Multiple POVs Does NOT Mean Head-Hopping

Complex stories engage multiple characters in a variety of situations, and it is completely acceptable to tell those stories from more than one character viewpoint. But multiple character POVs does not necessarily mean head-hopping which should be avoided at all costs.

Let’s examine the subtle but key difference.

Head Hopping

Many older books employ this technique as their stories are told with an omniscient narrator who can fully explain what every character is doing and thinking.

Here’s an example from the first few pages of Dune by Frank Herbert where Paul Atraides has just passed the gom jabbar test of the Bene Gesserit and his mother Jessica returns to the room:

Jessica stepped into the room, closed the door and stood with her back to it. My son lives, she thought. My son lives and is… human. I knew he was… but… he lives. Now, I can go on living. The door felt hard and real against her back. Everything in the room was immediate and pressing against her senses.

My son lives.

Paul looked at his mother. She told the truth. He wanted to get away alone and think this experience through, but knew he could not leave until dismissed. The old woman had gained a power over him. They spoke truth. His mother had undergone this test. There must be terrible purpose in it… the pain and fear had been terrible.

This opening chapter is ostensibly told from Paul’s perspective, but this selection starts with clear insight into what Jessica is thinking before shifting back to Paul’s thoughts about the test. By presenting both perspectives through an omniscient, observing narrator, Herbert paints a complete picture of everything going on.

Herbert does this through the book, hopping from one head to another to explain the emotional impacts of the scene.

Deep POV

But, as popular as omniscient narrators were in the 1950s and 60s (Dune was published in 1965), they have fallen out of favor over the last couple of decades. Instead, publishers want and authors write more “Deep POV” which basically means committing, in depth, to presenting a story through a character’s eyes.

Only events that a character actually sees or hears (or senses themselves) are written. If somebody gestures behind them, they can’t see it. What other characters think, they can’t hear it—though interpreting body language and facial expressions can certainly convey emotions.

An excellent example of Deep POV is in Martha Wells’ All Systems Red, the first book in her Murderbot Diaries series. Here’s an excerpt from the first chapter where the android SecUnit—the POV main character—has just saved a pair of scientists from a creature attack:

[Bharadwaj] was unconscious and bleeding through her suit from massive wounds in her right leg and side. I clamped the weapon back into its harness so I could lift her with both arms. I had lost the armor on my left arm and a lot of the flesh underneath, but my nonorganic parts were still working. Another burst of commands from the governor module came through, and I backburnered it without bothering to decode them. Bharadwaj, not having nonorganic parts and not as easily repaired as me, was definitely a priority here, and I was mainly interested in what the MedSystem was trying to tell me on the emergency feed. But first I needed to get her out of the crater.

During all this, Volescu was huddled on the churned-up rock, losing his shit, not that I was unsympathetic. I was far less vulnerable in this situation than he was, and I wasn’t exactly having a great time either. I said, “Dr. Volescu, you need to come with me now.”

He didn’t respond. MedSystem was advising a tranq shot and blah, blah, blah, but I was clamping one arm on Dr. Bharadway’s suit to keep her from bleeding out and supporting her head with the other, and despite everything, I only have two hands.

This passage clearly presents what the SecUnit is seeing, doing, and thinking, including information it recognizes it is ignoring. The passage also specifically does not include any thoughts from either of the two scientists who would most likely have very poignant opinions of what is happening. Only the POV of SecUnit is presented.

The reason behind this Deep POV approach is to make a stronger connection between the main character and the reader. Instead of being somewhat distant from a story with an omniscient narrator where the reader watches as a neutral observer, a Deep POV puts them in the head of that main character so that when they are betrayed, are loved, or achieve their goal, the reader is right there along with them feeling the same emotions. (Hopefully. If the story is well written.)

It is a deeper, more cathartic reading experience.

Multiple POVs

Complex stories often have multiple characters, many of which are important to the story and may take the lead at times. This is totally expected.

But, instead of jumbling the perspectives together, or jumping from one to another in the same scene, they need to be distinct and separate. Clear indications to the reader need to show that the story is switching from one character’s POV to another so that the reader can disengage from the first character, take a breath, and re-engage with another character, getting into the right “headspace.”

The best approach for authors is to only switch POVs when the scene changes and there is a clear scene break identifier, not just a transition to another location or time. A clear break. Chapter breaks work the best, but a definite scene break also can work.

Summary

It is fully normal for novels to have several characters who provide their perspective to the events of the story. It is common for three or four characters to present their POVs at some point. The Expanse by James SA Corey starts with two main POVs in the first book, Leviathan Wakes, but they regularly have four character POVs in later books. George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones is book one) has no fewer than eight main POVs that his story follows.

Write your story from the character perspectives that are needed. Just be clear to the reader when the POV switches occur and avoid head-hopping.