Point of View Confusion: Head-hopping

The accepted* wisdom is as follows:
1. Do it elegantly, in such a way that does not even for a second confuse the reader. It must be instantly obvious when there's a POV shift; both when "entering" and "exiting".
2. Only do it when you really, really need to (little chance of objectively defining that, it's mainly gut feeling and reader reaction).
3. In omniscient, maintain a consistent "voice" of the narrator, only dipping into different voices during direct speech and direct thoughts of the characters. By certain omni theories, there are actually no POV shifts happening, because there are no different POV's (just the illusion of such)--it's always the one and only POV of the omni narrator, so listen Neo, there is in reality no entering and no exiting and no spoon, just a disembodied narrator who zooms in and out of people and situations.

...Many people have absorbed the "four legs good--head-hopping bad!" mantra, without making the effort to explore it deeply, and will bray the same thing even when confronted by a Tolstoyevsky or Stiva Oblonski Kingski book, so sometimes what beta-readers say is just them showing off how they totally understand the field, when in reality they don't.
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* I do not necessarily agree with all that, but taking dominant opinion into account is a must.

Omniscient--narrator can show things the character can't see/hear/know
Limited--only what the character can plausibly see/hear/know

No head-hopping in limited is allowed whatsoever unless you're a genius and write so well people stop giving a crap. One POV per scene.

KittenEV said:

So, that being said, what are the differences between limited and omniscient third person?

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Just a suggestion. The question has been answered in quite some detail in the thread, a half-a-dozen threads below this one. You may take a look at posts (No 9, 22, 32) by BethS.

There have been plenty of other threads in the past on the subject. You could take a look at them. But, of course, you can always come back with questions if you still don't have the answers.

I'm no expert on this, but compare Joyce Carol Oates' short story "Mastiff," which has head-hopping (I found it annoying, but someone I respect says it is done well, so it's not always "wrong" as such) with an example of what I think is omniscient done well, Orhan Pamuk's novel Snow.

"Mastiff" is head hopping because we suddenly (and dizzyingly, in my opinion) switch between the internal thoughts and observations of the female to the male main characters. I got a see-saw effect reading it. The first few hundred to thousand words or so read like third from the woman's POV, then suddenly *whoa!* we're in the guy's head. Snow, however, falls under Re-modernist's third point: a consistent voice. The narrator is a friend of the main character, and is tracking his friend's trip through a Turkish city. The narrator therefore knows what happens later and in the minds of other characters, and can report things the MC doesn't know. The narrator is still in his own head whether he's reporting the thoughts of the main character, the love interest, or the antagonist. This is by no means the only way to do omni, but I found it compelling.

KittenEV said:

Third person omniscient occurs when a story is told by a narrator who is not part of the story but knows the thoughts and feelings of all the characters in the story. In other words, a third person omniscient narrator is inside the hearts and heads of the characters, exposing their thoughts and/or feelings.

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The omniscient narrator has that power, yes, but it's a power that should be used with great restraint. An omniscient narrator who head-hops is not acting with restraint.

Even in novels with an omniscient POV, readers want to be able to identify with the main character. That means spending time with that character, so that the reader can become invested in his or her story. It's hard to do that if the narrator is flitting about from one character to another like a bee pollinating flowers.

KittenEV said:

So, that being said, what are the differences between limited and omniscient third person?

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Please the read the third-person vs omniscient thread in this very same folder.

But in short, omniscient POV is storytelling from the outside looking in. The narrator sits outside the story and shows the reader what's going on in the story, including, when needed, the thoughts and emotions of the main characters.

Third-person limited is storytelling from the inside looking out. That is, the POV resides with a single character at a time, and shows the reader only what that character knows, thinks, observes, and experiences. There is no separate narrator, as such (except, ultimately, the author herself, but that's true of any POV).

KittenEV, your quoted statement below is not correct.

The Omniscient narrator is not inside anybody's head and doesn't need to go inside anybody's head. By virtue of his omniscience, he already knows what every single character is thinking and feeling and therefore doesn't have to go into anybody's head at all to find out or expose their thoughts or feelings.

There is only one POV in Omniscience- that of the Omniscient narrator.

The omniscient narrator may choose from time to time to close in on - or focus - on the activities and thoughts of any particular character and it may seem as though he is in their POV but he is not - the POV remains that of the omniscient narrator.

That's what makes it a hard POV to sustain effectively and smoothly throughout a novel.

If, while in Omniscient POV, you think you have to go into the head of a character to reveal what he is thinking or feeling or doing then you do not understand Omniscience as a POV. Going in and out of heads at random will cause folk to accuse you of head-hopping and that is not desirable in any POV, especially not in Omniscient for the reasons given at the start of this response.

Good luck.

KittenEV said:

... In other words, a third person omniscient narrator is inside the hearts and heads of the characters, exposing their thoughts and/or feelings.

.

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KittenEV said:

So, my story has a strong romance factor. Could I get away with have a pov from both my MC and her love interest?

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You might consider reading some romances; this is a very common (and very effective) choice for the genre, and reading some stories written this way might help.

Brightdreamer said:

You might consider reading some romances; this is a very common (and very effective) choice for the genre, and reading some stories written this way might help.

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Seconding this. If you want to publish a story with a romantic subplot, read romances or novels that have romantic subplots. Those will give you an idea of what's commonly done.

KittenEV said:

But if my pov is supposed to be Omniscient then why is it bad to head hop?

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Because "head hopping" equals randomly skating between the internal viewpoint of more than one character in a scene. There are people who can effectively switch between limited narratives without a scene break (though scene breaks are the general convention nowadays), and there are omniscient narratives that are good at showing the reader what more than one character is thinking or knowing in a scene, sometimes even in the same sentence (Bob found the woman with the cat glasses very scary, but Susie simply thought she looked silly), but it's only called head hopping if it's done in an inconsistent, unpredictable way that confuses the reader.

There are some writers who do this intentionally, in order to create a disjointed effect, but it's relatively rare.

A limited third narrative with more than one pov character (even a large number of them) is not head hopping if the pov switches done so the reader always knows which characters' eyes they're seeing things through and don't feel like they're being whiplashed back and forth. An omniscient narrative is not head hopping if the narrator does a good job of establishing their own voice or perspective, so they can tell you what one or more character knows or feels without the pov becoming that of the character.

KittenEV said:

So, my story has a strong romance factor. Could I get away with have a pov from both my MC and her love interest?

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Sure, why not? What you probably don't want to do is hop back and forth between them in the same scene. Better to change POV at a scene or chapter break.

BethS said:

Sure, why not? What you probably don't want to do is hop back and forth between them in the same scene. Better to change POV at a scene or chapter break.

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IF you're doing close third, yes. If you're doing omni, then the narrative can show anything you like, as long as it is told from the narrator's perspective, rather than head hopping close third.

And that is why omni is HARD. Inexperienced writers often think it's the easiest kind of narrative POV because it lets you show more of the inner workings of your story, but to do it WELL is infinitely more difficult than third limited, even third limited with multiple POV characters.

KittenEV, if you want to nail omni, you've got some work ahead. Are you ready?

Roxxsmom has nailed it. As usual. Does it confuse the reader?

The problem with head hopping is that you are expecting the reader to pay close attention to whose head we are now in. Sometimes we only get the smallest of clues that we are now seeing the scene through Fred's eyes instead of Wilma's or Barney's or Bam-Bam's. I've read books where I've had to track back through a few paragraphs to work out who is the "he" or "she" in a particular sentence. I might do that once or twice for an author, but it could lead to a book-wall moment if they ask me to do it too often. Readers don't read with as much attention to the text as we do when we are writing. They might miss a subtle change of POV.

As usual, it can be done and it can be done well. It can also be done badly. There can be times when it is needed and justified; more often that not it is the author being lazy or trying too hard to be fancy.

Kallithrix said:

IF you're doing close third, yes. If you're doing omni, then the narrative can show anything you like, as long as it is told from the narrator's perspective, rather than head hopping close third.

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Right. But as has been said, with great power comes great responsibility. Not to mention restraint.

KittenEV said:

why is it bad to head hop?

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Because 'head-hopping' is a word to describe a failure in point of view. There is no such thing as 'head-hopping done well'. If a writer uses quickly changing points of view (and that's a big if) skillfully, that is 'quickly changing point of view'. 'Head-hopping' denotes failure in point of view use.

ok </SOABOX> off...

I get the impression that it's a continuum, and people keep trying to draw a line in the sand. At one end, you perhaps have an Omni narrator who only reports what they see (like a camera), and at the other end, you have a story that's jumping from head to head, not even bothering to give names. Somewhere along that spectrum, it stops being Omni and starts being head-hopping. And it's not a line, it's kind of a fuzzy bar.

One of the biggest issues with head-hopping is the reader losing identification with the lead character in the scene. Also, overloading your readers with every emotion or thought from several characters in a scene will exhaust said readers, especially if they are having a hard time following whose head the narrator is in now. You don't want to give readers a reason to put your book down.

I'd dispute that head-hopping can't be done well; it can, just not in novels. Head-hopping usually only works well in manga, comic books, and graphic novels, and even if those three, you have to do it well.

Head=hopping is just as bad in omniscient as in third person limited. In fact, it's even worse in omniscient. Heading-hopping means you are in one character's head, and then you jump into another character's head. In omniscient, you are not supposed to be inside any character's head, ever, for any reason.

This, I think, is what confuses most who try writing, or reading, omniscient. The omniscient narrator is God-like. He knows what every character is thinking, but he does not go inside that person head to tell us what the character is thinking. This is a real and significant difference, and it's the entire point of omniscient.

Every POB is about the distance between the main POV character and the reader. With first person, the narrator is the POV character, so the separation is almost nonexistent. Second person is almost as close, using a narrator who could be the main character, who could be the reader, who could be you name it, but who is nevertheless almost inside the character's head.

Third limited has a narrator who gets inside the POV character's head, but who clearly is not that character. This narrator has limited powers, and can only get inside one head at a time. The distance increases a bit more.

Omniscient has a narrator who knows everything, so he doesn't have to get inside anyone's head to tell the story, and when done by a skilled writer, never does. You can't head-hop unless you're inside one head, and then jump inside a second head in the same scene.

Just about every manuscript[ I see in slush that is supposed to be omniscient is just third limited with a lot of head-hopping. Writers actually believe that omniscient is just a form of third limited where head-hopping is okay, but it isn't true. The moment you get inside any character's head, you've stopped writing omniscient, and started writing third limited with head-hopping.

Kallithrix said:

IF you're doing close third, yes. If you're doing omni, then the narrative can show anything you like, as long as it is told from the narrator's perspective, rather than head hopping close third.

And that is why omni is HARD. Inexperienced writers often think it's the easiest kind of narrative POV because it lets you show more of the inner workings of your story, but to do it WELL is infinitely more difficult than third limited, even third limited with multiple POV characters.

KittenEV, if you want to nail omni, you've got some work ahead. Are you ready?

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I hate, hate, hate the term "close third". It's not a POV. Third person limited is a POV. But, yes, you've more or less nailed what omniscient is.

Brightdreamer said:

You might consider reading some romances; this is a very common (and very effective) choice for the genre, and reading some stories written this way might help.

Click to expand...

Thirding this. You can not only get away with this, it's the way darned near every romance I read is written.

Re-modernist said:

The accepted* wisdom is as follows:
1. Do it elegantly, in such a way that does not even for a second confuse the reader. It must be instantly obvious when there's a POV shift; both when "entering" and "exiting".
2. Only do it when you really, really need to (little chance of objectively defining that, it's mainly gut feeling and reader reaction).
3. In omniscient, maintain a consistent "voice" of the narrator, only dipping into different voices during direct speech and direct thoughts of the characters. By certain omni theories, there are actually no POV shifts happening, because there are no different POV's (just the illusion of such)--it's always the one and only POV of the omni narrator, so listen Neo, there is in reality no entering and no exiting and no spoon, just a disembodied narrator who zooms in and out of people and situations.

...Many people have absorbed the "four legs good--head-hopping bad!" mantra, without making the effort to explore it deeply, and will bray the same thing even when confronted by a Tolstoyevsky or Stiva Oblonski Kingski book, so sometimes what beta-readers say is just them showing off how they totally understand the field, when in reality they don't.
___
* I do not necessarily agree with all that, but taking dominant opinion into account is a must.

Click to expand...

I have yet to see a case anywhere, at any period in history, from any writer, where head-hopping was good, and did not harm the story in some way. I have seen a lot of omniscient that readers think is head-hopping when it isn't.

Jamesaritchie said:

he does not go inside that person head to tell us what the character is thinking.

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I've never read an omniscient POV novel where the narrator does not go "inside" at least one character's head to reveal thoughts and emotions. The actual POV is still that of the narrator; we're just getting a view into a character's mind from the narrator's perspective. But how else is the reader going to know what a character is thinking? I'm not sure what sort of omniscient POV you're describing--I'd love to see an example or two, or even just some titles of books written that way--but it sounds to me more like the objective POV, where the POV is just a camera parked outside the story, recording action and dialogue. Much like a movie. If that's what you mean, that's not like any definition of omniscient POV I've ever seen.