Imagine you’ve just arrived at a party. The host greets you warmly and leads you to a fellow guest. You start chatting and seem to be bonding nicely … when your host grabs your arm and yanks you across the room to another guest. Again, you start chatting and find them fascinating. You’re very keen to learn more about them … when your host reappears, hoists you over their shoulder and plonks you down in front of yet another guest.

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No matter how interesting all the people you’ve met are, the chances are you’re feeling pretty fed up by now … and wondering if perhaps you should go home and read a book.

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If so, you’d better hope that the author hasn't fallen into the trap of head hopping – or it really won’t be your night.

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Head hopping, in essence, is what we have just seen at the party. Rapid shifts of narrative viewpoint that don’t give the reader a chance to build up empathy with any of the characters.

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In the example below, Sam is an undercover police officer who has been trying to get a job as a bar worker at a night club. The owner, Jimmy, is suspected of running an organised crime empire from his club.

 

Sam watched as Jimmy lit the cigarette with a deft flick of the lighter.

He didn’t blow the smoke at her, but didn’t exactly blow it away from her either. She held his gaze, searching for a smile on his thin lips. Not even a hint.

‘Is there anything else...?’ said Sam. This should have gone through on the nod. No big deal hiring a new barmaid when, like all his workforce, they were so disposable.

Still he looked at her.

He couldn’t have recognised her, surely? There was no link … But that look he’d given her…

She touched her hair briefly … telling herself it was to convey the nerves a real barmaid would be feeling … despite knowing it hadn’t been a conscious act.

Jimmy nodded slowly. His finger had barely left the buzzer when Vin appeared, filling the doorway.

‘Vin,’ said Jimmy, finally smiling. ‘I’ve got a little job for you.’

 

This scene is told entirely from Sam’s perspective (third person limited, to use its technical term). We are privy to her thoughts, her growing unease about the way things are going, but everything we know about Jimmy comes from observations that she makes.

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We have no idea why he’s looking at her so hard, why he’s even bothering to see her when he’d normally leave it to an underling.

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Has he recognised her as a police officer? If so, what will the consequences be for her, alone in the heart of his empire?

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This produces a growing tension, which comes to a head when Vin arrives to do a ‘little job’.

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Now let’s look what a little head hopping will do to the scene:

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Sam watched as Jimmy lit the cigarette with a deft flick of the lighter.

He didn’t blow the smoke at her, but didn’t exactly blow it away from her either.

She was a cool one, looking him in the eye like that. Did she think she could read him? Good luck with that.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d got involved with hiring a barmaid. That’s what Vin was for.

‘Is there anything else...?’ said Sam. This should have gone through on the nod. No big deal hiring a new barmaid when, like all his workforce, they were so disposable.

Still he looked at her.

He couldn’t have recognised her, surely? There was no link…

Sam touched her hair briefly … telling herself it was to convey the nerves a real barmaid would be feeling … despite knowing it hadn’t been a conscious act.

Jimmy nodded slowly. The new venture … red heads were thin on the ground - maybe that’s why so many men liked them.

In the meantime, he did still need a new barmaid. Vin might as well show her the ropes. His finger had barely left the buzzer when Vin appeared, filling the doorway.

‘Vin,’ said Jimmy, finally smiling. ‘I’ve got a little job for you.’

 

In this example, we can immediately see how the ping-pong effect of tension dilutes the empathy we feel with Sam. Just as we’re seeing things through her eyes, we’re yanked over to Jimmy's side of the desk and planted inside his head.

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It’s hard to feel as though we’re in Sam’s shoes when we’re seeing her appearance and behaviour described by a third party.

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What’s more, the immediate tension totally evaporates as we realise that Jimmy has no idea that Sam’s a police officer. She’s in no immediate danger and Vin is going to do nothing more sinister than show her how to use the till and where to put the empties.

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A new tension is introduced, of course, in the form of Jimmy’s ‘new venture’ and his plans to involve Sam in it. But this is a major plot development that needs to be teased out slowly, not presented in such an obvious way.

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The first example ends on a dramatic note with the arrival of Vin and would make a good point to conclude a chapter.

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While the reader will soon see that Sam doesn’t come to any harm and isn’t in immediate danger, there will still be a sense of unease about why Jimmy was so interested in her.

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This feeling of mystery is lost completely in the second example as we know exactly what Jimmy is planning.

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Most readers will instinctively get a feeling that something isn’t right with the narrative after reading a piece like the second example. Just to be clear, though, let’s look in more detail at why head hopping is something to be avoided.

 

1. Lack of empathy

For many of us, part of the joy of reading is to inhabit the shoes of another character. We see, hear and feel the world as they do. Their past is our past, and their hopes and fears are our hopes and fears. No matter how comfortable we are in our own skin, there’s nothing like a bit of escapism and through the magic of books we can be a suffragette fighting for women’s rights, a Cold War secret agent, a member of a mission to Mars and countless other characters from the past, present and future.

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Head hopping drags us abruptly out of those personas as we switch between narrative viewpoints, and reminds us that we are actually sitting at home reading a work of fiction (possibly because the party we’ve been to was rubbish!). 

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2. Loss of mirroring of real life

We spoke in the previous point about escapism – something many of us are looking for when we read a book. In order to achieve this, we have to feel fully immersed in the world we’re reading about – and the best way to do this is through the eyes of one of the characters.

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The more we inhabit the shoes of another, the more we feel we’re part of their world, and the more eager we are to learn more about what’s happening there. There is a mirroring of real life at play here. We know all there is to know about ourselves but can only guess about other people’s thoughts and feelings through the visual clues they are giving off. Head hopping shatters the illusion because it’s so at odds with what happens in real life, and reminds us that we are in a world constructed by the author.

 

3. Loss of mystery and suspense

There’s a good reason why virtually every Sherlock Holmes story is told from the perspective of Doctor Watson rather than the master detective himself: to allow for the heightening of mystery and suspense.

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Arriving at the scene of an apparently unsolvable crime, Holmes will carry out a detailed examination (often down on all fours) and question the servants and local police inspector about the facts of the case.

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All we know of what’s going through Holmes’s mind, however, is what we and Watson can deduce from his behaviour. Apparently insignificant facts and findings seem to grab his attention. We have no idea why and so the tension builds and builds until the great man reveals all at the denouement.

Imagine if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were a less skilled writer and started head hopping. We would observe Holmes crawling about on all fours from Watson’s perspective, only to find ourselves suddenly inside Holmes’ mind, privy to his line of reasoning and why those marks or footprints he’s found are the key to solving the case.

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At a stroke, all the mystery and enigma surrounding Holmes has gone. We may still finish the story but the identity of the culprit will be far less of a surprise, and the read a far less enjoyable one.

 

This loss of mystery and suspense leads us on to:

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4. Making it too easy for the reader

Millions of us enjoy crosswords, sudoku or trivia quizzes in the newspaper. We can sit there for ages in anguish as we try to come up with the right answer. Logically the best thing to do would be to look up the answers at the back of the newspaper and then get on with something else.

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But that would defeat the whole objective … we actually enjoy the challenge of studying the question and trying to come up with the right answer. And that’s just how it is for many readers. Trying to guess what’s going to happen next and how everything will be resolved is an essential part of the experience; the journey can be just as enjoyable as the destination. 

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To move deftly from Sherlock Holmes to Miss Marple, we find that she has gathered everyone together in the drawing room to run through the case and reveal the killer. Everyone present (and the reader) hangs on her every word, wondering who she is going to point the finger at.

Had Agatha Christie gone in for head hopping, though, much of what the super sleuth tells us would already be old hat and we may well have already guessed whodunit.

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If you’re going to use more than one point of view, vary it from chapter to chapter or section to section (a new section occurs within a chapter when the action moves to a new location).

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Head hopping in novels: Conclusion

Inexperienced authors sometimes fall into the trap of head hopping in the belief that they are providing readers with a valuable insight into the thoughts and motivations of a number of characters that will intrigue and engage them.

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In reality they are making it hard to empathise with any one character or to create any mystery or tension.

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While it can add variety to a novel to use a number of viewpoints, this should be done between chapters or sections so that readers have the chance to get to know each of the viewpoint characters. 

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