First Fiction Sell

In my email box this morning:

“Hi Lacey,

I’m pleased to inform you that your submission, ‘The Man in the Mirror‘ has been accepted for publication in Queer Dimensions.”

And I am very pleased to be informed of that! As far as my New Year’s Resolution goes: 2 pieces are now awaiting publication, with 1 to go to meet my goal; and I’ve sent off 5 submissions with 1 to go, which I’ll work on as soon as I’ve posted this. My email folder labeled “success!” is growing. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: it’s amazing how your chances of publication go up when you start submitting your work.

8 alternatives to head-hopping

OK, now that you’ve all indulged me in my head-hopping rant, it’s time to explore some skillful alternatives to head-hopping. I also want to make clear that when I write about head-hopping, I’m talking specifically about point of view shifts within the same scene. I have no bone to pick with books having multiple points of view; that’s as good a way to tell a story as any. So, how DO you reveal all necessary information without resorting to head-hopping?

1. Dialogue. Of course, there are MANY cases in which it’s inappropriate or unbelievable for one of your characters to say exactly what he’s thinking. But I’m amazed at how many times I’ve read a manuscript where head-hopping is involved to convey information that the characters could have just as easily said out loud–or at least, eluded to out loud. This is an especially viable option if you find yourself head-hopping for only one paragraph or two in a scene that is otherwise shown from the perspective of a singular character.
2. Body Language. Writers often use head-hopping to convey the emotions of more than one character in a scene. But no matter how hard we try to hide it, our bodies often put our emotions on display. If your non-viewpoint character is getting angrier and angrier the longer your viewpoint character talks, describe that in a way that’s observable to your viewpoint character and that, therefore, allows you to stay with one point of view while still conveying the perspective of the other point of view. For example: Jack noticed that as he continued to describe the situation, Jill’s fingers had slowly curled into fists. (Even an effort to conceal emotions comes with its own set of body language.)
3. Your viewpoint character’s knowledge of your non-viewpoint characters. If your viewpoint character knows the others in a scene well, she can often correctly and believably interpret their emotions or thoughts without the need to head-hop. For example: Jill knew Jack would be unresponsive to her proposal to go bungee-jumping; he’d hated anything that had to do with heights since he’d fallen down the hill.
4. Scene breaks. This one is pretty basic, but it works wonders. If you’ve been writing from one character’s point of view and want to switch, leave a couple blank spaces or another visual cue to your reader that there’s going to be a transition. This method can be employed even when the scene “technically” stays the same. For example, if you’re writing about a dinner party and you wrote the first two pages from Jack’s perspective, but want to finish the party off with Jill’s, leave a couple blank spaces to signal to your reader that there’s a shift before picking up with Jill. AND cue your reader immediately that the new section is coming from a different character’s viewpoint, so your reader doesn’t scratch her head about why those blank lines just showed up in the scene. (Of course, if you’re employing this technique every couple paragraphs throughout the whole story, you really ought to reexamine the story’s structure.)
5. Flashbacks. If you want to examine two characters’ perspective on the same scene, you don’t have to head-hop within the scene to do it. Instead, write the scene first in one character’s point of view, and then have your second character flashback to the scene at a later time to convey Character Two’s perception of events.
6. Reflection. Similar to #5, a reflection is like a “flashback lite.” Usually when head-hopping occurs, it’s because you want to convey just a bit of information from your second character. This bit of information is easy to slip into the story elsewhere, when you’re in the second character’s point of view. For example: As Jack did the dishes, his mind drifted back to his conversation with Jill. He couldn’t believe she had the gall to suggest they go bungee jumping!
7. Eaves-dropping. I’m not above eaves-dropping, and your characters shouldn’t be, either. Just because a secondary character might not say something to your viewpoint character doesn’t mean she won’t say it to someone else or write it in her diary. Just make sure you don’t overuse this one; you want a protagonist who participates in the action at least as much as she spies on it.
8. Head-flowing. Use this one with caution, as there’s a fine line between head-hopping and head-flowing. In this case, your scene has provided a justifiable bridge from your viewpoint character to another character. For example, maybe your viewpoint character has passed out, or left the scene, and rather than follow her into dreams or the next room, you’ve decided to keep your camera trained on the current setting. In this case, you’ll need to find another viewpoint character to pick up the slack when your primary one has left. Especially skilled authors can also get away with flowing between character perspectives in a way that isn’t jarring or disorienting, as though their moving their camera gently from one character to the next.  But the majority of the point of view shifts I read in unpublished work are not this kind of skillful, masterful command of all characters and point of views in a scene.

Sometimes head-hopping happens so unintentionally that you might not notice it until a reader points it out (that’s why writers’ groups are so handy). If you have a tendency to head-hop, read over a scene (or rewrite a scene, if it helps) as if your viewpoint character in that scene were telling it first person. You don’t have to change the “She’s” to “I’s”, but at least imagining this will clue you in to the specific limitations of your viewpoint character’s perspective, and therefore what pieces you may have to pick up from another perspective later in the story.

Further Reading on Head-hopping

An Executive Editor’s Take on Head-hopping

Headhopping, Authorial Intrustion, and Shocked Expressions

PoV Mechanics

Pick a head and stay there

If you’re in my writers group, or if you’ve ever received a critique from me, you can skip this post, because you’ve heard me harp on head-hopping before. This is definitely one of my hang-ups as an editor, and it’s also probably the mistake most often made by new writers; I’ve only read one or two unpublished, third-person manuscripts in which head-hopping wasn’t an issue.

Head-hopping is when you takes your reader inside more than one person’s head in a single scene. A scene can be written from a distance, in which everything described is something that a third party could observe. But the minute you get inside someone’s head–by revealing his direct thoughts, motivation, or perception of events–you really ought to stay there. Here’s why:

• Head-hopping makes your reader dizzy–or it gives her a head-hopping headache. She’s reading along, seeing the world approximately the way your character Tom sees it. But then, wait a minute, now she’s seeing the world the way Jamie sees it. But not for long, because now she’s seeing it the way Tom sees it again. Imagine if you were actually inside your characters’ bodies, and you literally jumped out of their body every time point of view shifted. It’s jarring and exhausting. Worst of all, it makes your reader have to work harder than you want her to. You may have put great effort into writing your story, but you  want it to be effortless to read.
• Head-hopping decreases your reader’s intimacy with your characters. We read fiction because we identify with at least one character and want to see that character succeed. But if you’re only giving readers short peeks into different characters’ points of view, the intimacy you want your reader to feel with your characters quickly disintegrates. You want your reader to feel “right there” with your character, as if she is your character. And jumping out of your viewpoint character’s perspective shreds that sense of intimacy.
• Head-hopping decreases dramatic tension. The constant question on your reader’s mind should be, “What happens next?” By revealing the inner workings of more than one character in the same scene, you’ve robbed your reader of the thrill of wondering. Your reader should wonder, “Wow, why is Jamie acting that way?” By hopping into Jamie’s point of view mid-scene, you burst the bubble of dramatic tension that’s key to the success of your story.

Now, I know every writer likes to think her story is the exception to the rule. Here are some common justifications writers give for head-hopping.

• “Such-and-such published writer head hops all the time!” For every rule in the book, you’ll find a published writer who breaks it. But until you’ve mastered the craft enough to consciously rule break, or until you have an editor with a publishing house who is giving her blessing to your rule-breaking, make your story as easy to read as possible. And that means, nix the head-hopping.
• “My story is told third-person, not first-person! I can get into as many heads as I want in a third-person narrative.” Technically, this is true. But it’s still not a good idea. Third-person narratives still have protagonists, and you still need your reader to identify with at least one character. Just because it’s not an “I” narrative doesn’t mean your reader shouldn’t still feel like she’s the “I” of every scene.
• “I need to use multiple perspectives in the same scene to convey all the information necessary in that scene!” To this, I say, Stop being lazy. There are a lot of ways to convey the information you need to convey; utilizing every character’s point of view in key moments is just the easiest way (after all, if all your characters have a piece of the puzzle, jumping into everyone’s head is a sure way to allow the reader access to all those pieces). But the easiest way is not necessarily the best way.

I’m quite passionate about this topic, but as this post is getting quite long, I’m going to wrap it up here. Tomorrow I’ll follow up with viable alternatives to head-hopping, especially as it relates to the “conveying necessary information” excuse.

On Writing Spaces

Last week, my friend Jenny wrote about the importance of writing spaces — how objects from her past held her back, and how a thorough clean and “upgrade” of her space brought her face to face with a slight fear of success. (My interpretation; you can draw your own conclusions by reading the post here.)

I read A Room of One’s Own when I was in college, and I don’t remember whether Virginia Woolf’s thesis of women having less success as writers because they had less private space resonated with me then, but it definitely resonates with me now. It resonates with me so much that I used it when I was applying to live in the artists’ coop where I live–insisting that I needed a room of my own (I was renting a room from a rather rambunctious family at the time) to properly do my art.

Now that I’m “stranded” at my parents’ place longer than expected due to the accident, I’m finding it nearly impossible to write. In fact, I always find it nearly impossible to write when I’m here, but usually I just let it slide because I’m not usually here this long. It’s hard for me to believe that my life as a writer actually started here. But maybe that’s because back when I lived here, I did have my own space. Now, my options are my laptop on the dining room table, or the rather slow and virus-y desktop in my parents’ bedroom. Both places are fine for the short blurbs I write for work and for these blog posts. But they’re daunting places to sink into writing something as serious as fiction.

Still, I know I have to get past this roadblock, because I’m trying to write a short story and I’m on a deadline. But here’s the guilty truth: even though the list I posted last Friday looked so shiny, writing the start to my short story was like pulling teeth; I wrote just over 500 words in an hour (not a rate I’m impressed with), and I haven’t returned to it yet, despite firm resolve every night to pick it up again “in the morning.”

So while writing spaces are important — and while, by golly, we certainly deserve them! — we can’t let them become just one more excuse not to write. Because the truth is, Jane Austen wrote novels in her family’s sitting room. I wrote my first novel in my parents’ bedroom, where I’m writing this now. I’ve moved my desk around several times in my current apartment, and I’ve written novels on it in every place. I wrote novels huddled under my room-mate’s bunk in college; I even rewrote one novel and started another while rooming with the rambunctious family. I can certainly manage a short story at the dining room table.

Let’s pretend that never happened

I admit, I feel a little embarrassed to show my face here again after my unplanned and unexpected Thanksgiving absence. I can most certainly give very good excuses, but that doesn’t change the fact that I wish I would have found a way to write here, anyway. When I was a kid playing dolls with my sister, when one of them did or said something really stupid, we could invoke the magic words: “Let’s pretend that never happened.” The doll got to preserve his dignity, as if making a fool of himself were just a bad dream. In real life, this doesn’t work quite as well. Denial, as useful as it is, is at best a temporary state.

The good news is that you CAN invoke the all-powerful “it never happened,” when you write fiction. You can wipe the slate clean or even just tidy it up around the edges. As I was entering the last week of my NaNo, I became aware of what the ending should be, and I was giddy with its discovery. The problem was, there were some details in the beginning of the story that would make the ending come across as a little less believable. I tried and tried to attach that ending to what I had like trying to jam pieces together from two different puzzles. And then, eureka! I realized all I had to do was make minor adjustments to the beginning, and the ending would fall into place. And since endings are the hardest part for me (I feel a little jealous of writers who see the ending with perfect clarity before they begin), making some changes to the beginning seemed a small, not to mention obvious, price to pay.

I think that as writers, we often think that, as soon as we’ve put it on paper (or screen), we’ve written it in stone. We’ve sealed our characters’ fate. But we haven’t. We get to change our minds in writing in a way we can’t in our own life. We get to pretend it never happened — and by our very pretending (and judicious use of the “backspace” bar) — we can make it so. What a wonderful world.