[WRITING] What Is Head Hopping and why avoiding it makes your writing better

As a writer, head hopping is something I'm certain we've all done without realizing we've been confusing our readers.

photo credit

There have been times in my life when my writing was pretty much crap all the time. I began dabbling in fiction writing since I was in my early teens. Honestly, it's kind of painful reading through the old material sometimes.
In the 90s I was looking into really honing my writing skills and break into the romance fiction genre. I began writing on a forum called the Readers & Writers channel on iVillage. I was so encouraged by the community, the opportunity to mentor and also to learn. (Sounds a lot like #Steemit, doesn't it?)

As I became engaged in that community, I made a ton of writer/author friends. I'm going to share one of the most important writing lessons I ever received.

STOP HEAD HOPPING

Going back to my iVillage days, I met a lovely lady, Linda Crockett. I can't remember exactly how many romance novels she had published at the time, but it was more than five and she had just been signed for another three.
We stayed in active communication and I had the good fortune of meeting an online friend in person at the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention. As I sat in on one of her seminars, she began talking about Point of View (POV), head hopping, and why it's a no-no.

What is head hopping?

Great question
It's when the writer switches from one character's point of view to the next character's without fair warning or a clean break.

Why is it bad?

There are exceptions to any rule, but as a general rule of thumb, it's important to stay in one character's head to get a sense of perception and storytelling without confusing your readers. It's okay to switch to another protagonist's POV at a new chapter or clear break within a chapter because it allows the reader to follow along without getting confused.

An example of head hopping.

He was mad as hell and wanted to throttle her within an inch of her life. Mary was so frightened by his temper, she began to back away. What did he have to do to get her to straighten up her act?

In the example, we are in the man's perspective. He was mad as hell
But in the very next sentence we hop into Mary's head to find out she's so frightened she's backing away from him.

QUESTION: How would he know she was frightened? Is he in her head? NO! But you, the reader had been.

Just as quickly, we jumped back into his head, reading his thoughts and frustrations on how to straighten her out.
As a reader, that was probably not a terrible example. You could follow along and get a quick sense of the story, right?
But what if that occured throughout the entire book? What if there were more people and more dialogue?
I've read books that were so confusing because I had no idea who was saying or thinking what. As a cover to cover reader, I'd desperately work my way through that mess hoping for a landing spot where I knew where I was and whose head I was in.

And isn't that the point of writing?
As a writer, your goal is to make a connection with your readers. You do this by transporting them into your story for a full-immersion and emotional experience. You want your readers to connect to your characters.
But if your readers need to work to follow the storyline and slow down to figure out who is saying what - guess what? You've already bumped them out of your world, broke the connection and confused the heck out of them.

Same scene without the head hopping

He was mad as hell and wanted to throttle Mary within an inch of her life. He paused a moment when he saw her lips quiver and eyes widen as she backed away. Dammit, I scared her. Well and GOOD! His dearest wish was to scare her enough to clean up her act.

See how we stayed with his observations and his thoughts only? He could only assume what Mary was thinking by the actions he observed her doing.

The head hopping lesson where I 'finally got it'

Linda has written under the pseudonyms of Linda Lea Castle and Innis Grace.
Her published book was Fearless Hearts where Trace, her protagonist, was completely blind.
WHY WOULD SHE DO THAT?
As she stated in her writing seminar, she was aware of her penchant for head hopping, so she blinded her main character, forcing her to remain in one person's head. If she was in Trace's head, then he obviously couldn't see what Bellami could.
He could only express what HE was thinking and feeling.
While she edited for publication, she was able to make corrections because she knew if Trace was seeing things, she was in the wrong POV.
This strategy also helped Linda's dialogue remain in one character's POV as well.

Final thoughts

Next time you read a book, see how quickly you connect with the characters. It shouldn't take you very long to figure out whose POV you're in. Did the storyline and dialogue flow?
In addition to being a good story, you probably enjoyed it because the author immersed you into their world instead of talking at you about it.
Next time you write a piece of fiction, be aware of whose thoughts your sharing. It will make a huge difference in the quality of your work.

---

It's been a long while since I've spoken to my friend, but here's a link to her author page on Amazon.

Linda Lea Castle author page

---

If you like my content, please consider upvoting and visiting my other articles. Thank you!

---

Meredith Loughran blogs at ScribblingBandits.com | Follow her on Twitter & SnapChat or LinkedIn

---

Come see what I've been writing! Visit my blog page