Head Hopping

As long as there's a scene break to clearly show that a POV shift has happened, you're fine. I don't know of any rules against getting into the heads of minor characters on occasion.

I have read some books where a secondary character's pov is used. I see it alot with the villian. It depends on the publisher, some might only want the H&H's pov. But yes, it is done and as long as you have a scene break, it should be fine.

Go read Nora Roberts, then think about it. She's the grandmaster of what I call "shifting third" and what others call "head hopping". Shifting third person in the middle of a scene (even many times) hasn't hurt her career because she does it extremely well. If that's how you naturally write, then don't let anyone mess with you--just strive to make the prose flow as seamlessly as Roberts does.

Don't confuse the reader and you should be fine.

You can do an extra line, a # or some of these ***. Any of those will work for a scene break.

I use line breaks to switch POV.

It's not so much about the format, as it is about the continuity for the reader and making the reader care about the new POV.

If you're going to have a secondary character's POV, and you only use it once in an entire 400-page novel, it's going to feel weird to the reader. Foreign and incomplete. Then, if you do it again with another secondary character who has only one POV scene, it's going to get irritating. A single scene isn't long enough to really bond with a character after the reader has bonded with the protagonist, and the reader's going to be thinking, "All right, already, let's get on with the story. I don't know this person; I want to know what the protagonist is doing."

On the other hand, if you have just one secondary character's POV in, say, three different scenes (three is a comfortable number for many, many things), spread out over the course of the book, there will be some continuity and familiarity for the reader. It will feel like it's done on purpose, not just for the author's convenience.

So, make sure there's either a reason why the READER would enjoy being in that secondary character's head (and not just a reason why it's convenient for you, the author, to present the requisite information that way), or else stay out of it and find another way to present the information. There's always another way.

JD

Zipotes said:

occassionally I have to go into a secondary characters heads as it's important to the overall plot.

Click to expand...

There are no 'rules'
(--that should be in neon somewhere--)
but you should have a good reason for going into a secondary character's head.

The good reason should be something more than just ...
-- this is an easy way to tell the reader where the cookies are hidden, or
-- neither of my POV characters are in this scene but I want to write it anyhow.

You might consider Omniscient Narrator in those cases. Or write around the problem.

I go into secondary characters' heads three times in two books. (I think that's all.)
In two cases, this is a single excursion into their heads.
In none of the three cases does this solve a plot problem or convey information to the reader or put us in a necessary scene we would otherwise find hard to enter

I went into the secondary heads to show something important about the character and the way he saw the world.
Also, I specifically wanted to put the reader outside the two character heads at that particular time for complex reasons having to do with how the reader was emotionally connecting with the ongoing story. That is, the secondary POV was (a) a refuge point from involvement with the two protags, as well as (b) a new coign of vantage and (c) an insight into the minor character.


Any workable symbol will do for your submission manuscript, but the copy editor will change it to the [skip # skip] format for you.