Beware of Hopping Heads

I've been blogging about how to write more literarily.  This one is actually how to write more like modern literature rather than traditional literature, with a focus on modern YA literature.  There was a time that the distant, omniscient narrator was the way of all writing.  A writer could tell you what was happening in John's head one paragraph, Sylvia's the next, and their garbage man a third.  The writer could play a wild game of checkers, with pieces in their command moving however they wanted. 

Now, readers, as a rule, prefer the intensity of learning the interior world of one, two, or a select few characters.  They like first-person or third-person limited.  Readers, especially young readers, like a book like Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series in which we follow the ins and outs of one character in first-person.  They also like Riordan's Heroes of Olympus series, wherein there are multiple perspectival characters, but we follow in third-person one character for a chapter or a few chapters then switch to another for more chapters.  Or, they like J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series in which we never leave Harry's head.  He may observe Voldemort through his dreams, but we're still firmly in Harry's mind. 

Older literature, even children's literature, hops heads all the time, without chapter changes or even section changes.  If you pick up books like Tamora Pierce's Lioness Rampant series or even Roald Dahl's Matilda, among several others, a narrator can hop heads two, three, four or more times a chapter.  At the time, this was the norm, just how they did it.  Now, a writer is advised to avoid such random head-hopping. 

If you want to hop heads, it's a rule of thumb to make at least chapter or section divisions.  If I want to appeal to a modern reader and editor, I'll no longer write, "John looked at Sylvia and marveled at her beauty.  She looked back at John and wondered when he would take a shower."  Instead, I'll write, "John's longing eyes turned toward Sylvia's lovely face only to catch her nose wrinkle and eye roll as she leaned away from him."  I see her response to the world through her body language but firmly remain in his head, at least this chapter.  Next chapter, I can hang out in her head a while.  Or I can just stick with John the whole book, reading the world through his eyes. 

Go through something you've written recently.  Is there any section in which you're intentionally or unintentionally jumping from head to head like on the 90's series "Quantum Leap," without changing sections or chapters?  Is there a time in the middle of one section where your character, mind-reader like, magically knows what someone else is thinking or what actually motivates another WITHOUT having telepathy?  If so, it's time to tweak your writing to avoid head-hopping.  Your reader will thank you for it.