What do you think about head-hopping?

[BlackKnightX]

Head-hopping is considered bad in the writing community, but there seems to be a lot of them in web novels. I can argue that those stories are written in omniscient POV, but it’s still head-hopping.

Now, let’s look at why it’s considered bad. Without getting into too much theory and bullshit, it’s simply bad because:
- It’s confusing.
- It feels less immersive.

That’s it. These seem to be the most objective reasons I can think of. (Let’s not talk about the subjective reason, like: “It just feels cheap” or “That’s cheating!” nonsense.)

But, without any bias, what if a story does head-hopping with good transitions? What if the narrator transitions from one head to another without confusing the readers? Are you okay with that? What if every time the narrator gets into each character’s head, they get deep with all the character’s voice and everything? Will that still make you lose immersion?

The real question here is: do you still mind head-hopping if it’s done right?

 

[SailusGebel]

What is head-hopping?

 

[Paul_Tromba]

I have done mind hopping but my way of doing it is having a 1st person point of view for my MC and a 3rd person point of view when focusing on any other character. There is also a chapter break or a scene break between shifts of viewpoints so that it isn't confusing. I don't think that this is wrong or poor writing because it takes a lot to be able to switch points of view without it feeling unnatural. I also don't think it alters the immersion as you still get a sense of what is going on but you know that everything other than the MC is being viewed from the outside. If done properly it won't be confusing. The whole head-hopping thing where everyone gets a 1st person's view is also a personal opinion thing as many people enjoy these head-hopping stories while others like yourself don't. It's just a writing style that not everyone has to enjoy but many do.

 

[Ilikewaterkusa]

Head-hopping is considered bad in the writing community, but there seems to be a lot of them in web novels. I can argue that those stories are written in omniscient POV, but it’s still head-hopping.

Now, let’s look at why it’s considered bad. Without getting into too much theory and bullshit, it’s simply bad because:
- It’s confusing.
- It feels less immersive.

That’s it. These seem to be the most objective reasons I can think of. (Let’s not talk about the subjective reason, like: “It just feels cheap” or “That’s cheating!” nonsense.)

But, without any bias, what if a story does head-hopping with good transitions? What if the narrator transitions from one head to another without confusing the readers? Are you okay with that? What if every time the narrator gets into each character’s head, they get deep with all the character’s voice and everything? Will that still make you lose immersion?

The real question here is: do you still mind head-hopping if it’s done right?

I don’t care if it’s done badly, I’m not a soyboy like 99.99% of the population that needs the story ‘s style to cater to their whims

 

[BlackKnightX]

What is head-hopping?

You know about POV, right? Head-hopping is when you tell a story in one character’s POV—you stay in that character’s head—and then you suddenly hop into another character’s head.

For example:

Adrian didn’t know why Lucy had said that. Things were already bad in this house, but now that she had said that, it just made things even worse. He glared at Lucy, gritting his teeth so hard it might shatter.

At the same time, Lucy just ignored Adrian. She didn’t care about the consequences that might follow. She’d already made up her mind about this. To her, this house was doomed long ago. No point in worrying about it now.

That’s about the rough example. It’s not the best, but it illustrates the point. As you can see in the first paragraph, we stay in Adrian's head. We know what he’s thinking about at the moment. And then in the second paragraph, we hop into Lucy’s thoughts. That’s head-hopping.

 

[SailusGebel]

You know about POV, right? Head-hopping is when you tell a story in one character’s POV—you stay in that character’s head—and then you suddenly hop into another character’s head.

For example:

Adrian didn’t know why Lucy had said that. Things were already bad in this house, but now that she had said that, it just made things even worse. He glared at Lucy, gritting his teeth so hard it might shatter.

At the same time, Lucy just ignored Adrian. She didn’t care about the consequences that might follow. She’d already made up her mind about this. To her, this house was doomed long ago. No point in worrying about it now.

That’s about the rough example. It’s not the best, but it illustrates the point. As you can see in the first paragraph, we stay in Adrian's head. We know what he’s thinking about at the moment. And then in the second paragraph, we hop into Lucy’s thoughts. That’s head-hopping.

It's considered bad?

 

[BlackKnightX]

many people enjoy these head-hopping stories while others like yourself don't.

Wait, wait. I‘ve never said I don’t enjoy head-hopping. Rather, I love them. One of my favorite novels is written this way, and I just love it. My first series also does a lot of head-hopping. I just post this thread to hear your opinion, since there seems to be such a rule in a “serious” writing community.

It's considered bad?

It would seem so, yes. You might not know this if you’ve never been in one of those writing communities for the so-called “serious writer” before, but yeah, there‘s a rule against head-hopping. I don’t really care about it, of course, since I don’t like being limited and like to do thing my way. I just want to hear what you think about it since this is very prominent in the modern traditional novels in the market.

 

[SailusGebel]

It would seem so, yes. You might not know this if you’ve never been in one of those writing communities for the so-called “serious writer” before, but yeah, there‘s a rule against head-hopping. I don’t really care about it, of course, since I don’t like being limited and like to do thing my way. I just want to hear what you think about it since this is very prominent in the modern traditional novels in the market.

Yeah, I don't give a shit about rules. If it's done well, I have no qualms with head-hopping.

 

[Daitengu]

When done right like in the Dune series it's fine.

When there's multiple povs in a single chapter and no indication as to who's thinking/talking? Confusing AF. Which happens alot in web novels.

 

[Gryphon]

Head Hopping is fine for me. My series has multiple POV's and I usually head hop, but I only do it when I'm doing a scene transition, when there's a time skip, or if its a new chapter. I also make it pretty obvious who they're following by placing the majority of context clues within the first paragraph.

I also get more complicated with head hopping as time goes on. For the first 30 chapters I only head hop between my main two characters, but I slowly added in more characters perspectives. But I make sure to place enough context clues in order for the reader to figure out who they're following.

I find that head hopping is extremely easy to do first person, since first person is a lot more restrictive and its hard to go out of bounds. Third person is a lot harder to keep in check, especially if its omniscient or objective third person.

 

[Fox-Trot-9]

There's no real hard-and-fast rule against head-hopping. In fact, there's several published novels that have head-hopping in them (like Catherine Coulter's FBI series, Toni Morrison's Beloved, and Earnest Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea). Only, head-hopping in these cases is more like a more controlled version of omniscient POV, which is just one omniscient POV that goes into the heads and feelings and backstories, etc., of multiple characters.

 

[Mellohwa]

I love head-hopping, I like to know the consequence of Mc's action from others' perspectives the most. Especially if there's the misunderstanding tag in a story.

 

[K5Rakitan]

I've been accused of head-hopping on writing.com. I argue that I am writing in omniscient POV. Therefore, I'm doing head-hopping correctly.

If you disagree, please give me a one-star rating. If you agree, please give me a one-star rating. If you neither agree nor disagree, please give me a one-star rating.

 

[Minx]

I entered this thread thinking you guys were talking about a new monster with just a head hopping around—yeah I need to get my meds.

 

[NotaNuffian]

Hi, a retard over here.

What's the diff between head-hopping and 3rd person?

Imho I thought 3rd person is supposed to give something like a near-omnipresent view for the readers so that they are not as blind as their MC who is in a location while the actions are all at the other castle? Then the next advancement for 3rd person, to me at least, is to go inside the head of people and see what they actually think about the issue instead of them doing obvious gestures and emote themselves while their thoughts are not aligned with the current situation due to conflict inside head?

As I was typing this, I understand the chaos it presents as well as guessing why the "community" banned head hopping, but to me, that is the next step in fully knowing the characters that aren't MC.

 

[ElliePorter]

What is head-hopping?

You slice the head of your enemy with a sharpened axe or sword and their head falls off their neck and hops a short distance away from their body.

 

[Temple]

The "modern" style of writing now in English is third-person limited - this is basically first-person written in third person, so it's the voice of the pov character in third person, including thoughts, mannerisms in speaking, world view, etc., and of course, he can't speak about things he don't know about.

Third-person omniscient is has an altogether different narrator, so this shouldn't take on the "voice" of the character the narrator is talking about. Head hopping occurs when it's third-person limited for everyone in the story. I can give examples, but the difference between the two is like hard to visualize unless you consume a lot of omniscient style in the first place, which most of us don't. Anyway, moving on to head hopping and light novels.

One of the writing style of Japanese in light novels is a hybrid first person-third person pov. We don't have this style in English writing and if you do this, it's considered wrong in English. For simplicity's sake, this is translated to head hopping third person in English. And that's why a lot of light novels have head hopping. If you're used to translated light novels, you'll accept it too. Like me. But when I self-studied English and writing in English, I moved away from head hopping too. And that's why most web/light novel readers are fine with head hopping.

Another example (more like an anecdote) of translation shenanigans is the tense of Japanese writing. A pretty common tense in webnovels is historical present tense - we have historical present tense in English but that is super rare to use in novel writing. For simplicity's sake, this is translated to just straight up past tense in English. If, however, the LN translators really translated historical present tense Japanese to what it should look like in English, then most web/light novel readers now would also accept historical present tense even though it's not really done in English writing.

 

[BlackKnightX]

I've been accused of head-hopping on writing.com. I argue that I am writing in omniscient POV. Therefore, I'm doing head-hopping correctly.

If you disagree, please give me a one-star rating. If you agree, please give me a one-star rating. If you neither agree nor disagree, please give me a one-star rating.

The difference is in the perspective and voice.

The story written in the omniscient POV only have one perspective and one voice—the storyteller’s. Of course, they have access to all the character’s thoughts and everything, but they still tell the story in their own voice.

Head-hopping happens when you suddenly change perspectives in one scene and thus changing voice into that different character’s.

Put simply, omniscient POV is one entity that knows everything, head-hopping is multiple entities trying to fit in one scene.

Hi, a retard over here.

What's the diff between head-hopping and 3rd person?

Imho I thought 3rd person is supposed to give something like a near-omnipresent view for the readers so that they are not as blind as their MC who is in a location while the actions are all at the other castle? Then the next advancement for 3rd person, to me at least, is to go inside the head of people and see what they actually think about the issue instead of them doing obvious gestures and emote themselves while their thoughts are not aligned with the current situation due to conflict inside head?

As I was typing this, I understand the chaos it presents as well as guessing why the "community" banned head hopping, but to me, that is the next step in fully knowing the characters that aren't MC.

3rd person POV can zoom in and out of the character as you want, but unlike omniscient POV, it only have access to one character’s thoughts. So, you can only stay in one character’s perspective, telling a story from their own voice.

The story written in the omniscient POV only have one perspective and one voice—the storyteller’s. Of course, they have access to all the character’s thoughts and everything, but they still tell the story in their own voice.

Head-hopping is just multiple 3rd person POVs trying to cram themself into one scene. It shifts without any warning or notice. Unlike omniscient that tells the story by one voice, head hopping will tell from multiple voices from different characters.

 

[BearlyAlive]

A Song of Ice and Fire wants to have a word with you. Those books have more POVs than most hopping stories.

Head hopping is a means to an end. Kind of like tropes. If used well, it enhances the story but most of the time it just backfires

 

[BlackKnightX]

The "modern" style of writing now in English is third-person limited - this is basically first-person written in third person, so it's the voice of the pov character in third person, including thoughts, mannerisms in speaking, world view, etc., and of course, he can't speak about things he don't know about.

Third-person omniscient is has an altogether different narrator, so this shouldn't take on the "voice" of the character the narrator is talking about. Head hopping occurs when it's third-person limited for everyone in the story. I can give examples, but the difference between the two is like hard to visualize unless you consume a lot of omniscient style in the first place, which most of us don't. Anyway, moving on to head hopping and light novels.

One of the writing style of Japanese in light novels is a hybrid first person-third person pov. We don't have this style in English writing and if you do this, it's considered wrong in English. For simplicity's sake, this is translated to head hopping third person in English. And that's why a lot of light novels have head hopping. If you're used to translated light novels, you'll accept it too. Like me. But when I self-studied English and writing in English, I moved away from head hopping too. And that's why most web/light novel readers are fine with head hopping.

Another example (more like an anecdote) of translation shenanigans is the tense of Japanese writing. A pretty common tense in webnovels is historical present tense - we have historical present tense in English but that is super rare to use in novel writing. For simplicity's sake, this is translated to just straight up past tense in English. If, however, the LN translators really translated historical present tense Japanese to what it should look like in English, then most web/light novel readers now would also accept historical present tense even though it's not really done in English writing.

It’s understandable why Japanese light novels do a lot of head-hopping and break the so-called writing rules that English creative writing makes up.

A lot of light novels are adapted from web novels (just like on this site and many others). The writers are immature who only learn from what they’ve read on the site and develop a similar style. More than that, they also get a lot of influence and inspiration from anime and manga, so it’s only natural to try to imitate one. That’s also the reason why a lot of light novels focus more on action and dialogue and less description—it’s because it’s moving fast and easier to read. It just gives off the same feeling as watching anime, reading manga, or playing visual novels.

As for Chinese web novels, they’re mostly told from the omniscient POV with only one voice and perspective—the storyteller’s. They have access to anyone‘s thoughts, any history of the setting, any character’s backstory, etc.

Korean web novels are similar to English’s novels. They only stay in one character’s perspective throughout the scene and use scene-break when shifting into another’s. The difference between Korean’s web novels and English’s novels seems to be the “show, don’t tell.” Korean web novels tell a lot—as you can see by the use of narrative summary. It feels like reading fairy tales.

The real head-hopping that’s not omniscient POV can come from all types of these novels. But if you think about it, it’s only natural to do so. Most web novels and light novels are inspired by anime and manga where head-hopping is natural. In anime, you get to hear different character’s thoughts in one scene.

In my opinion, I think head-hopping (I mean the real one, not omniscient) is fine as long as it’s not confusing. Though, readers who are used to English’s novels may not like it as much, since they’re not used to it.