the fiction. It's annoying, and makes the reader feel the writer doesn't know how to write well.

That said, there's a time and a place for changing viewpoint. It depends why you want to change.

Changing viewpoint because you want the reader to know all your characters just isn't good enough. Your reader will know all your characters much better when seen through the viewpoint of your main character. If the main character's viewpoint of another character is skewered or incorrect, you can easily show the reader that without hopping into the head of the other character.

It sounds as if maybe you don't know your character's well enough and are trying to get to know them with all the head hopping.

OR

Maybe you know your characters TOO well and want to show every little tidbit of what they do and think to your reader.

Ask yourself: Does the reader need to know this in order for the story to progress? Does hopping into the character's head add to the conflict in a way that can't be done otherwise? If it doesn't move the storyline, then you either need a different character, different actions for that character, or a different storyline.

Head hopping isn't always the answer, often it's the problem.

I think that head-hopping is find if you keep things simple. In scenes where the main character is not present (ie. where you're dealing with secondary characters) then there is a little bit more freedom to explore the story and world from different perspectives. I typically prefer to limit the head jumping to scenes where action might naturally separate characters (you could consider this a scene jump) or scenes where characters share similar perspectives on a given subject with minor variants that might affect plot or outcome of a scene. Any way, keep things simple as possible.

Head-hopping isn't the same as changing viewpoint. It's called head-hopping when it's done poorly, confusingly, randomly.

Don't hop heads.

Excuse my poorly worded response, you are of course correct.

The question is, does the original poster say head-hopping when she means changing VP, or does she actually hop heads?

Personally, I do not think there is anything wrong with head hopping at all. Christine Feehan, author of the "Dark" series, head hops sometimes two or three more times in a single scene without any breaks. There are no rules for head hopping. If you change heads more then twice in a scene, it doesn't matter, just as long as it is well written enough for people to know who is talking or thinking. Head hopping has some advantages. In my novel, my villian is quite insane, so its always a pleasure when I go inside his head because then my readers can have a glimpse into the depth of his madness. Don't be afraid of head hopping. Done correctly, it is a powerful tool. Use it.

Atlantis said:

Personally, I do not think there is anything wrong with head hopping at all. Christine Feehan, author of the "Dark" series, head hops sometimes two or three more times in a single scene without any breaks.

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That is precisely why I gently tossed her book across the room (I didn't hate it enough to actually throw it with great force). After fifty pages of bouncing between characters in the middle of a scene, I'd had enough. It didn't seem like true omniscient, just an inability to stay in one character's head for longer than a page, and it irritated me a great deal.