Author: Susan Uhlig

As a reader I prefer close third person viewpoint or first person point of view. (Yeah, even in the face of a lion!) Both help me be invested in the main character. Since I know his thoughts, experience what he is experiencing, I can identify with him. I can salivate for what she is eating, feel cold because she is, be anxious about what she’s worried about. Either viewpoint done well helps me get “lost” in the world of the book.

This translates to my own writing. I express what my main character knows, hears, sees, feels, tastes, touches. My main character can’t know what someone else in the story is thinking or doing out of sight. She can guess. She can learn about it from another character. He can spy on another character. He can ask. But I don’t hop from one head to another. In my opinion this makes a story more realistic—after all, I can’t tell in real life what the people around me are thinking, or what they are doing when I’m not present.

I’m not alone in wanting to avoid head hopping.

In a post called “Headhopping, Authorial Intrusion, and Shocked Expressions,” I love what author Anne M. Marble said about her example text: “Either that scene had headhopping or Blythe is psychic. How else would she know what both Anthony and the waitress are thinking and experiencing?”

Author Marcy Kennedy agrees, “Head hopping damages your story because it makes the writing feel choppy. Readers constantly need to pause, however slightly, and figure out who they’re supposed to identify with.”

“…when the narrator switches from one character’s thoughts to another’s too quickly, it jars the reader and breaks the intimacy with the scene’s main character.” – author Joe Bunting.

“Keep the reader in one head, one heart, at a time.” – fiction editor Beth Hill. Ooh, I love that emphasis on heart. And it works whether you are writing in first person or close third person point of view.

I think writers sometimes have trouble staying in one head due to knowing what the other characters are thinking. Writing third person may make it easier to slip up. Author and teacher Jane Friedman has a good post to help: “6 Tips for Writing Deep Third-Person Point of View.”

Writing in first person may be easier, but there are also pitfalls, such as the overuse of “I.” Here’s a helpful post by author Sharon Short: “Six Secrets to Writing from the First Person Point of View.”

I will read books in omniscient point of view—especially if they change from scene to scene or chapter by chapter—but they aren’t my first choice. If you want to learn more about that pov, check out this article: “Omniscient Point of View: 10 Pros You Should Know About” by author and coach Karen Cioffi.