Head-hopping
By Ray Rhamey | June 16, 2011 |
Recently a writer working on her first novel sent her first chapter for one of my single-chapter edits. She admitted to being very new at it, and was open to learning. One thing that jumped (hopped?) right out was “head-hopping”—sudden shifts in point of view within a scene while in the close third person.
I’ve always been opposed to this, but back in the early days of my blog, Flogging the Quill, I wondered if I was I taking the wrong stance—there are romance novels in which it is common, although I know a romance acquisitions editor who hates the practice. So I surveyed a number of New York publishing pros—mostly editors, but agents and reviewers, too–and asked for their views.
It peeves an executive editor of a New York publishing house:
I share your peeve about “head-hopping”—apt term. So thanks for letting me blather on about it.
I think it’s OK to do it so long there is only one point of view per discernible section. (RR: italics mine.) That is to say, so long as there’s something to represent to the reader that there has been some kind of jump. A chapter or a space break or something.
But when it happens in the middle of continuous action, it’s a serious problem. Basically, if you tell your story with recourse to everyone’s head at all times, you’re basically throwing out all the rules and permitting yourself everything. And if you are permitting yourself everything, then you also forfeit the right to hide anything of narrative importance—who the killer is, for instance—without cheating in a major way.
I’ve always tried to tell the writers that I work with that some kind of consistency of point of view—some ground rules that the reader can grasp—is an essential element of what is an epistemological problem. How does the reader know what he knows? Of course the author knows everything in advance—after all, he came up with the story. But he has to maintain the illusion that the reader and the narrative are on the same footing, discovering at the same time what the author has cooked up. After all, once the reader knows everything, the narrative is over.
Mystery stories are great examples of this kind of narrative epistemology. I always pointed out to the writers I worked with that all the Sherlock Holmes tales were narrated in the first person and by Holmes’s friend, for very sound reasons. Had Doyle used third person, a reader might well ask, “If you are employing the omniscient narrator, then you know everything, including the killer’s identity. In which case you should tell us!” Whereas by using Dr. Watson, he shields himself from this accusation. Dr. Watson can’t possibly know the outcome in advance, and so he reports on the action and shares with the reader the process of discovery. Watson knows enough to introduce Holmes to the reader, but once the story starts, he knows as much as the reader does.
With the advent in the twentieth century of close third person, the objection on the basis of omniscience is less relevant. A writer can use a kind of limited omniscience narrative. And I think that’s OK. Provided nothing is hidden. Agatha Christie used to use a Dr. Watson-like device for her Poirot novels, but then got rid of it, no doubt when she realized that simply following Poirot in close[-enough] third person was sufficient.
Still, that doesn’t excuse her gross violation of this principle in The ABC Murders, where she expands her omniscience but nonetheless hides crucial elements from the reader merely as a ploy to keep the mystery going.
So I think it’s very important, in head-hopping, to keep the points of view distinct through the use of clearly demarked boundaries—space breaks, chapters, etc.—and also to make sure that each point of view is seen divulging the entirety of its knowledge of the narrative. (RR: I think of this approach as “point-of-view shifts” rather than “head-hopping,” the former being clearly signaled breaks limited to reasonably long, discreet segments of narrative and the latter sudden, unrestricted, unmotivated jumps in the midst of action.) .
Nonetheless, I do see many bestselling works of fiction that practice “head-hopping” in continuous action, and no one seems to care. Well, not “no one,” but nearly—I thought I was it until your email came along.
Perhaps in terms of encouraging writers, it’s best to focus on what consistency in use of point of view can deliver, and get away from what it’s meant to avoid. The masterpieces of unreliable narration, from The Aspern Papers to The Remains of the Day—not to mention Ron Howard’s adaptation of A Beautiful Mind—all attest to the power of point of view. In other words, don’t make point of view just a vehicle of narrative, make it a partner, or a driving force, in narrative.
A top Writers House literary agent wrote to say…
I am in absolute agreement with you. People do it, but, for the most part, it doesn’t work (I’m not going to say never, because this is fiction we’re talking about, not algebra). “Hopping,” as you’ve put it, distances the reader from the close emotional connection with the central point-of-view character in the scene, it draws attention to the fact that writing is an artifice (destroying the “suspension of disbelief” that reading a novel usually though not always entails), and it generally just plain sounds awkward. Unless it’s masterfully pulled off, it usually signals a lack of control of authorial voice, to my mind.
Technically speaking . . .
Here’s something on the subject by Canadian author and professor Crawford Kilian that describes “episodically limited third-person omniscient pov,” a viable alternative to a single close third-person narrator.
Whoever is the point of view for a particular scene determines the persona. An archbishop sees and describes events from his particular point of view, while a pickpocket does so quite differently. So the narrator, in a scene from the archbishop’s point of view, has a persona quite different from that of the pickpocket: a different vocabulary, a different set of values, a different set of priorities. As a general rule, point of view should not change during a scene. (RR: italics mine) So if an archbishop is the point of view in a scene involving him and a pickpocket, we shouldn’t suddenly switch to the pickpocket’s point of view until we’ve resolved the scene and moved on to another scene.
Bottom line: I think these comments tell you that maintaining a consistent point of view within a scene is the best craft, but that a novelist can change point of view from scene to clearly differentiated scene if well done. Like many authors, I use different points of view from chapter to chapter and sometimes within chapters in my novels. I don’t believe that a novel must have only one point of view—my ire only rises over caroming from skull to skull within a scene or a moment.
For what it’s worth.
Ray Rhamey is the author of five novels and one writing craft book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. He’s also an editor of book-length fiction and designs book covers and interiors for Indie authors and small presses. His website, crrreative.com, offers an a la carte menu of creative services for writers and publishers. Learn more about Ray’s books at rayrhamey.com.
I agree, if it can be done well, go for it. But usually it pulls me right out of the story. A skilled writer should be able to convey what another character is feeling/thinking through the eyes of the main character.
Great post – love the term “head-hopping!” I hadn’t really thought about it, but reading this made me realize this is something I strive subconsciously to avoid as a writer, because it irks me so much as a reader.
I’ve been reading the Ranger’s Apprentice, a YA fantasy series by John Flanagan. He head-hops all over the place, sometimes within the same paragraph. I’ve been trying to figure out if it bothers me because I know that’s not how it is done nowadays, or if it would bother me even if I wasn’t a writer. I came to the conclusion that it might not bother me, but I wouldn’t ever feel as connected to the characters as I do in other stories that stay within a single POV, within a scene at least. Head-hopping, by its very nature, makes the writing more generic, leaving the reader detached from the characters.
Great post Ray.s
I’m writing a short story at the moment where I’m worried that I do this at one point:
I start off by setting the scene in one character’s POV. A new character enters and they begin dialogue. I switch to the new character as he’s leaving to see him change his mind and stay. Is this a good enough breaking point to excuse the hop? I do make a physical break to show the change, but it’s still the same scene.
Great post, Ray. Thanks!
As both reader and writer, my preference is one POV at a time for a scene, chapter, or entire book. Much more of a connection with the characters that way. I especially like limited third person.
Even when done well, I still find it unsettling. Anything that takes me out of the narrative and makes me scratch my head is another incentive to put the book down. I read this original post on your blog. I agreed with you then and still do.
I like what the executive editor says about separating the points of view (through a chapter or page break) and I think that’s an important distinction to make.
When you’re purposefully shifting point of view, to give a different take on the action (or to take one to a different scene entirely), then I think that’s fine. In fact, I really enjoy that kind of writing; Nick Hornby does it excellently in A Long Way Down and About A Boy.
But when it’s done almost arbitrarily throughout a scene, it usually comes across as lazy or amateurish. I bet there’s a really clever writer who’s done it well though… Did Waugh in Vile Bodies? I can’t remember.
I’m currently writing a book from two points-of-view and even with only breaking at appropriate points (ends of scenes, ends of chapters) I still find it a struggle to make sure that you don’t lose momentum and connection with the readers. I can’t imagine trying to do it well while bouncing randomly from head to head. And for the record, I can’t remember the last time I even finished a book that did that, it drives me a little batty.
I have been agonizing over POV lately. I started something in first person but I couldn’t have the flexibility the story needed so I switched to the third. Now I might doing some “head-hopping” myself. That’s a really useful term to be more aware of what’s happening within a scene.
jenelcc, a couple of my novels change point of view during a scene, but there are two things I make sure I do in order to keep the flow going and not trip up the reader.
I separate the two points of view with a line break that also has three centered asterisks in it to show the change. Note that a line break is also used to signal a lapse in time or a change in location, thus the three asterisks to make this different from that. In my book-design work, I’m using other images than the asterisks to signal the change, but there is always a physical clue as to what is going on.
The second is the transition at the start of the second POV. It needs to CLEARLY identify in the *first* sentence whose POV it is, and it needs to connect with the action in the previous section seamlessly. You can see the asterisk version in the first chapter of my online sample of We the Enemy at my rayrhamey.com website.
Bottom line, just keep the reader in mind, not what you want the plot to do.
I’m doing the same in a novel I’m writing in multiple POV. IMO, a deliberate (and well-telegraphed) shift in narrator actually brings the reader closer.
Say the reader is inside Character A’s head, and knows what she (thinks she) wants, and WHY, due to her strengths and flaws, she is saying what she is. Then a shift to Character B and the reader finds out HIS motivation – and knows that at heart A & B want basically the same thing, even if THEY don’t know that, but because of their own fears and backstory, they miscommunicate.
IMO, it actually helps create good tension. But POV can’t go bouncing around like a ping-pong ball, so that the poor reader is wondering, “Whose head am I in, now?
Head-Hopping distances me from the narrative. I feel disjointed, as if the author is tantalizing me with one POV while jerking me into another. Neither is brought to its proper conclusion.
Thanks for the compilations of wise advice.
These days, I often read as a decompression from my thought intensive job, so I’m looking for a few things. I want emotional reading, hence I want to empathize with the characters. I don’t want complex plots. I want the book to flow well.
Head hopping really gets in the way of those things. I need to get into the head of the protagonist. I want to grow with them. Multiple points of view detract from that significantly.
From what I’ve seen, head hopping also leads to more complex plots. Books with a single point of view max out at one or two subplots for me. Head hopping can result in more subplots.
Switching points of view often in a chapter totally kills the flow for me, as well. I’ll put a book down if the author does that.
Were my job different, perhaps I’d find complex viewpoints more attractive. Who knows?
the post has been very helpful, thank you
I often write multiple POVs — usually just two, but I’ve gone up to five. Normally I keep it to one per scene, but occasionally I switch within a scene for suspense and dramatic effect (either intersplicing two concurrent scenes or switching between two POVs with opposing goals in the same scene).
Here’s what I do to avoid confusion for the reader:
– Like Ray Rhamey, I use breaks to signal HELLO, DIFFERENT THING COMING UP.
– Also like Ray, I make very clear in the first line whose head we’re in and whether we’ve switched locations and/or skipped ahead in time.
– I don’t switch more often than once every couple of pages.
– I use only POVs that I’ve introduced previously in their own scene (in-scene switching usually comes later in a story, when the reader has had a good long time to get familiar with the POV characters).
Hope that helps.
I am not a fan of head-hopping as a reader; it is far too difficult to follow. However, as a writer there are definitely times when it would make my job easier! When tempted, I try to remember to put on my own reader hat… thanks for more reminders of why this is important.
I agree with the points about consistency and control. Head-hopping is jarring and makes me feel as if the author couldn’t figure out a way to reveal certain information, so they just jumped into a different character’s head because he or she would know whatever the author wanted to reveal. Too often the author ends up telling us this information rather than showing it. I notice it happens a lot when the reader wants to convey another character’s emotional reaction to something in the scene; rather than showing us through body language, action, dialogue, etc., we jump into their head and hear about their feelings.
I won’t say it can’t be done well, and some of my favorite stories do have multiple POVs. However, there’s always some sort of scene or chapter break or at least a more gradual shift from one character to another. It feels less clumsy this way.
I agree that head-hopping usually does not work. I’ve read a few manuscripts and self-pubbed novels where I got twenty pages in and still had no idea as to the identity of the protagonist. In all these cases, I felt no connection to character, and therefore no connection to the story.
I am a fan, however of the skillful use of more than one POV. In my own writing and in reading the work of others I always love to explore a protagonist through they eyes of another character. If done well, multiple POV’s enrich my reading experience.
Thanks for this great post!
This is an interesting piece Ray, especially the point about omniscience In a few scenes, I write from the point of view of the killer in a murder mystery novel, without revealing that persons part in the crime. Do you think this is this cheating the reader.
Peter, I’d have to read it to give you an opinion. It could work. I’ve read the opinion that if you’re in close third person you shouldn’t withhold that kind of thing, but I’ve never encountered it.
Thank you so much for this post. I’ve been reading a lot recently about “head hopping” and POV and I really appreciate your quotes from various people in the know. I was told just the other day that writing in first-person POV is really difficult for a first-time writer. I never gave it a second thought when I wrote my first three books. It seemed to come naturally and I love first-person POV. And someone’s comment (above) is so true – that if written well, the first-person POV should be able to show the reader what the other characters are feeling.
Thank you.
Patti
Thank you for this. While I’m fine with multiple POV’s in a book (and even in a chapter), headhopping without warning drives me bonkers. While more than one POV can make for a richer story, we don’t need to know what every single character is thinking every single moment they’re thinking it. We need to know that everyone’s actions have motivation, but we don’t need to know their thoughts verbatim at all times.
Excellent roundup of reasons for why head-hopping (usually) doesn’t work! This is great, b/c I know a lot of young (not necessarily in age, but in experience) writers don’t understand why, and now I can just point them here!
I will say that supposedly Nora Roberts was one of the first romance writers to insist upon showing both the male and female leads’ POVs, b/c she felt that a love story would be more powerful if you could see the developing feelings and the misunderstandings and all that from BOTH sides. As a big fan of hers, I completely agree. Not that every romance novel has to do it, but that it helps you become invested in each character and thus in them finding love with each other. But I don’t think most romance novels feature POVs besides the main two love interests.
The only author I’ve read who could do this convincingly is Robyn Hobb. In the Liveship trilogy she head-hops often and it actually builds on a scene because we get to see the difficult nuances of family members and their competing points of view.
Oh and there is of course Virginia Woolf, but her writing transcends simple head-hopping into something else altogether.
I’m not a fan of headhopping myself and appreciate the article, but I had to say how much I heart the photo you chose. Appropriate and funny.
Thanks, Jan. Thanks to Photoshop and the purchase of some stock art, I combined things and created that graphic for my book on writing.
I am this head-hopping writer:) I have a lot of editing to do according to this article, but it can be done!!! Thanks, Ray.
I’m used to reading multiple points of view in Epic Fantasy stories with a “broad ensemble” of characters. A Song of Ice and Fire for instance, I suppose that can be deemed head-hopping? However every character had their moment in specific chapters. Head-hopping from one scene, and sometime even in the same paragraph – drives me insane. I acquired a book that did this, without so much as an italic indicator and I put it away. Very irritating!
Thanks for posting this, I’m writing a blog-post about it. One of my friends said it best. “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”
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I found this interesting. The term ‘omniscience’ means all-knowing, all-seeing. I’ve read over and over again that the beauty of omniscience is the ability to ‘hop’ from one POV to another at will and as such, head-hopping is appropriate in this POV.
In all other POVs, head-hopping is a no-no.
So does this mean, Ray, that you simply don’t like reading in the omniscient viewpoint?
I don’t write in omniscient POV, but I appreciate the rules for it and by saying that head-hopping is wrong, in a sense, is going against a plethora of established beliefs and writings on the topic.
Bek :)
Bek, I have no problem reading omniscient fiction. The problem is when it’s POV is done wrong when the writer is using close third person, not omniscient. An MFA creative writing instructor at Warren Wilson College wrote that he didn’t feel skilled enough until he was in his forties to write from the omniscient POV–he felt that to do it well was very difficult. In fact, this post isn’t about the omniscient POV, it’s about the head-hopping that takes place when a writer mixes an aspect of omniscience with close third person.