Why Can't I Head-Hop In A Couples Story?

[shakespeare_i_aint]

I'm going to use the term, "head-hop" as if I had always known what it meant. As though I hadn't googled it just yesterday after seeing an editor's forum post with that phrase in it.

Nowthen: If I was writing a story about a couple having a mutually-shared first experience with someone outside marriage, why can't I jump from the circumstances as reported by the wife to the circumstances noted by the husband?

Because they share a life, aren't they in some way one perspective?

I feel that any couple would talk quite a lot after the experience and share things that they noticed--often things the other person hadn't picked up on. Head-hopping is a way of getting some details and partner-thoughts introduced during the proceedings that wouldn't get there any other way.

It just seems to me that in a wife-sharing story, readers would like to know how each partner is processing an unfolding situation and the feelings of both, rather than the feelings of only one half of the couples equation.

But there are whole web pages dedicated to eradicating head-hopping in any form in any story. No exceptions had been carved out for me and my style.

Shirley, I can head-hop in a couples story, correct?

 

[NotWise]

You can do anything you want. It's your story.

Head-hopping can be disorienting to readers, so if you use it you need to use it carefully. I probably wouldn't use it in the case you describe. Instead, I'd use dialog and action during the event to express what's going on, and maybe depend on the POV character to "read" their partner's reactions.

But that's just me.

 

[AlinaX]

The reason why people hate head hopping is that it's confusing if done wrong. Most narratives like to focus on one character at a time, letting the reader into their head, seeing what they see, hearing what they hear, etc. It puts the reader into the scene. Do the head hopping unexpectedly and the reader can get distracted trying to keep track of who is thinking what.

It's especially bad when you've spent half the chapter, or even half the book, with one character and then suddenly two characters are having sex and you're in both their heads. For this reason, the usual advice is to have clear section breaks when changing POV.

All that said, you *can* get away with head hopping without the section breaks, but the reader has to get used to you shifting between characters, and even then a new paragraph should ideally be used and some clear wording to telegraph the change.

 

[SimonDoom]

Absolutely, you can "head hop" if you want to. I did it in a mom-son story that became by far my most popular story. My completely subjective thoughts on the subject:

1. Tell the story in third person omniscient point of view. This means it's in third person and you, the narrator, are privy to everything everyone's thinking, and you have the ability to narrate those thoughts to the reader.

2. Don't switch back and forth in first person POV, especially if you switch a lot. Yuck. Confusing. Some people like double first person POV. I don't. 3d person is safer and gives you, the narrator, more freedom.

3. Establish your head hopping early in the story, so the reader gets used to it. What really DOESN"T work is when the reader gets accustomed to one point of view, and then you do the switcheroo late in the story. That ruins it for some readers.

4. Generally, I think it's better to switch POV only at scene breaks, but not always, and especially not always during a sex scene when you want to convey what both characters are thinking in the moment.

5. Be very clear at all times whose thoughts you are telling. You may need to use thought tags, like dialogue tags. Read it over carefully to make sure it's clear.

6. Don't overdo it, and don't switch too frequently. Spend some time in one person's head, and then switch when appropriate, but don't bounce and forth from one sentence or paragraph to another.

7. Find alternative ways to do this. For instance, have them talk to each other and convey their feelings that way. Or have them express their feelings through what they do -- caressing, stripping, kissing, touching.

 

[Sextified]

But there are whole web pages dedicated to eradicating head-hopping in any form in any story. No exceptions had been carved out for me and my style.

First off, I must let you know that I do 'head hop', but it took me a VERY long time to learn how to integrate that trick properly, at least into my own so-called style.

IF you are EVER going to consider putting your stories up for sale, you are very right that some 'publishers' have strictly banned new authors who do that from approaching them.

One of the 'houses' recommended to me to try and get my three novels published online has a VERY harsh submission page. They basically tell all writers to 'fuck off' and 'go away' if they head hop. They say that their readers have proven to them with their money, time and time again, that they will not buy and do not enjoy such stories.

Another publishing house approached ME, upon seeing me as high as the top twenty-eight out of 5,000 author accounts on my old website. She had read some of my better chapters, and wanted to see if I could rework the rough first novel.

Her own personal opinion on head hopping was very lukewarm, but she liked my style, as well as the intricate world I had created for my readers to enjoy.

She said that it is far better off for new writers to learn how to write in a traditional POV, with 'proper' dialogue first. Way back then, at least to her, it was still just a passing fad, and hard for her to accept in an even tolerable way.

< < < < > > > >

That said, there are some important guidelines and things you MUST try and avoid if you decide to go that route, at least in my opinion.

• Head hopping does not eliminate the need for dialogue or proper grammar.

• You cannot ever afford to confuse the readers about who is speaking, and which head that you are in at any given moment.

• If you are determined to write in your own style, you have to consistently follow your OWN rules.

• It takes a long time to build up trust with your readers, and you can throw it all away with some stupid careless mistakes.

• Find and cultivate a few good high quality pre-readers, and LISTEN to them, because they are your life line to learning and growing as an author.

• Come up with your own 'graphic' way to indicate a shift in POV, time, location or person whose eyes you are looking thru.

• For shorter stories, Head Hopping tends to be a distraction, and perhaps Close-in Third Person would be better? Your mileage may vary.

• Open your longer stories WITHOUT head hopping. Try fully grounding and hooking your readers without that trick or crutch. Then once you've got them, carefully introduce ONE new character's inner perspective. Stay with them a long time, and only switch back to your original character when there is reason to do so!

• Perhaps practice head hopping first? Write two separate stories, one from the Male perspective, then the female one. If you can't CONVINCINGLY handle the difference between the two sexes in that limited form, then it's MUCH too early for you to try and hop around.

• Take a moment and think how an Audio book of your story would have to sound! You'd have to have a different voice actor for each character to pull it off! At least in a way that people would pay real money for it! If you can't even write differently enough for each character's head? As in choice of vocabulary, emotions, quirks, fears and desires? Your story will most likely only come out shallow and confusing to people! Please remember that their only clue to what is going on is your words on a screen! They certainly won't have the benefit of the pictures in YOUR head to help guide them thru.

< < < < > > > >

I think that Head Hopping has a great deal to offer both the readers and the writer, when done with care and consideration. But, be warned, it isn't easy as it looks! It takes a GREAT deal more work to do it even passingly well, than the more traditional and well established styles.

Well, at least it does for me.

There is a real reason it is such a touchy subject for some people.

Enter into that particularly divisive literary 'fetish' with great care!

 

[MelissaBaby]

I do it frequently. I've never heard a complaint. As others have said, just do it right.

(You want to increase the degree of difficulty, do it in a same-sex scene. That's tough.)

 

[shivadancer]

I think this is a great question to be grappling with as an author. Certainly an omniscient narrator knows what is in the head of everyone involved.

Personally I can't stand stories structured as;

Jane's Story

Joe's Story

Once I identify that structure I stop reading and lose my erection.

Guiding the reader through those transitions is part of the craft, and can create a very rich experience for the reader. In fact as the puppeteer you can use this to your advantage.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I've tried it once, as an experiment. People did find it confusing, but I had fun. I guess you need to be very clear.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I did it recently in a short 3rd-person story (I say Ass, You say Arse) mostly to see if I could, and it worked quite well - both characters' thoughts and actions could be covered, because it's third person. Not sure switching between UK and US English worked so well, but no-one complained about either of those two points.

I think the hate for head-hopping is mostly just that it's usually done badly. And any caption 'Jane's POV' is usually a warning that what follows is a morass of un-edited run-on sentences and all the characters sounding like modern teenage girls even if they're middle-aged Victorian men. I'm sure there's exceptions, but it's not a good sign.

I did a series with the intro from the protagonist's best friend, then protagonist narrates almost all of 13 chapters, with best friend popping up five times and narrating when she does, and new partner of protagonist narrating half of one chapter when protag is out of it.

I'm not very happy with the first section with best friend setting the scene, mostly because I think it deters prospective readers, but on the whole I think the rest of the points of view changes were clearly signposted and worked. (Smoking Hot).

 

[KeithD]

You can do anything you want. It's your story.

This. Then you live with how it was received by readers. The reaction will probably be varied. Then how you react will be determined by how much self-confidence you have.

 

[Payne_Hall]

My thought is that it would be better to do it Joe Abercrombie style instead of head hopping within a single part of unbroken prose.

So, Abercrombie generally has three different perspectives or so. All of them usually start out broken by chapters and the scene jump flows so the eye is trained and every perspective becomes fairly easily recognizable.

Well, when the climax of the story starts, he rapid fire switches perspectives in the same scene (still broken up by divides but not chapters anymore, so it’s pretty obvious the switch and it’s not the same as head hopping in unbroken prose). The effect is frantic, almost panicked, and you can’t stop reading once it starts. It’s pretty damned masterful, giving the sensation that something bad is going to happen. Sanderson does something similar actually.

So, I think you can do something like head hopping in a single scene, but I think, depending on the story, that rule exists because people think there are better options. For instance, I’ve just read a lot of epic fantasy and am used to outright perspective changes.

 

[jaF0]

You can do what you want to. (Horrible song by the way.)

Just don't call me Shirley.

 

[LAHomedog]

I'm going to use the term, "head-hop" as if I had always known what it meant. As though I hadn't googled it just yesterday after seeing an editor's forum post with that phrase in it.

Nowthen: If I was writing a story about a couple having a mutually-shared first experience with someone outside marriage, why can't I jump from the circumstances as reported by the wife to the circumstances noted by the husband?

Because they share a life, aren't they in some way one perspective?

I feel that any couple would talk quite a lot after the experience and share things that they noticed--often things the other person hadn't picked up on. Head-hopping is a way of getting some details and partner-thoughts introduced during the proceedings that wouldn't get there any other way.

It just seems to me that in a wife-sharing story, readers would like to know how each partner is processing an unfolding situation and the feelings of both, rather than the feelings of only one half of the couples equation.

But there are whole web pages dedicated to eradicating head-hopping in any form in any story. No exceptions had been carved out for me and my style.

Shirley, I can head-hop in a couples story, correct?

I believe you can and should write your story however you think is the best way tell it. You just need to create a device within the story that signals the reader that you are hopping to someone else's thoughts.

In writers' rooms, I've heard that called, "Hanging a street light." Like, "Hanging a street light so you know what house number you are currently standing at."

So, you need a "street lamp" -- especially the first few time -- to teach your reader the format of the story. Then they get the rhythm and follow along.

If artists followed the artistic rules set by someone authority somewhere there would never be any new art or visions. Be Picasso, break the rules, create a new rule, and tell your story.

 

[ElectricBlue]

If artists followed the artistic rules set by someone authority somewhere there would never be any new art or visions. Be Picasso, break the rules, create a new rule, and tell your story.

But be very clear whose head you are in. Your street lamp analogy is a good one.

Like Simon, though, I favour close in third person, which solves all the pov hassles. I use it a lot, but even so, the story is generally told by sticking close to one of the participants, and by designating pov shifts breaks very clearly.

* * * *

"Like this, you mean?" asked Alice, gazing at her reader intently, hoping not to confuse them.

"Well yes, but removing that fourth wall might add a whole new level of complexity."

"You'll be fine. Trust your writer and trust yourself as a reader, and the story will sort itself out in the end."

 

[jaF0]

He Said, She Said:

"It is the story of the relationship between journalists Dan Hanson (Bacon) and Lorie Bryer (Perkins) told twice – once from each perspective."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Said,_She_Said_(film)


Much easier to do on film, but there was a book also.

Somehow, you have to establish which POV is the current one. Maybe alternating paragraphs? In a book or on another site, you could alternate fonts, but that wouldn't work here.

 

[gunhilltrain]

This reminds me of that scene in Annie Hall, where they are having a conversation, and there are voice overs that indicate what they are really thinking. It's very funny, but it would be hard to make it work in print.

 

[Bramblethorn]

One pitfall of head-hopping is that it's very easy to lose dramatic tension. When writing about a relationship between two people, questions like "why did they do that?" and "does she feel the same way I do?" can be a very powerful part of the story, and head-hopping tends to short-cut those by providing an immediate answer.

Doesn't make it inherently bad, just means that (like any other technique) one has to think about whether it helps or hinders what you're trying to do with the story.

 

[AlphaLyon]

Nothing wrong with head hopping if your transitions are clear and smooth.
It can be incredibly difficult, however, as when done incorrectly, it feels like the writer is pulling focus and yanking the reader in a way they don't want to be yanked.

 

[Trionyx]

And here I’m 95% through a story with multiple switches in POV. I’ll have to rethink if I want to publish as is or switch. Hmmm...

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Yeah, I do it a lot in 1st person POV, yet not during a sex scene. Usually, at a chapter break I switch to the other character's POV and I tell the reader who is talking up front so as not to be confused.

In 3rd person, it a lot easier to head-hop on the fly, yet you have to tell the reader whose thoughts they are.

I have only had one complaint, but other readers put him in his place.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Can anybody mention some established authors who have used this technique? Updike would occasionally jump from his main character, Harry Angstrom, to describe the POV of his wife or son, and I think a few other characters. I don't remember him using a particular method to make it work. As the reader I was never confused as to who's head I was in.

There surely are other authors who have done it, but I'd have to think more about it. Anybody else have some examples?

 

[JGittes]

Can anybody mention some established authors who have used this technique? Updike would occasionally jump from his main character, Harry Angstrom, to describe the POV of his wife or son, and I think a few other characters. I don't remember him using a particular method to make it work. As the reader I was never confused as to who's head I was in.

There surely are other authors who have done it, but I'd have to think more about it. Anybody else have some examples?

I'm not sure if these examples are head hopping or not.

Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' has two 1st person POVs carefully, and I think seemlessly, weaved together. Basically the narrator provides a description of an initial setting then lets Marlow tell his story. Every once in a while, the narrator adds a small bit of information that Marlow knows but would have to break dramatic tension to say how he knows it. An amazing feat by someone whose native language was not English.

For some reason, after avoiding romance novels for the 65 years of my reading life, I started reading them six monts ago and can't stop. Most are 3rd person, omni POV and fairly standard stuff. The better authors, Robyn Carr being my example, use 3rd person, close-in POV. It's 3rd POV with the camera sitting on one person's shoulder (and plugged into the emotional perspective of that person) and then transferred to another person's shoulder and perspective. Most of the time Carr does a good job of it so you get the direct feeling of the character without all the distracting description a less intimate view would require. When she screws it up, it's noticable, moreso because she does it rarely.

 

[SimonDoom]

Can anybody mention some established authors who have used this technique? Updike would occasionally jump from his main character, Harry Angstrom, to describe the POV of his wife or son, and I think a few other characters. I don't remember him using a particular method to make it work. As the reader I was never confused as to who's head I was in.

There surely are other authors who have done it, but I'd have to think more about it. Anybody else have some examples?

Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove is told in the third person omniscient. He gets inside the heads of many characters. Usually, in a particular scene the narrative is told through the eyes of a main character, but he sometimes slips back and forth and shares the thoughts of different characters within scenes. I think it works well and is not confusing, but he's subtle about it. For instance, in scenes were Call and Gus are together, the dominant perspective might be that of Call, but the narrator shares the thoughts or feelings of Gus and it's not entirely clear if he's getting into Gus's head or sharing Call's impression of what's in Gus's head.

 

[Bramblethorn]

For some reason, after avoiding romance novels for the 65 years of my reading life, I started reading them six monts ago and can't stop. Most are 3rd person, omni POV and fairly standard stuff. The better authors, Robyn Carr being my example, use 3rd person, close-in POV. It's 3rd POV with the camera sitting on one person's shoulder (and plugged into the emotional perspective of that person) and then transferred to another person's shoulder and perspective. Most of the time Carr does a good job of it so you get the direct feeling of the character without all the distracting description a less intimate view would require. When she screws it up, it's noticable, moreso because she does it rarely.

I've read a couple of romances lately that used head-hopping effectively: third person close, switching between the two protagonists at chapter breaks. It shifts the mystery of the story from "does he care about her?" (of course he does, the genre requires it) to "how will these two crazy kids make it work?"

 

[nkdoldman]

Agree and an additional suggestion!

Absolutely, you can "head hop" if you want to. I did it in a mom-son story that became by far my most popular story. My completely subjective thoughts on the subject:

1. Tell the story in third person omniscient point of view. This means it's in third person and you, the narrator, are privy to everything everyone's thinking, and you have the ability to narrate those thoughts to the reader.

2. Don't switch back and forth in first person POV, especially if you switch a lot. Yuck. Confusing. Some people like double first person POV. I don't. 3d person is safer and gives you, the narrator, more freedom.

3. Establish your head hopping early in the story, so the reader gets used to it. What really DOESN"T work is when the reader gets accustomed to one point of view, and then you do the switcheroo late in the story. That ruins it for some readers.

4. Generally, I think it's better to switch POV only at scene breaks, but not always, and especially not always during a sex scene when you want to convey what both characters are thinking in the moment.

5. Be very clear at all times whose thoughts you are telling. You may need to use thought tags, like dialogue tags. Read it over carefully to make sure it's clear.

6. Don't overdo it, and don't switch too frequently. Spend some time in one person's head, and then switch when appropriate, but don't bounce and forth from one sentence or paragraph to another.

7. Find alternative ways to do this. For instance, have them talk to each other and convey their feelings that way. Or have them express their feelings through what they do -- caressing, stripping, kissing, touching.

I'll add one more suggestion that I've seen used very successfully by more than one Author whose stories are available on A****N for really good prices. One pair of Authors who write as a team (Max Monroe) does the "head switching" in every one of their books, and they have thousands of followers. They always change Chapters when they change 'heads', and they don't necessarily stay in the time/day of the event. Many times they'll write during the event from one person's viewpoint (or 'head), and, in the next chapter they'll write from the other person's 'head', but advanced to a day or more later and reviewing what that person felt during the experience.

And, no, I'm not sure I expressed that in a way you can understand, so, if you don't 'get it', my apologies because the fault is obviously mine! SORRY!

nkdoldman