Head-Hopping In Your Book

Head hopping is when you are writing a chapter in one point of view but slip into the thoughts, emotions, or views of another. This can be jarring to readers as well as cause confusion in your storyline. 

It can happen in any manuscript, but you’ll see this especially in third person limited, so for those of you thinking of writing in that POV, I highly encourage you to keep this in mind. Check out the full video, “Head-Hopping In Your Book,” here.

I know most of you are thinking, “Duh, I’m writing from my main character’s POV. Why would I switch, mid chapter, to someone else?”

But you’d be surprised how often, and how easily, it can accidentally slip in.

The big errors to catch are when we’re hearing a different character’s thoughts, seeing what they see, gaining their knowledge  because we’re gaining insight into a situation that our character wouldn’t or shouldn’t know. It’s probably going to catch you after a second re-read of the first draft. 

But there are smaller cues as well—action and emotion that only the secondary character can see, feel, or interpret. These can be harder to catch because they can be small and minute, and they can be just moments instead of paragraphs, but still head hopping. 

And the biggest reason head hopping happens, especially accidentally, is because your writer brain has realized that your readers need to know a piece of information and you haven’t yet figured out how to give it to them through the main character. Or maybe they can’t know it – and you possibly need to switch your POV third person limited to multiple POV third person limited. So, still seeing from one POV at a time—again, to avoid head hopping—but switching at the chapter.

To play off my example on 1st person POV vs. 3rd person limited, which if you haven’t watched, definitely go back and do so. 

But as an example, if you are writing a story and your main character is a baker, but your story is a murder mystery that needs a lot of time spent at the police station, is your baker going to give the reader enough of a view of the world, of the investigation, on their own to show your story? You don’t want a situation where you have to have the police constantly coming to the bakery to tell your MC about what happened. Not only because of info dumping, but because you want as much action on the page from the POV that you are in. You also don’t accidentally want to hear the cop thinking about what happened when the main character is listening to him explain. Or at least, you don’t want that in third person limited.

So, choosing your point of view wisely, and choosing how many characters’ points of view you have in your story is vital. Keeping a close eye on making sure you aren’t head hopping in your chapters is a key component to making sure your story is clear for your readers so they can stay engaged with the main characters.

I hope this has been helpful!