Writing Stuff: Head Hopping

 KH and I went around and around on one of my pieces. He said I was doing head hopping. After reading Nathan Bransford's Third person omniscient vs. limited vs. head jumping, I still think I was right. Maybe.

Here’s where the problems start. Sometimes people try to create an omniscient perspective through an assemblage of third person limited perspectives.

We see what this character is thinking, then we see what this character is thinking, then we see what this character is thinking. The reader is bopped around the scene willy-nilly as we bounce from character to character.

Often writers will even shift the perspective within the same paragraph or even the same sentence. There isn’t a unified single voice, but rather more like a cacaphony of voices.

I did have one character perspective, and then I sifted to another. I was thinking in terms of a film, where the POV does shift.

Perspective is the frame an author uses to situate a reader’s consciousness within a novel.

This means that in third person limited narratives, the reader settles in by seeing the events filtered through the perspective of a single character framing the events for us. In third person omniscient narratives, the reader sees everything through an omniscient narrator’s “eyes” as the voice guides us through a scene.

Okay, there you are perspective…. 

What I will not tell KH (I am safe writing this here, since I know he does not read this blog, he has better things to do such as running a business), is that I will need to refer back to these tips when I come back to revise that particular chapter in “Love Stinks.”

Here are some tips:

    Cohesive, cohesive, cohesive. The most important thing to get right is that the voice should be consistent and cohesive. It might even help to brainstorm the “character” who is omnisciently narrating, even if they’re never named. Think about this narrator’s relationship with the characters and tell the story through their eyes, even if they have the ability to read everyone’s thoughts.
    Refer to characters as consistently as possible. If you’re constantly referring to characters in different ways, it’s likely a sign that you’re head jumping because you’re probably re-framing characters from another character’s POV. Like “Diane’s son” instead of just “Nathan.” Don’t worry about repeating character names and pronouns!
    It helps to “reset” the scene before you delve into a new character’s thoughts. If you look closely at Entry A, I actually delve into both Nathan’s and Diane’s thoughts/perspective. But rather than sticking to a strictly linear second-by-second timeline I start with objective scene-setting in Nathan’s apartment, then delve a bit into Nathan’s head. Then I “reset” the scene by moving to Diane’s physical location. Before I get back to Nathan’s thoughts I “reset” again by showing Nathan on the couch. If you re-establish the physical setting with the character whose head you’re about to jump into it feels more seamless. And don’t be beholden to a strictly orderly “tick tock” of time unfolding.
    Be judicious about whose head you jump into and why. Just because you can jump into everyone’s head with an omniscient perspective doesn’t mean that you have to or that you necessarily should. Typically a third person omniscient voice is a bit more objective, meaning we see more facts and observations rather than thoughts, and third person limited is a bit more subjective, meaning we see more thoughts. (Compare Entry A to Entry B here). If you’re going to dive into a head in third person omniscient perspective there should be a clear story objective you’re trying to accomplish rather than just trying to account for everyone in the room.
    Remember: the third person voice is telling a story. Above all, the third person omniscient voice is a storyteller who guides the reader through a scene. Think of an omniscient voice as someone who grabs the reader’s hand and gently guides through around a scene, helping them understand and contextualize what they’re seeing and providing judicious exposition as needed.
    If it works it works. There are no hard and fast rules here. Some successful authors head jump. But if you know the above principles you can be more judicious about how and why you do it.

And here I reveal a great secret of this blog - it also has notes to myself.

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