{"id":5558,"date":"2016-04-15T07:33:52","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T11:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5558"},"modified":"2016-04-15T07:33:52","modified_gmt":"2016-04-15T11:33:52","slug":"head-hopping-a-bad-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5558","title":{"rendered":"Head-Hopping: A Bad Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"rabbit,

Doesn’t matter how you dress it up, head-hopping is still bad (photo: Ross Little, creative commons license)<\/p><\/div>\n

Fiction-writers struggle with the issue of point of view. Whose point of view should a story or part of a story be told from? What point of view will create the most impact for readers? Should it be first person (I\/we), second (you, rarely used), or third (he\/she\/it). Should the whole story be told from one character\u2019s point of view or several?<\/p>\n

The mystery\/crime novels I write tend to alternate points of view between scenes or chapters (victim-detective-victim-criminal-detective, etc.). And that\u2019s what got me into trouble. I became so comfortable thinking in different heads, I forgot I shouldn\u2019t combine<\/em> them in one scene. Or I got to the point where I couldn\u2019t tell when I did!<\/p>\n

Jumping from the thoughts of one character to another within a scene is called \u201chead-hopping<\/a>,\u201d and will earn an author severe black marks from prospective agents, editors, and publishers. Why is this important? Because it\u2019s confusing for readers.<\/p>\n

My editor was happy to point this out. I\u2019m just thankful I couldn\u2019t look into her<\/em> head when she was marking up my manuscript. And here I thought I was p.o.v.-savvy (previous post<\/a>)! I\u2019m leading a discussion on point of view today, and here\u2019s an example of head-hopping I developed for the group, taking one of my scenes and making it only a teensy bit worse head-hopping-wise than the original. I\u2019ve underlined<\/u> how you can tell whose head you\u2019re in and inserted some explanations in italic<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cTwo men in Vatican maintenance uniforms and hardhats were setting up safety barriers marked \u201cDo Not Cross\u201d atop both sets of crypt stairs.
\n\u201cWhat\u2014?\u201d Father Maratea looked up at them from the bottom of the steps. [Since we have his name, and, to him the others are the anonymous \u201ctwo men,\u201d reader will assume we are in Father Maratea\u2019s head<\/em>.]
\n\u201cGood afternoon, Father.\u201d The shorter of the two, a remarkably pale man, smiled broadly. \u201cWe\u2019re here to repair the wiring under the crypt floor.\u201d He spoke quickly, and turned serious. [Father Maratea could conceivably detect that the man turned serious, so this is still in his head, but getting iffy.<\/em>] \u201cOnly a matter of time until\u2014\u201d
\nFather Maratea didn\u2019t understand<\/u> any of this, but he\u2019d caught one unexpected<\/u> word. \u201cFire? This building is stone. Stone doesn\u2019t burn.\u201d [definitely Maratea\u2019s head<\/em>]
\n\u201cSure, the parts we see are stone, but underneath there\u2019s subflooring and sub-subflooring.\u201d The man remembered another danger<\/u>, and said, [oops! HOP!<\/em>] \u201cAnd, we have to do it today. We can\u2019t expose hundreds of weekend tourists to the risk of a major combustion event, toxic fumes.\u201d
\nThe tall man nodded, impressed by Nic\u2019s gift for invention<\/u>. [oops! Hopped into the other man\u2019s head.<\/em>]
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A<\/span>They let<\/u> Father Maratea think for about a half-minute [now you\u2019re definitely in the thieves\u2019 heads<\/em>] before the first man glanced around and sniffed the air, as if a malodorous smoke might even then be curling up the crypt stairs<\/u>. [could be either thief\u2019s head or Maratea\u2019s<\/em>.] \u201cThe quicker we get started, the sooner we\u2019re done.\u201d
\n\u201cOh, all right,\u201d the priest said, perplexed by the difficulties this posed. [the thieves might be able to detect that he is perplexed, so this gets only a caution.<\/em>]
\nFather Maratea turned to them. \u201cHow long will this take?\u201d His tone was peevish. Something about the pale man nagged at him, but the thought wouldn\u2019t take shape<\/u>. [Oops! HOP!!]<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure my editor was tearing her hair out at the merry way I jumped around here. But now I\u2019ve fixed all that and am moving smoothly ahead, no hops!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fiction-writers struggle with the issue of point of view. Whose point of view should a story or part of a story be told from? What point of view will create the most impact for readers? Should it be first person … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Head-Hopping: A Bad Thing for writers","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[174,29],"tags":[492],"class_list":["post-5558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-draft-blog","category-writing","tag-writing-tips"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1rE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5560,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5558\/revisions\/5560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}