3 Ways To Eliminate Head Hopping When Writing

Head hopping. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s when the reader is placed inside the head of one or more characters within the same scene. Why is this bad? Well, for starters, it’s confusing.

Jumping from one character’s inner thoughts to another within close paragraphs and sentences makes it hard for a reader to keep track of who is thinking and feeling what, and when it comes to writing, you don’t want confused readers.

Readers who are unsure of what is happening will put a book down without finishing it, one-star it, or tell others not to bother. You want your writing to be as clear as possible so your readers can follow the story, bond with the characters, and revel in your genius plot twists. Ensuring you aren’t head hopping is one way to achieve that, and here is how you can eliminate it from your writing.

3 Ways To Eliminate Head Hopping When Writing1) Pick A POV Character And Stick With Them

Whatever scene or chapter you are in, it should be from one character’s point of view (POV), and that point of view only.

Obviously, there can be other characters in the scene, interacting with the POV character, but everything from how the setting looks, feels, smells, and the internal reactions to what is happening in the scene should only filter through to the reader via the POV character.

Switching from the MC describing their shock at seeing a person hit by a car, to side character #2 describing how the same event is making them feel nauseous, means that you’ve head hopped.

Staying in the head of the POV character but showing externally how a different character reacts can be done without that head hopping, and that’s when you opt for elimination method #2—distance tricks!

2) Employ Distance Tricks

Since your POV is from one character, you need to use them to relay everyone else’s reactions.

Because you can’t directly show what the other characters’ internal thoughts are or what they’re feeling via their heads, use your POV character’s observation skills.

They can tell the mood of another character via dialogue, actions, and what the POV character sees and hears.

As an example, our POV character, Carla, asks the other character, Jenny, to help her move a large box.

Carla nudged the box with the tip of her sneaker.

“Jenny, can you help me with this?”

Her friend’s gaze narrowed on the box’s size, and Jenny crossed her arms.

“That’s a little too big, don’t you think?”

It was too big for Carla by herself, but surely, with Jenny’s help, she could bring it inside. “If you just grab the other end, we can pick it up.”

“Ugh.” Jenny stomped over, kicking the box with her shoe before letting out a sigh.

In this simple example, Jenny didn’t want to help and was annoyed by the size of the box. Instead of hopping into Jenny’s head to show this to the reader, we use the POV of Carla to get the same info across.

This is done via what she sees, such as Jenny’s gaze narrowing at the box, crossing her arms, and Jenny stomping over. Jenny’s annoyance is further displayed by what Carla can hear in Jenny’s dialogue and with Jenny’s sigh at the end.

With the viewpoint character, they can tell you everything they’re seeing, thinking, and feeling, but any other character needs to show it, via dialogue and audible cues like grunts and sighs, and with physical manifestations, such as jumping up and down to show they’re excited.

Another way to make the most of distance tricks is by having your POV character observe or hear an outside source.

A news report blasting from a TV in a café, a blog headline flashing on their phone screen, or a cryptic conversation overheard on the train during the morning commute all work just as well without you having to pop inside the head of another character.

3) Use The Highlight Method

Now, if you’ve already written your book and weren’t keeping track of head hopping, or are now paranoid that you’ve done it, you can check your text using the highlight method.

This involves getting your hands on some different highlight colors (either digitally or physically if you’re working from a printed copy) and assigning one color to the POV character.

With that specific color, highlight their name and everything in your words that point to them being the POV character, such as statements like:

She saw.She heard.She felt.She needed.She knew.Internal thoughts and observations.

Read the rest of the text again, and look closely at the sentences around the other characters in the scene. If you can use another highlight color to mark POV statements from anyone else, you’ve head hopped, and the scene needs to be rewritten.

While you might think head hopping isn’t one of the worst writer sins to commit, or that plenty of classic books pull it off, know that they’ve mastered the rules and broken them. You, more than likely, aren’t in that league yet, and eliminating head hopping will only benefit your book.

Besides taking out the confusion, no head hopping means more of an emotional impact for your scenes. Your readers get that by bonding with your POV character. If you’re switching from one character’s head to another in quick succession, they can’t connect with your POV character. Without that connection, they won’t want to follow them to the last page or the next book.

If you work on leveling up your other skills as a writer, head hopping isn’t needed, and you’ll see that there are better ways to gift your readers information, and in more creative ways that you will both appreciate more.

— K.M. Allan

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