Beware of Head-Hopping
—Beware of Head-Hopping—
In fiction, mostly. In reality, go for it. Who wouldn’t want to navigate the world on a human pogo stick?
During my first go-around with this whole book-writing thing I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was writing a “book”, sure, but that’s all it really was. It wasn’t quite yet a story. Was that because I didn’t fully grasp 3rd-person limited? Or perhaps I was just ignorant, and unknowingly took for granted the POV in all the fiction I read. Heck, who’s to say 3rd-person omniscient isn’t what it used to be, or that it was no longer “in vogue”? I sure wasn’t.
It was Editor John who opened my eyes here, identifying in my early, shoddy drafts of NIGHTLIGHTER (then called A TALE OF DIMENSION) the myriad instances in which I’d break POV and leave my characters knowing the thoughts and feelings and intentions of those both in and out of their spheres of influence; my characters were bouncing around to and inside the heads of others, i.e., ‘head-hopping’.
In stories with omniscient narrators this is to be expected. The narrator plays God and functions as such, guiding the reader and the story’s characters through the plot. They know everything about the setting, the characters, the conflict(s), the reveals, etc. They are apart from the story or are retelling the story after the fact (though there is a gray area here, as it would then be implied that other characters told the narrator exactly how they were feeling and what they were thinking at that specific time in the story). Read fiction pre-21st century and you’ll find that most of it is written in 3rd-person omniscient. More on my theory as to why? in a later post.
Enter 3rd-person limited. After 1st-person, 3rd-person limited (3PL) is likely what folks are reading if they’re reading literature published in the 21st century. Like 1st-person, 3PL reads more like real life. It’s realistic. We are limited to the POV of just one character at a time, just as we are in life. We can’t know the thoughts of others (unless they tell us); nor can we discern their feelings (unless we are especially emotionally intuitive. Body language also plays a role here. [More on this in a later post on Identifying the Implication]). Characters can infer these thoughts and feelings, but are limited to their own level of emotional intelligence.
Writing in 3rd-person limited is challenging. Because it’s capable of subtle trickery. And it’s this trickery that can take the reader out of your story. For example, when describing something like the eye color of your protagonist (while in their POV) in action you might write something like:
His blue eyes shining in earnest when he saw her.
At first pass, this might seem like a fine action tag that meets the criteria for 3PL, but at closer inspection we find a couple of issues:
How often do you describe the color of your own eyes? Can you see your own eyes? Further, how often do you think about the color of your eyes—especially when in action, i.e., when you’re doing something?
Second, unless you are looking in a mirror or some other reflective surface while ascending these stairs, you have no way to see A) the color of your eyes; and B) how your eyes are ‘shining in earnest’. Only an omniscient narrator, or another character observing your action has the ability to observe such things—and that’s assuming the eyes are objectively ‘shining in earnest’ which, absent say a post-modern lens, is impossible to confirm.
Editor John taught me a helpful trick to catch these types of POV missteps when writing in 3PL: Imagine you as your character. Write about them as if you are them. Can you know the thoughts of others? The feelings?* The intentions? Can you see yourself and know exactly what you look like all the time? If the answer is ‘no’, words like seemingly and apparently and likely are helpful qualifiers to enhance the believability of the action. Or, better yet, rewrite the action in a way that targets the action of the character through their POV, not that of an omniscient narrator or outside observer.
Here’s a simple revision of our action tag:
He found his eyes in hers, a deeper shade of blue than he’d last remembered; they shone in a quiet desperation, as if he was seeing her again for the first time.
Head-hopping in 3PO can be a fun exercise, but it’s not often the most enjoyable to read; it dissolves tension and has a tendency to take us out of the story. 3PL is not so much the cure, as it is an alternative. Because many of literature’s great works are written in 3rd-person omniscient. They just don’t read as realistically as 3rd-person limited.
In short: 3PL reads like real life. And real life is relatable.
Drop me a line if you disagree.
That’s all for now.
-Taylor
*Assuming that your protagonist does not possess some telepathic (or other) ability to discern outright the feelings of others.
TJH -- 04.14.2025
AI-generated image of the revised action tag.