Is Alternative POV the same as Game of Thrones?

Same here. I just started Stephen King's Salem's Lot (his second novel) and he head-hops in it. Again, I rarely have an issue with it, and I'm not having any at the moment. I'm tempted to keep a list of popular/successful stories that utilize head-hopping, for forum debate if nothing else.

 

Does he really? Surprising, Salem's Lot is like his peak. I'd think at his best he'd be capable of sliding subtly in and out of different POV's or doing it at chapter breaks rather than just cutting directly between them.

I mean, is it confusing? As long as the reader knows what's going on it's not really head hopping.

 

Well, that would basically mean it's totally subjective. What's confusing for one reader may not be confusing for another. My definition of head-hopping allows for each reader to decide whether or not it's confusing, as opposed to yours, and it has an objective criteria: that being a POV shift without a chapter break or page break.

 

My definition only adds one part. I'd say a chapter break, page break, or moving out of one POV and clearly transitioning into another.

Example:

John lowered his rifle and surveyed the field. Across the ragged expanse of raw earth dotted with clumps of grass and weeds stood his uncle, his own WWII-era rifle lowered as their eyes met. Uncle Henry's eyes hardened and his face became stone, then he lifted the rifle and took aim directly at John.

'How has it come to this?' Henry wondered as he squeezed the trigger. He watched his nephew drop to the hard ground and roll behind a copse of tall grass. Was he hit?
​

I used a paragraph break here, but I also transitioned out of John's head into 3rd person objective briefly before moving in on Uncle Henry. Did you see the piece I posted a while back where I analyzed how it was done in a short story? The first time there was a double-spaced paragraph break, then once the reader was used to the idea of switching between 2 POVs the author no longer used even paragraph breaks, he started switching mid-paragraph, but always transitioning out into 3rd objective and then moving in into the next characters head. I think there was always a sort of 'shallow' POV sentence first, like Henry wondered how it had come to this. Once you've transitioned like this you're free to go all the way in and relate the next character's thoughts directly. I left out that initial shallow thought in my example above, it seemed to work just to go in deep immediately. Just wanted to present the 'stepping process' as another way to ease the transition.

Modified example, without paragraph break:

John lowered his rifle and surveyed the field. Across the ragged expanse of raw earth dotted with clumps of grass and weeds stood his uncle, his own WWII-era rifle lowered as their eyes met. Uncle Henry's eyes hardened and his face became stone, then he lifted the rifle and took aim. Henry wondered how it had come to this, war against his own flesh and blood over political ideas. Is this really worth killing each other over? Would John have shot at me?
​

Is it head hopping? I don't know, there's no hard definition. It's less head-hoppy than just jumping straight inside without the transition. I don't think I'd use it myself, but maybe after I get some more experience and want to start pushing the limits of what I can do, who knows?

I think the important thing is that people see ways of doing it, so they can evaluate which ones work and which ones don't. I'm not so concerned about the definitions of terms.

 

I found the analysis I was talking about. Lol, turns out it's a little ways up on this thread.

Click the little upward-pointing arrow in the text box above to be magically transported there.

 

By my understanding, yes. No chapter break, no page break, which means it's written with the intention of seamless reading. Whether or not that type of POV transition is confusing or jarring is left up to each reader.