How Big of a Problem Is “Head Hopping”?

Image: three antique sculpted heads on pedestals sit on a rough wooden table.
Photo by ROMAN ODINTSOV

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Question

I am a professional writer and former journalist, but I’m new to writing fiction. I’m wondering whether I’m guilty of “head hopping,” or of author intrusion, by allowing the reader to peek into the thoughts of minor characters of the story. If this is the case, is it a problem or is it the natural role of an omniscient narrator?

—Ready to Revise


Dear Ready to Revise:

I’m so glad you asked!

It’s natural for those new to writing fiction to revel in their ability to enter the mind of different characters in the story. It feels like a superpower, and it is: No other storytelling mode offers you the ability to enter into the point of view (POV) of the story’s characters in such an intimate and revealing way.

But like so many things with fiction, it’s important to realize that what’s fun for us as writers may not be fun for our readers. And that, like many things we admire in the work of our favorite writers, we may not yet have the chops to do these things well.

Yes, revealing what’s in the minds of minor characters is indeed a privilege of the omniscient POV. But the omniscient POV is an advanced technique, and therefore not something I recommend to those just starting out with fiction.

I’ll explore both of these in more detail, but first, an important distinction: When we talk about “head hopping,” we’re not talking about a story with multiple POVs. Rather, we’re talking about a story that includes multiple POVs within the same scene, without benefit of a line break or chapter break. “Head hopping” is what happens when an inexperienced writer fails to do it well.

Here’s why “head hopping” can be no fun for readers.

It can be jarring. Imagine cruising along in a story at top speed (we read fiction fast, in part because we feel like we’re really in the mind of the POV character, living the story), and then suddenly, it’s not clear whose head we’re in, or even what’s supposed to be happening.

For example, consider the following:

John perused the menu. That burger sounded good, but then again, he was trying to watch his weight—his wife was right, he wasn’t getting any younger, and Dr. Sykes had been warning him for years about his cholesterol. Maybe the salad? But then he’d be ravenous at his four o’clock.

All these finance guys always spent forever looking at the menu but then always ordered the same thing. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so stereotypical. Erik smiled, marshaling his patience. “Would you like me to come back?”

That second paragraph is likely to give your reader whiplash, because it’s not clear whose head we’re in—or even who Erik actually is (the server).

You want readers to read quickly, because that’s part of what creates what John Gardner called the “vivid and continuous dream” of fiction.

Reader whiplash destroys that illusion, forcing the reader to back up and reread to figure out what’s going on. And if your reader has to stop and reread just to figure out what’s going on, chances are they may stop reading altogether.

It can come off as self-indulgent. It takes cognitive energy for the reader to process the fact that they’re switching POVs, even when it’s done well (see below). So if you’re choosing to switch, the reader will assume that you have some important reason for doing so—that there’s something important that can only be revealed through the POV of this other character.

In the fiction of newer writers, that’s often not true. They’re switching POVs because they can. As a reader, that tends to feel self-indulgent—like the writer is just showing off and wasting our time.

How can omniscient POV be done well?

Here are my guidelines for the omniscient POV, should you feel your story warrants it—and that you have the chops as a writer to pull it off.

Make sure you have a real reason for switching POVs. In order to “earn” a POV shift, you need to reveal something from that POV that’s important to the story.

This might be something about the plot that the main POV character can’t see, or can’t know. Or it might just be an important outside perspective on one of the main characters.

In the example above, say, it might be the fact that the main POV character considers himself unique, but to this server character, Erik, he’s just like all these other guys who work in finance who frequent his restaurant for lunch.

Clearly “hand off” the POV. This is a technique you’ll see advanced writers use when they engage the omniscient POV (Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto is a great example): the person whose head we’re in encounters a second character, or looks at them, or thinks about them, then in the next paragraph, we take the POV of that second character.

I think of this as the “hand-off”—a technique that clearly signals that we’re moving from the perspective of one character into another, and gives us a clear line of demarcation for the switch (the paragraph break).

Put the name of the new POV character in the first line of the new paragraph. By doing this, you ensure that there’s no sentence from the new POV that could be read as originating in the POV of the old one.

Here’s how all that might come together in my example from above:

John perused the menu. That burger sounded good, but then again, he was trying to watch his weight—his wife was right, he wasn’t getting any younger, and Dr. Sykes had been warning him for years about his cholesterol. Maybe the salad? But then he’d be ravenous at his four o’clock. He glanced up at the server, whose name tag said Erik—he was slim, in his twenties. Probably never even thought about his weight.

Erik smiled, marshaling his patience. “Would you like me to come back?” All these finance guys always spent forever looking at the menu but then always ordered the same thing. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so stereotypical.

I hope this helps you revise—and helps all newer writers avoid the sin of “head hopping.”

Susan de Freitas


This month’s Ask the Editor is sponsored by Legacy Launch Pad’s Bestselling Book Bulletin. Sign up to receive a bulletin every Thursday morning that includes one answer to a publishing question, one publishing tip, one publishing resource and one bit of publishing advice.

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Albert Sipes

I have used multiple POV in the 1st novel that I self published. My content editor made the suggestion that I include a front section to mention new characters per chapter. I would argue the several POV is characteristic of real life situations. My second novel will use the same strategy. I use a lot of dialogue to identify who is who. I submit that it can be taxing. Consider all the talking heads on GMA or TTS all speaking at once.

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Deborah Raney

Excellent article and I couldn’t agree more with all the reasons why head-hopping does not give readers the best experience. I sold my first novel to a traditional publisher almost 30 years ago, but it was on the condition that I FIX the head hopping. Royalties for that book along with my second novel put our oldest son through 4 years of college. I’m so glad I learned the head hopping lesson on my first novel or there may have never been a 30th and 40th novel.

Stephen Davenport

Another way to successfully switch POV in the same scene is to hook it to a step forward in the “plot” of the scene. Not easy to do. I believe Virginia Wool was one of the early masters of the technique.

Christopher Hudson

Good advice! Best to have the audience primarily experience what the protagonist is experiencing, learn things at the same pace, I suppose.