Comments on: Thoughts on Head-hopping PoVs. https://glendalarke.com/2013/03/thoughts-on-head-hopping-povs/ Sat, 13 Mar 2021 10:20:56 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 By: Helen V. https://glendalarke.com/2013/03/thoughts-on-head-hopping-povs/#comment-18421 Fri, 15 Mar 2013 03:50:10 +0000 #comment-18421 I suspect that head-hopping done well – so you know exactly whose head you're in – isn't a problem. The trouble is not everyone does it well and then it's jarring and distracting. That Georgette Heyer does it well so you don't even notice it proves the point.

]]> By: Glenda Larke https://glendalarke.com/2013/03/thoughts-on-head-hopping-povs/#comment-18420 Thu, 14 Mar 2013 04:45:45 +0000 #comment-18420 I like your analogy, Jason. "Mental whiplash" can indeed throw one out of the story for a moment… definitely happened to me a number of times in this particular book, but given its success, I wonder if most readers even notice?

]]> By: Jo https://glendalarke.com/2013/03/thoughts-on-head-hopping-povs/#comment-18419 Wed, 13 Mar 2013 03:46:30 +0000 #comment-18419 Hm, not something I have registered as happening although I am sure it must have, I read so much. Annalou mentions Georgette Heyer doing it and I have read all of her Regency romances a dozen times or so. Don't remember Dune, years since I read it, it was never that much of a fave with me.

]]> By: Jason https://glendalarke.com/2013/03/thoughts-on-head-hopping-povs/#comment-18418 Wed, 13 Mar 2013 03:14:16 +0000 #comment-18418 I find head-hopping within a scene to be jarring and disconcerting. You are seeing the world through one set of eyes, and forming a view of the world through the senses of that character. That character becomes our avatar, to some extent, in the world, for at least that chapter.

Suddenly hopping between different viewpoints gives a kind of mental whiplash, a disorientating shift in perspective.

We experience the world through our own viewpoint, rather than many. Perhaps it's a way of inducing a kind of multiple-personality disorder!

]]> By: Glenda Larke https://glendalarke.com/2013/03/thoughts-on-head-hopping-povs/#comment-18417 Wed, 13 Mar 2013 01:56:28 +0000 #comment-18417 This comment has been removed by the author.

]]> By: Glenda Larke https://glendalarke.com/2013/03/thoughts-on-head-hopping-povs/#comment-18416 Wed, 13 Mar 2013 01:55:52 +0000 #comment-18416 Dune, ah yes. I — 20 years after reading it — STILL remember that wonderful scene where Herbert takes the reader inside the head of all those at the dinner table, one by one, to hear what they were thinking. Oh, yes.

]]> By: Anonymous https://glendalarke.com/2013/03/thoughts-on-head-hopping-povs/#comment-18415 Wed, 13 Mar 2013 00:10:49 +0000 #comment-18415 Glenda, I am DYING to write an entire omniscient head hopping novel, but I don't think I have the skill just yet. Every time I read Frank Herbert's "Dune" (which is fairly often), I think: I MUST TRY THIS!

But not yet. You're many books ahead of me, though, maybe you should give it a try!

Thoraiya

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