What Is Head Hopping and How Can We Avoid It?

head hoppingBy Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)

In my continuing series on point of view, I promised I’d explain the difference between omniscient POV and head hopping. Before I do that, we need to get one thing out of the way.

Head-hopping is never good. Sometimes an author can get away with it, but it’s never ideal and it never makes your story stronger. Never.

Omniscient POV, on the other hand, is a valid point of view for fiction. It might not be the most popular or the most commonly used in 21st century fiction, but there’s nothing wrong with it. And some stories are even best told in it.

Obviously, the tricky part for most writers is telling them apart. I’m going to show you the secret for keeping them straight.

To be head hopping, a passage needs to meet two criteria:

(1)   The viewpoint shifts between characters without a proper transition (e.g. a scene break).
(2)   The thoughts/feelings of the characters are given in their voices rather than in the author’s voice.

Now that you know the definition of head hopping, you’ll be able to run everything through its filter to decide if a passage is head hopping or genuinely omniscient POV.

Omniscient POV will be written in the author’s voice. The characters’ feelings and thoughts will be filtered through the author narrator.

Head hopping will be in the characters’ voices, and you’ll go back and forth without a proper transition.  

Let me give you an example of head hopping so you can see it in action…

Jack rolled down the window half an inch, a smirk spreading across his face. The slut would never find her way back without him, and no one would find her until the coyotes had picked her bones clean.

Anna yanked at the door handle. Her chest felt heavy, her lungs unwilling to suck in a full breath. “Unlock the door, Jake. This isn’t funny anymore.”

Jake’s cold blue eyes stared into hers. After all she’d made him suffer through, he was going to enjoy this moment. Savor it like a medium rare T-bone steak.

Now let’s break it apart.

Jack rolled down the window half an inch, a smirk spreading across his face. Sounds like we’re in someone else’s POV here. Someone who’s watching Jake. If we were in Jake’s POV, this would read Jake rolled down the window half an inch and smirked. The slut would never find her way back without him, and no one would find her until the coyotes had picked her bones clean. We’re hearing Jake’s thoughts in Jake’s voice. It’s him, not the author, thinking of Anna as a “slut.”

Anna yanked at the door handle. Her chest felt heavy, her lungs unwilling to suck in a full breath. Now we’re firmly in Anna’s head. Only she can describe how her chest feels and the dread settling there. “Unlock the door, Jake. This isn’t funny anymore.”

Jake’s cold blue eyes stared into hers. Still in Anna’s POV since she’s the one who can see Jake’s eye color. After all she’d made him suffer through, he was going to enjoy this moment. Savor it like a rare T-bone steak. Jake’s thoughts in Jake’s voice again.

Head hopping damages your story because it makes the writing feel choppy. Readers constantly need to pause, however slightly, and figure out who they’re supposed to identify with. They’re often left feeling disconnected entirely. Even if they don’t know what to call head hopping, they’ll know something is off and that they have a difficult time connecting emotionally with the characters/narrator. Readers need to connect emotionally with either the characters (in first person POV and third person POV) or with the author narrator (in omniscient POV).

Update: Turns out Jami Gold, one of my favorite bloggers and fellow WANA instructors, wrote a post back in February all about using transitions to avoid head hopping. Make sure you check it out!

Do you have any questions about omniscient POV or head hopping before we move on? Any questions on POV in general are also welcome!

Interested in more ways to improve your writing? Deep Point of View is now available! (You might also want to check out Internal Dialogue or Showing and Telling in Fiction.)

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Image Credit: Richard Dudley (via sxc.hu)