What is Head-Hopping & Why Should You Avoid It?
Head-hopping happens when a writer switches between narrators within a scene or chapter. The effect can be jarring and confusing to readers, who can’t be sure which character’s head they’re in at any particular point in time.
An example of head-hopping: Graham stared at the wide screen, gripping the steering wheel with one hand while holding his girlfriend’s hand with the other. His stomach fluttered from the large soda he’d suckered down minutes into the movie. Now, he couldn’t take his eyes off the drive-in showing of Scream. Jessica grew nervous and sidled closer to Graham. She was more focused on the silence than the movie. Graham clenched her fingers when the masked stalker launched onto the screen.
Breakdown of example: The narrative is in Graham’s /point of view (POV). Thus, how would Graham know that Jessica is nervous? How would Graham know Jessica is more focused on the silence than the movie? Staying in Graham’s narrative will help avoiding the confusion of head-hopping. To avoid head-hopping, you could rewrite the line, “Jessica grew nervous and sidled closer to Graham” to be, “Jessica sidled closer to Graham, eyes darting around.” This follows the rule of show, don’t tell, as it SHOWS his anxiety. Additionally, I would cut the following line, “[Jessica] was more focused on the silence than the movie” completely. Again, how would Graham know that Jessica is focusing on the silence between them rather than the movie? He would have to be a mind reader to know all of this narrative from Jessica. This is head-hopping because it puts the reader in Jessica’s head rather than Graham’s.
Here are ways to avoid head-hopping:
In first person, using multiple POVs isn’t a problem because writers can just shift between scene(s) using section breaks and/or chapter(s).
When working with multiple characters in third person, stay inside the head of the protagonist throughout the novel.
Again, in third person, if you WANT the internal actions/reactions/emotions of more than one character, you MUST break them out into a separate scene(s)/chapter(s), and then carry that narrative through your entire story.
