How to fix head-hopping in your fiction manuscript

What is head-hopping?

Head-hopping is when your narration in a particular scene bounces between several character’s points of view without a scene break of some kind.  It’s like the narrator is hopping from head to head to head.  Hence, the name “head-hopping.”

Maria was thinking Bob looked hot today with his bowtie.  She loved it when guys wore bowties.  Bob, however, was hating life and Maria too, for that matter.  Joe just wanted to go swimming.

That’s head-hopping.  You get Maria’s thoughts, then Bob’s, then Joe’s, when you need to stick with just one point of view.

Head-hopping is easy to do when you’re learning to write fiction.  I’m finding that I did it a fair amount in the early parts of my first novel before I learned that wasn’t good.

Head-hopping is generally frowned upon these days and seen as a lack of control of one’s craft. 

  

Now, how do you fix it if you discover you’ve got a head-hopping problem?

There are two ways to do this, I’ve found out.

If you have an extended scene, there may be parts where you’ll want to change points of view because one character’s POV is more interesting/painful/dramatic and you want readers to get the story from that angle.  Try to keep the lens of narration coming from the person who has the most to lose or who is in the most pain.  As the focus of interest changes, do a scene break and take a new character POV.

What if you find your head-hopping scene is short?  How do you fix it? 

It may help to highlight in different colors the different POVs.  Color all Maria’s internal dialogue and opinions with red.  Color Bob’s POV in blue.  Color Joe’s in green.  Then print out the scene so you can see it all in front of you.  The color makes the unique POV of Maria, Bob, and Joe stick out so you can see how much of it is there.  It makes it easy to decide how important to the scene that character’s internal dialogue is. The character with the most important internal dialogue is probably the POV you should retain for that scene.  Everything else you can edit out or find a way for your favorite parts to be conveyed in other ways.  (Or if you have to, you can do the scene over again from the other characters’ perspectives.)

When and how making a story timeline helps

As I’ve been working on my novel, I’ve been writing my scenes non-linearly, working on what I find interesting rather than going in a straight line from past into the future.   With a first novel, I figure that any measures I take to keep me writing rather than quitting are allowed. 

Of course, the result of this was that I wrote a lot of scenes with one side of the love triangle, which left the other side of the love triangle rather undeveloped.  I was then left with the problem of trying to figure out where I could insert scenes with the second love-interest.

This is when it became important to me to make a timeline of events in my story.  Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, etc.  

In my timeline, first I put in what I’d already written according to the time cues that I’d already written.  (Time cues are like “two hours later” or “two days later.”) 

When I looked at that list of days and events, I realized I could compact my story and make it happen faster, so I adjusted my timeline and started adjusting my story. 

(Adjusting the time cues in my story took less time using the program Scrivener than it would have taken if I’d written in Word because in Scrivener you can easily jump to any point in your story without having to search for it.  Fabulous time-saver!)

With a timeline, I could tell where interactions between the overwritten love interest happened, and therefore see where interactions between the underwritten love interest needed to be.

I don’t know if I could have planned my novel on a timeline at the beginning because I was still fuzzy on my plot.  It was only when I had written a pretty decent amount—like 70,000 words-- that it became necessary to be so clear about when things were happening.

Three Dwarfish Poems

If dwarves had Mother-Goose-type rhymes..

"Ruby-Digging"

Ruby-digging in the dark,
Dwarfish eyes asearch and mark.
Diamond-sifting in the light,
Overseen by dragon sight.

Don't you steal a jewel away;
You won't live another day.
Never steal a dwarfish purse,
Fifteen times this rhyme rehearse!
 (repeat ad nauseum)


"How Banking Came to Be"

Bob the dwarf, he made a sword
Put it in his treasure hoard
Guarding it, he soon got bored
He could ill the time afford

Hired he a dragon guard
Fed him well on cakes and lard
Soothed him with a singing bard
Counted cost and found it hard

Moved it all to cave so dank
Let his friends include their swank
Set him up a dwarfish bank
Hired him tellers in a rank


"Metal skills"

Digger gets the gold from ground
Smelter melts it down
Pourer makes the coins so bright
Beater makes the crown

Setter puts the jewels in
Scroller adds the frills
Charmer puts the magic on
All are metal skills

The Tip-off (fiction)

This was written in attempt to answer the question of what life might be like for a psychic pizza delivery boy.

            Just walking up to the front door with the pizza in hand, Jason knew it was going to be difficult to get his tip.  The reclaimed cement lining the front walk, the rusted metal welded into artistic shapes, the cds hanging from the tree branches all spoke of the homeowner as someone who was a determined recycler and confirmed tightwad.  He didn’t have to be psychic to see that.

            He rung the doorbell and waited.  The sun had gone down about ten minutes ago and the glow on the western horizon gave everything a golden outline.

            The door opened and a grizzled, bearded face poked out.  Seeing the pizza box in Jason’s hand, the door was opened a bit wider.  The man had heavy grey eyebrows and sunken cheeks, greasy fingertips and a hacking cough.

            “Pizza for Mister Hanover?”  Jason glanced at the receipt taped to the pizza box.

            “That’s Ha-nover,” said the man. 

            Jason’s psychic senses saw the tip level calculation in Mr. Ha-nover’s head drop a few dollars.  “You must enjoy correcting people who mispronounce your name,” he said.  “When did you decide to pronounce it differently?”  He enjoyed watching the man’s eyes widen and mouth open in surprise.

            “Freshman year of college, huh?  Yeah, I suppose that’s the age to break away from your family, especially when you’re trying to get out from under a dad who’s abusive,” Jason continued sympathetically.

            “Do I know you?” the man’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

            “Not from Adam,” answered Jason cheerfully.  “Twenty-three dollars even, please.”

            “How do you know so much about me then?” asked Mr. Ha-nover as he pulled out his wallet and opened it.

            “Just throwing out crazy wild guesses,” said Jason, adopting an innocent-and-slightly-clueless attitude.   He accepted the two twenties Mr. Ha-nover gave him and handed back a ten and two ones.  “My mom always said I have a crazy imagination.  It starts when I begin making up stories in my head about why people do one particular thing so differently.”  He tucked his own wallet back in his pocket.

            “Really.  You got all that from the pronunciation of my name?”  Mr. Ha-nover leaned against his doorjamb with the pizza box between his hand and his hip.

            “Sort of.”  Jason wasn’t about to explain his abilities at length having pocketed a generous tip.  “We hope you’ll call Pizza Bob’s again soon!  See ya!”  He waved, turned, and jogged back to his car.

            Distraction got them every time, he thought.

How to register for classes at ASU

I ran across this thing that I wrote back when I was going to ASU and was having troubles with registering for classes.  Enjoy.

How to Register for Classes at ASU

1 Wait until the last minute, preferably just before tuition is due. 

2 Avoid visiting an adviser.  (I’ve heard of several people that visited an adviser and ended up taking two or three extra semesters to graduate.)

3 Search for classes.  (Remember, all the ones suggested on your DARS report to help you toward graduation do not in fact exist.)

4 Register for classes.  (Be sure to push the button to confirm your classes. Be sure to push the button to take your classes to ‘check out.'  Be sure to push the button that re-confirms that you REALLY wanted those classes.  You get points if you do this without rolling your eyes.)

5 Reregister for classes.  (Three were cancelled for lack of interest.)

6 Reregister for classes.  (Two were cancelled for lack of interest and because of budget cuts.)

7 Change your major.  (Your major was consolidated out of existence because of budget cuts.)

8 Beg an instructor to add you on the first day of class.  (Carry a supply of add/drop forms.)

The Mysterious Package (writing prompt)

The following is a writing prompt given at a creative writing meeting at the Perry library.. and what I pulled out of it in 10 minutes.

A man receives a package with no return address.  It contains a pirate eye patch and a note.

~~

Cool! I always wanted an eye patch! thought Ron, when he picked it out of the box.  He tried it on.  The black elastic fit perfectly around his head.  It was, of course, hard to see with only one eye, but that was a small price to pay for the awesomeness thereof.  Maybe he'd be able to get a date now when he went to the bars.

But he was forgetting the note.  He went back to the box--a surprisingly large one, considering the small size of the contents--and he picked up the note.  It was unsigned as well.  Too weird.  He hoped it wasn't something psycho, like the anthrax scares of 15 years ago.

"Dear Ron," he read.  "Have received notice of your interest in eye patches and thought to indulge you a little.  This is a special one though, with powers of x-ray vision.  Unfortunately, the activation phrase was reset to be 'Rubber baby buggy bumpers' and I can't figure out how to reset the backdoor."