Patreon LogoYour support makes Blue Moon possible (Patreon)

Head Hopping

WriteMood

WriteMood

Super-Earth
Joined
Feb 22, 2011
Location
Virginia
I've gotten a lot of e-mails and PM's asking about head hopping. What is it? How can I spot it? How can I stop it? I thought it would be easier to simply make a post and get it out for everyone to see.

Head Hopping - When you depart from the POV (point of view) from one character to the next, or to omniscient POV.

So, if the story is in first person perspective, we should always be in first person perspective. I've yet to meet a publishing company that allows first to third in the same story.

If the story is in third person perspective, we can tell the story from the main character's view, but here's the trick: Most publishing companies prefer one POV per chapter or section. You can't switch to Don's perspective in the middle of a paragraph when we've been in Ralph's.

Now how do we spot it? That's the real crux of the issue here, isn't it?

Linda tossed her long, black hair. <--Can you spot the POV departure here? I'll give you a hint; "Long, black". Here's the explanation: On a general basis we don't think about our own eye color, hair length/color/texture. We can't see our expressions. When we are in a character's head, we can only see what they can see. Only feel what they can feel.

The best way to avoid head hopping is to use the five sense. Can your character see/hear/smell/taste/feel it? If not, then it's probably head hopping.

But, but, how do I explain what my character looks like then?!

One rule of thumb, Do NOT use the "mirror trick". That's the oldest trick in the book and editors/reader roll their eyes when it's pulled. What's the mirror trick? When you have your character look in a mirror and think about their own looks. LAME!

Now, what you can do? For third person perspective, you can have another main character think about or describe the looks of character one when it is their chapter/scene. Like: Chuck let his gaze travel down the length of Julia with slow assessment. Fiery curls crowned her head, green eyes glared at him, and pale hands rested on curvy hips. Oh yes, this woman was going to be the epitome of a hellcat.

First person stories are a little harder. Dialogue! In this, dialogue is your friend. Example: Jane lifted my bangs and wrinkled her nose. "You have such pretty blue eyes. Why do you hide them?" <--See, now we know the main characters eyes are blue AND she has bangs that fall over her face.

And that concludes my lesson for today. Clear as mud? Excellent. Any questions?
 
I'm glad I was able to help. If anyone has any questions on the topic, feel free to post them and I'll address them directly. :)
 
I'm pretty sure 99% of this website does this, including me. I really hope more people give this a read over, and attempt to improve themselves. I know I'm going to make an effort to correct such errors.
 
I think that's optimistic at best, you read a lot of fanfiction that does it too. I actually corrected it in one of my stories reading this, because I honestly never thought about it.
 
Not a bad topic to keep in mind. The only aspect of this I homed in on at first was the unnecessary comma between "long" and "black." Still, never considered head hopping before. Even looked a bit further into it out of curiosity. Good tip.
 
Pretty soon I'll post a topic on showing versus telling to help clarify that subject for some too. As is, I'm glad that I was able to help. Many authors make this mistake, even seasoned ones.

As for the comma between "long" and "black"...LOL. Per Chicago Manual of Style, which many publishing companies use, that comma is completely necessary. (CMS: 6.33) Commas with coordinate adjectives. As a general rule, when a noun is preceded by two or more adjectives that could, without affecting the meaning, be joined by "and", the adjectives are normally separated by commas.

Example:

Shelly had proved a faithful, sincere friend.

And that concludes the grammar lesson for today. ;)
 
WriteMood said:
Pretty soon I'll post a topic on showing versus telling to help clarify that subject for some too. As is, I'm glad that I was able to help. Many authors make this mistake, even seasoned ones.

As for the comma between "long" and "black"...LOL. Per Chicago Manual of Style, which many publishing companies use, that comma is completely necessary. (CMS: 6.33) Commas with coordinate adjectives. As a general rule, when a noun is preceded by two or more adjectives that could, without affecting the meaning, be joined by "and", the adjectives are normally separated by commas.

Example:

Shelly had proved a faithful, sincere friend.

And that concludes the grammar lesson for today. ;)
Click to expand...
Interesting, and I mean that in the sincerest way possible. It's always good to learn something new. Chicago is a style that I'm not familiar with in-depth. I know about the necessity of the comma between your example of adjectives. My understanding is that adjectives of height, color, material, shape, and count do not require the use of a comma.

>_> This may be a discussion for another area of BM, though. I believe I'm cluttering up the thread with grammatical debate, but grammar is a difficult and challenging aspect of writing to perfect. There are so many writing styles.
 
Raivh said:
Interesting, and I mean that in the sincerest way possible. It's always good to learn something new. Chicago is a style that I'm not familiar with in-depth. I know about the necessity of the comma between your example of adjectives. My understanding is that adjectives of height, color, material, shape, and count do not require the use of a comma.

>_> This may be a discussion for another area of BM, though. I believe I'm cluttering up the thread with grammatical debate, but grammar is a difficult and challenging aspect of writing to perfect. There are so many writing styles.
Click to expand...
Simply put, commas are a pain in the rear and my least favorite part of editing. If it makes you feel any better, the only reason I even know that rule is because the line editors kept correcting me until I learned.

If it helps, CMS is used by most American and Canadian publishing houses. Not all, granted, but most.
 
I went and looked CMS over. Call me curious. Always willing to learn something new and come away a less ignorant person. It also makes me question one professor and why he taught, well, what my first post stated. But that's a story for another time, as he and I often have heated debates over grammar and, uh, even spellings. Those are regional differences, though.

EDIT: The order of adjectives in a series. That's the subject I was looking for. It took me forever to recall why I believe as I do about comma placement, and that I think "long and black hair" sounds just as awkward as black long hair/black, long hair. I believe they're also known as cumulative adjectives. I sent in an inquiry about the subject.
 
To be honest, I've learned to curb many of the behaviors I learned growing up. Two spaces after a period? That's a no-no in the writing world. I'm still trying to decipher the new fetish with em dashes and what their true purpose is. Thus far, I've learned a few things. Em dashes are for cut offs, emphasis on sentences that seem to desire an exclamation point and don't get one, or sentences with too many comma's. The em dash and I are coming to a working relationship, though we still bicker.

Don't get me started on the whole "disembodied body parts" craze that's going on.

I have a feeling what you are being taught is likely the collegiate English style, known as MLA format. MLA is confusing, makes no sense, and ends up being useless in the real world (unless you write technical papers).
 
Never used two spaces after a period. I have been encouraged to use the Oxford serial comma before, which has been eliminated, or so I've heard. And yes, MLA and AP, though my professors now don't care much for any particular style. They're more interested in my visual storytelling. I handle cameras and direct more than I write, and when I do write, it's a shot list or screenplay.

Anyway, this has been entertaining and educational, so thanks. Makes me examine character POV and whether or not it's jumping around in my personal work.

Good luck with em dash. Only bit I've noted about that from various books is a sudden inserted thought. Sometimes the information seems rather...irrelevant. Still, what's there can be interesting to read from time to time.
 
Wait, wait, wait I enjoyed the lesson, it was very nice and informative, but (not saying I'm a professional anything dealing with writing), but the whole "Linda tossed her long, black hair", I didn't see much wrong with that. I get where your going with it, to me it sounds completely absurd if it was in first person "I tossed my long, black hair", but in third, I didn't think there was a problem.

I hate first person, for starters, so lets get that out of the way, but in third, I like to think of my story as, say, the person reading is a God, or rather, the words that's to be read is like a God looking down into this world I'm writing. I completely get it if I was to write about a guy name John who goes around solving mysteries and live his daily life, with me as the writer portraying it as if it was first person only written in third person format, but I think third person is the best ever time to explain things that the character may not know/pay attention to themselves. So, for me to write that Linda tossed her hair, and describe the color, I'm not saying the story is written in Linda's point of view, I'm just being the narrator.

Let's say Linda slips on a tiled floor due to a banana peal, with your method, I'd probably write, "Linda's foot moved forward, only to fall back from her shoe making contact with a slippery surface. Looking up to see what she tripped over, it was a banana peel that caused the embarrassing scene." Which is perfectly fine, but I don't think it would be a problem to write "Linda's foot moved forward, though it caught on a banana peel, causing her to fall back. Looking up to see what she tripped over, she saw the offending garbage that caused the embarrassing scene." <-- would that be head hopping? Seeing as I indicated that there was a banana peel to trip over before Linda herself could look down to see what tripped her? If so, I say nay to your rule of no Head Hopping!

I've seen many books (some published professionally, some not), written in third person and explained a matter that the main character should not have been aware of yet (or just shouldn't be thinking about, with your hair color example), and reading it seemed just fine, even witty and creative. Now, not to say my standards of reading materials is expert, and that I only accept nothing but the finest of golds, but I don't really think this "Head Hopping", to a certain extent if I'm not misinterpreting, is an all around bad thing. I'll agree, in some cases it might make for better writing, but sometimes I find myself annoyed when a person try to build up "suspense" and have me feeling just as clueless as the character; I don't want to be the character, I want to be the person watching a movie! I get it, don't tell me that it was the stepmother who did it in the beginning of the story by showing her stab the father, but the main character already have an advantage since he knows the stepmother personally, so at least give me the advantage of seeing her slip her hand under the couch like she's hiding the murder weapon (for all I know she could just be hiding her wallet! Looking for change?); do you get what I'm saying? Think of if this book was a movie, the main character might not have seen the step mother toss a knife out the window as he turned at the sound of a phone ringing, but me on the couch watching did! I like my books like I like my movies, Linda can go on flipping her black hair, it's not me flipping my hair, so the narrator can tell me all it wants what this Linda girl looks like.

Don't get me wrong, I do find it annoying when someone describes their character to the extreme; "Linda flipped her long, black hair, with her pale white hand, blinking her green eyes." Yes, it's clever, I might do it in an RP if I don't have a picture to describe my character (Though only because this is a world my RP partner is helping me with, he/she doesn't know what my character looks like, so I have to tell them somehow so they wont feel lost and give my person a trait she/he doesn't have), but I get how winded it can make a person. This is maxed ten times more annoying when in first person, me just thinking of replacing "her" with "I"s and "My"s makes me want to gnaw my gums off (Impossible, but I'll find a way to make it happen).
 
First off, I love that avatar. Nabooru is greatness!

What WriteMood is talking about is the switch from limited to omniscient third person-- also just to switch to someone else's point of view, but try to keep it limited. Limited is typically what one uses in a role-play, because one is often writing from the perspective of "their" character. To do otherwise would be to jump heads. Even if one were writing a secondary character, a character for the background, there is a risk of hopping heads or switching to omniscient. What he explains is how this happens, and how to avoid it. In his example about the hair, WriteMood explains that to more easily stay in third person limited, one should be mindful of what descriptors one use for their character; avoid describing a character in a way that a person would NOT be conscious of doing themselves. Typically, when you flip your hair you don't think, "I'm flipping my brown hair right now." Now this is to not say that some authors don't head hop. Some do, and they can be very much professional and popular. Some people view head hopping as a crime, and others not so much. However, just because some people can get away with it, it doesn't mean that everyone can.

Point of view is the narration. The narrator is telling the story and "typically" in fiction it isn't the author. If one's narrator is a character telling the story, which is how it can be in limited, then that's just how it is. When you are telling a friend about that time at the party you don't go, "So, I flipped my brown hair, and then shook his hand, and he was thinking that I was beautiful, and my skin glistened with sweat from dancing." Basically, this is just how writing third person limited is, and if you don't like it, that's fine. You should just write exclusively from an omniscient point of view, and be mindful of the normal conventions of role-playing-- an omniscient narrator may know everything, but they don't "have" to say everything.

That's what brings me to my next thought: Is role-playing the same as writing a story? I don't think so. I think you need to be able to write, but being able to write doesn't mean you can role-play. I think it's very important to bring crucial elements of writing into role-playing, but I also feel that not very element of proper writing "has" to be adhered to during a role-play. I think there's a certain flexibility in role-playing, because in some ways it's a more unique medium compared to the rigidness that can be traditional story telling; there are nuances and differences in role-playing when contrasted against writing a traditional story.

I hope I explained this in a satisfactory way, EVEN if I'm not WriteMood! I'm just a bored guy, who felt like typing some stuff.
 
Nabooru is awesome!

I get it now, yes you did a fine job clearing that up, it makes more sense; I now fully agree then, but I do enjoy omniscient more so, and my writing often reflects that. (Thank you for pointing out that word for me :D!)

Mitsu said:
You should just write exclusively from an omniscient point of view, and be mindful of the normal conventions of role-playing-- an omniscient narrator may know everything, but they don't "have" to say everything.
Click to expand...

Yup, this is more my writing style, in and out of role-playing. I was just going to comment on something that I hate very much when people use an omniscient point of view, I hate reading a section that says "Little did he/she know that going into the car was the biggest mistake of a life time." In first person, it would be "Little did I know that going into that car was the biggest mistake in my entire life" <--- I hate it when first person stories explain that they did something dumb in this way, or explain the future on what's going to happen to them, it drive me crazy! It makes me think "Well, if you fucking knew this enough to say it, why did you tell me!" I get it's written as if a person is telling a past story, but it just sounds so silly to me (everything written in passed tense, but sometimes when I'm reading first person, I always forget and think their speaking on the present, especially when there's no cheap intro saying something like 'five years ago I', or whatever to reference the timeline). Also, this can sometimes be good for "dramatic" effect in third person, though it's pretty stale and would not cause the desired attraction the person wanted (unless the reader was ten or seventy), but I also hate it when it's used, and the scene does not end: example "... biggest mistake of a life time. Tom/Tam settled into the car and looked at the driver, 'where are we going?'".:dodgy: Really now? Cue dramatic moral reveal, but then continue on with the scene? My god.
 
As Mitsu pointed out, there is a difference between roleplaying and writing. Or at least, the professional writing that I'm trying to throw guidelines out there for. I'm merely creating these threads to help those that might desire to enter into the publishing world. I work a day job, full time, as an editor and I see many stories that I have to reject because the plot was good, but the writing was crap. It hurts, because I want to send an acceptance. How is an author supposed to know what to/how to improve if no one teaches them? And thus, posting these writing tips was born.

Mitsu - Thank you for helping clear that up. ;) And ummm, *cough*I'magirl*cough* LOL
 
Princy Cake said:
Nabooru is awesome!

I get it now, yes you did a fine job clearing that up, it makes more sense; I now fully agree then, but I do enjoy omniscient more so, and my writing often reflects that. (Thank you for pointing out that word for me :D!)

Mitsu said:
You should just write exclusively from an omniscient point of view, and be mindful of the normal conventions of role-playing-- an omniscient narrator may know everything, but they don't "have" to say everything.
Click to expand...

Yup, this is more my writing style, in and out of role-playing. I was just going to comment on something that I hate very much when people use an omniscient point of view, I hate reading a section that says "Little did he/she know that going into the car was the biggest mistake of a life time." In first person, it would be "Little did I know that going into that car was the biggest mistake in my entire life" <--- I hate it when first person stories explain that they did something dumb in this way, or explain the future on what's going to happen to them, it drive me crazy! It makes me think "Well, if you fucking knew this enough to say it, why did you tell me!" I get it's written as if a person is telling a past story, but it just sounds so silly to me (everything written in passed tense, but sometimes when I'm reading first person, I always forget and think their speaking on the present, especially when there's no cheap intro saying something like 'five years ago I', or whatever to reference the timeline). Also, this can sometimes be good for "dramatic" effect in third person, though it's pretty stale and would not cause the desired attraction the person wanted (unless the reader was ten or seventy), but I also hate it when it's used, and the scene does not end: example "... biggest mistake of a life time. Tom/Tam settled into the car and looked at the driver, 'where are we going?'".:dodgy: Really now? Cue dramatic moral reveal, but then continue on with the scene? My god.
Click to expand...

No problem! I just know a little bit about writing, so I figured I'd speak up. I'm just happy to be helpful.

WriteMood said:
As Mitsu pointed out, there is a difference between roleplaying and writing. Or at least, the professional writing that I'm trying to throw guidelines out there for. I'm merely creating these threads to help those that might desire to enter into the publishing world. I work a day job, full time, as an editor and I see many stories that I have to reject because the plot was good, but the writing was crap. It hurts, because I want to send an acceptance. How is an author supposed to know what to/how to improve if no one teaches them? And thus, posting these writing tips was born.

Mitsu - Thank you for helping clear that up. ;) And ummm, *cough*I'magirl*cough* LOL
Click to expand...

You're welcome.

Sorry! I knew you were a woman too! I just wasn't even thinking. I'm really sorry!
 
LOL, I'm not offended. No need to apologize. It's completely fine. I actually find it amusing. With the usernames on here, sometimes it is really hard to tell a gender. :)
 
It's just that I've looked at your profile, and saw that you listed your gender as Female! So, it's kind of embarrassing for me to make that mistake. However, I'm glad that it all turned out okay. I was hoping I actually knew what I was talking about, and wouldn't sign on to find a wall of text explaining why I didn't! Everything I know is self-taught, so I have to try and balance that with my predilection to explain things.

I'm interested about your thoughts on writing dialogue.
 
Hmmm, thank you! You just gave me the inspiration for my Writer Wednesday post! I'll be making a thread on dialogue tomorrow. *Hugs*
 
Not a problem! Glad to be of service. -hugs-

I'll try to think of another suggestion to throw out when I read tomorrow-- I look forward to it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom