Comments on: In Defense of Head-Hopping

By: Linda Maye Adams

Linda Maye Adams — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 13:05:17 +0000

Um, no, that’s not what omniscient is. I hate to say it, but if you think of it as head hopping, then you probably are head hopping. Head hopping happens when a writer can’t really make up his mind what viewpoint to use, so he wants to tell everyone’s story. The result is UNCONTROLLED POV shifts.

Omniscient viewpoint is actually ONE viewpoint. It’s an all seeing narrator who is visiting all these characters and telling there story – sort of like the storyteller who sits down to tell you a story. Writers have a really hard time understanding what Omni is because they’re trying to frame it from regular third person, so it can look like multiple viewpoints.

In terms of moving from character to character, there’s a shift in the wording. The narrator will go down into the character’s head, then pull out with a few sentences, then shift over to another character. It’s actually hard to do in the learning stage because you really have to make that shift that gets in there. Because Omni is so misunderstood and so much reported is incorrect, you have to go to the source. Find Omni writers. Study them.

By: Rita M. Gardner

Rita M. Gardner — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 23:21:52 +0000

Thanks for your post, Anne (and glad to see another She Writes author in this space.)
I’d not heard that term (head-hopping)- and so far haven’t written anything that warrants its use (since my work has been essay and memoir.) But reading your post will make me think as I read others’ works and see how they do it!

By: Stuart Pereira

Stuart Pereira — Sat, 28 Feb 2015 14:53:30 +0000

Music to my ears. I have struggled to conform to third person POV and now shaken off the shackles. The plots of my thrillers move too far and too fast with too many characters for anything other than omniscient. Let the comeback begin.

By: Katherine Hajer

Katherine Hajer — Sat, 28 Feb 2015 12:49:45 +0000

Thank you for this! Head hopping has grown from legitimate criticism to an attack on the third person omniscient voice. I can see some uses, like switching from one POV to another for only a few sentences, being called out for good reason, but an entire, recognised, traditionally used narrative voice? No.

I’ve seen a lot of criticism that almost sounds like bird-watching: “Head hopping! I found head hopping! You’re not supposed to do that!” Just a recognition of the structure, with no analysis of the actual text.

By: Anne Leigh Parrish

Anne Leigh Parrish — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 16:20:33 +0000

Linda,

Thanks so much! I hope you’ll give the novel a look and see if I pulled everything off.

By: Linda Sienkiewicz

Linda Sienkiewicz — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 14:53:19 +0000

Anne, yours sounds like a fascinating novel. Omniscient is not as common as it once was, and it’s not easy to pull it off. I recently read “Panic in a Suitcase,” which has an omniscient third person narrator. It was so wonderfully done. It sounds to me like you know what you’re doing.