Head-Hopping POV

[DaCosta]

Hi there.
So, I've been writing for my own pleasure for years and have recently decided to knuckle down and get published.

Throughout my novel I head-hop, a lot. I'm meant to be writing in omniscient pov so I didn't think it was a problem, but towards the end of the novel and now during the 1st draft edit, I'm beginning to suspect it's not the 'done thing'.

Plus, I've had a little piece come back from JJ and he's quite rightly pointed out that I head-hop too much and has promptly told me to re-write. (Oh how I wish i'd known it was 'bad' earlier!)

I just wondered what your experience of this was; whether it's a strict no-no to head-hop in each scene or whether it can be salvaged.

Now that I've been told it's unsavoury I can take it forward, but the thought of rewriting my novel to fix this problem fills me with dread.

 

[HareBrain]

There's a difference between omniscient and head-hopping. If you maintain the voice of the overseeing narrator, so that the reader is always aware of how the narrative dips in and out of the characters and it's clear the writer has control of the whole thing, that can read very well, as long as the narrator himself has a clear and interesting voice. "Head-hopping" is more when the god-like narrator disappears, and the narrative jumps from one person to another without that sense of a guiding hand, and it's a sign of clumsiness. Without seeing an excerpt, it's impossible to tell which you're doing.

Having said that, even the "proper" omniscient POV is out of favour these days, being more used in humour, maybe young children's stories, and maybe a few literary pieces. I think that's a shame, personally, because I think variety is valuable; but if you're writing SFF with the aim of getting published, you're probably improving your chances by adopting close third or first person.

 

[Ursa major]

What HareBrain said.

But I would add that even where you allow yourself to head hop - i.e. it's deliberate, not accidental - you ought to make it clear when a hop has occurred; otherwise it'll simply be confusing to at least some of your readers. (As with other aspects of your book: just because you know what's going on, it doesn't necessarily mean that anyone else will.)

 

[Erin99]

What HB says. Successful books can and do use the omniscient - Hitchhiker's Guide, anyone? - but it's definitely out of favour. That being said, if your command of it is amazing and you seem confident, you CAN make it work. JJ's client, Robert V.S. Redick, does it very well, though he uses it sparingly at first.


Edit: Have a read of successful books that head-hop, and see what you can learn. Take in how the author does it and what they achieved each time they switched to someone else's POV.


And don't be daunted by the prospect of having to rewrite the full book. Loads of us here have or are doing that. I'm writing mine again to make it bigger, better, and more interesting... I hope.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

My first attempt at writing was full of headhopping.
On a practical level, what I did was highlight different characters' in the scene in different colours in order to work out who the dominant pov was, and then rewrote it into their pov.
I think head hopping and omnipresent are two different things -- as HB said -- but if JJ has mentioned it, I'd assume it falls into the former ie sometimes it's confusing whose head we're in.

It is a genre specific thing, btw, more mainstream fiction use omni more than sff, but definitely for modern sff JJ is right (of course) and you would have a better chance of selling it without the hopping.

Why not try rewriting a short scene and pop it up on crits to see if it's eradicated (It took me a while to realise when I was drifting out of a pov). But, if it's any consolation, now I couldn't imagine not writing in close pov, so it can be overcome! Good luck.

 

[DaCosta]

Thank you all. Close POV is the way forward I think. It's a rookie mistake on my part and being a complete novice to the publishing process I'm glad it's been caught sooner rather than later, big thanks to JJ for flagging it now.

Great tip regarding highlighting the different pov's in scene and working out who's view is the prominent one. I was wondering how I was going to even consider rewriting but this is a fab tip. Most of the head-hopping can be rewritten into the prominent characters pov without too much a problem (I'm hoping). The difficulty will come as I try and keep track of the important 'reveals' in each scene and make sure they are not missed in subsequent pov's. Urgh. Just writing that confuses me.

 

[Bowler1]

Edit: Have a read of successful books that head-hop, and see what you can learn. Take in how the author does it and what they achieved each time they switched to someone else's POV.

Shogun comes to mind, there is one scene where J Cavell (near the start you'll be gald to hear) head hops from one character to another all the way up a hill, and it worked. Fairly common in the book as well, but so well written I didn't care.

I've head hopped a lot in my early work too, we all live and learn.

Pulling a space hopper out from nowhere I head hop off to another thread!

 

[Brian G Turner]

Frank Herbert's Dune is sometimes quoted as an particularly excellent example of Third Person Ominiscient - moving between different character POVs is done solely to generate tension. Some other writers' use of omniscient can simply look poorly written (some historical fiction is especially bad for head hopping).

 

[ZombieWife]

I don't mind reading omniscient, but head-hopping will stop me stop dead in my tracks in a book. I will put that book away and not pick it up again.

How hard do you want your readers to work? If you're constantly bouncing around from head to head (head-hopping as opposed to a nice, organized multiple-POV experience) then you're pretty much saying, "Hey! I need you to focus on structure and stop every other paragraph to puzzle things out and figure out what the heck is going on," as opposed to, "Read my STORY. The NARRATIVE and CHARACTERS are great."

When I become too aware of the author BEING an author, then I don't care about the story or the characters anymore. And that's not fun.

 

[DaCosta]

It's proving to be easier than I'd though to eradicate the head-hopping and in fact it gives me a chance to flesh it out a bit (adding a few extra scenes). Some of my edits feel a bit stilted, so I need to look again at those but overall, not too bad. Thank goodness! Eliminating the head-hopping has also helped the dialogue.
I had no idea head-hopping was such a turn of for readers; you live and learn. Lots of learning for me.

 

[ZombieWife]

Another thing to consider is the notion of tipping your hand by getting into every character's head. Not knowing what a character is doing or what's going on "over there," could add a great deal of tension to your story.