Anyone else know?

You note that Conrad performed head-hopping
within a paragraph. I’m trying to find this,
with little success. Can you direct me to
which of Conrad’s works had this?

Thanks,

Robert Q.

And, yes, this is complicated by the number of people who don’t seem to know what omniscient pov is.

(2) I myself find first and limited third really easy and omniscient amazingly difficult (my attempts at omniscient tend to slide into limited third whenever I’m not paying close attention), but it’s an individual preference, like everything else. I have friends who find limited third backbreaking and omniscient a cakewalk.

So in workshops when I talk about character development, and ask editor type questions like ‘what’s at stake?’ or (gasp) mention the four letter P word (plot), they look at me like…well, like I’m head hopping. And something I’ve observed is that it’s led to a lot of confusion, because most of these people still write fairly conventional stories, but don’t understand how to construct a narrative—there’s often no climax or shift or character development (and of course while you don’t need all of these all the time, there needs to be some point to telling a story).

Penni: You and me both, darls. I’d love to hear if any of these stupid rules come up in your masters course. Are Australians being taught this ridiculous anti-head hopping rule? Or is it as I suspect a purely American madness?

But seriously, I think in this day and age I expect multiplicity, I expect to be able to see things from more than one point of view. It’s sort of what separates us from the monkeys, isn’t it? Even if a narrative doesn’t head hop (I love that term, I might have to introduce it into my daily vernacular)…a story is in and of itself already being told from at least three points of view: the author, the narrator, and the reader. We are much more conscious now than we ever were of the unreliability of any narrator.

I’ve started doing a Masters in Creative Writing and it’s very interesting being back in a classroom after working in the industry for so long as an editor and then as a writer. I must admit I am not sure these people are actually being taught to be better writers though

Oh, no—it’s all over, e.g., the reading community of fan fiction. Some of whom have taken writing classes (for good or ill), but the vast majority of whom have not. I think they generalized too broadly from a good beginning, from “shitty head-hopping must go!” to “all head-hopping must go!”, but, that is fanfic for you.

I never ever came across that idea until I met people in the genre writing community here.

I’ve also heard from several American editors that one of the things they change in UK and Oz books they buy is to make the authors rewrite to reduce head hopping which means that readers aren’t as exposed to good head hopping which just increases their insane idea that all head hopping is bad.

It’s deeply depressing.

Except me, of course!

When I first starting writing, there was someone in my critique group who insisted that first person POV was amateur and that I should never, ever, use it. She got so hung up on the fact that most of my stories were first person, that she ignored all of the other things that she might have commented on and ranted about it every time. I tried to point out that a lot of new young adult literature was written in first person, but she wouldn’t budge. It was very annoying.

In the end you just have to write your story the way you feel works best. You can always change it later if it doesn’t work. It isn’t like a painting where it is harder to fix things when you mess something up. A writer can always rework something.

Elizabeth is right that it’s omniscient that allows you to do this. As Sherwood says a hundred years ago omniscient was the dominant pov. The writer was god and could go wherever they wanted. I am all for the writer being God.

Lili: Those writing rules are like the exact opposite of the MFA rules in the US. That’s hilarious.

I must confess that I am a fan of second person (when done well). Black Idol by Lisa St Aubin de Teran is fabulous. And the proscription against using anything but “said” has gotten crazy and led to a real blandness in certain MFA driven adjectiveless, adverbless, “said” overloaded books.

David and Harriet: There are some wonderful present tense books out there. Most, if not all, the stories in Kelly Link’s Stranger Things Happen are in present tense and they’re awesome.

Never say never. There’s a present tense book out there you’ll love. In fact I bet you’ve already read and adored one.

Scott: You know, I think you’re right about it being a US of A thing. I’d never come across the anti-head-hopping injunction before I spent time there.

I think that the real problem is establishing switches in viewpoint without having established a default narrator, so that the poor reader is flitting from brain to brain as if to stand outside a brain for a moment were to cease to exist. I can think of many classics of American SF literature that use omniscience — Dune, e.g. — so it’s a very recent phenomenon. I would have said it was a bottom-up phenomenon as well, based on my discussions with readers, but the audience and the editors are giving/getting the same message.

I read a lot of chick lit, which is commonly in FP present, and I think present works just as well as past. it doesn’t feel artifical or weird to me at all. libba bray’s a great and terrible beauty is in present tense and it’s marvelous.

I don’t notice headhopping unless I can’t follow it. I don’t notice anything unless it’s bad. If it’s good I’m too busy gobbling.

that being said, i like to write with clear delineations, because i’m anal like that.

I reckon we readers mostly don’t notice the pov unless it’s not working for us. I certainly don’t. On a first read I’m caught up in the story and rocking along. If you asked me what pov the last few books I loved were in I bet I’d be scrabbling to remember.

I’m sure there are excellent present tense books out there. But as a reader I often find it artificial, and somewhat distancing. If the writing is good, and/or I can see there is a genuine reason for using present tense, then it won’t stop me from enjoying the book. But it’s definitely become a bit of a hurdle. I can’t remember ever thinking “that is a fantastic use of present tense”. I’m more likely to just think “that is a fantastic book”. I probably have read present tense books I’ve loved, but I can’t think of any offhand – probably because the present tense was so well written and well integrated that I was all but unaware of it.