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Q&A What is "head popping" and why is it bad?

Most of my writing experience has been with first person, nonfiction stories. Now I want to try some fiction. I'm working in third person, but I'm a little bit confused about how to pull something ...

1 answer  ·  posted 11y ago by Tim Elhajj‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T02:31:09Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/6355
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Tim Elhajj‭ · 2019-12-08T02:31:09Z (over 4 years ago)
Most of my writing experience has been with first person, nonfiction stories. Now I want to try some fiction. I'm working in third person, but I'm a little bit confused about how to pull something off.

Okay, say I'm telling the story from character A's POV and he's talking to character B, suddenly character A says something where I think it might be interesting if the reader were to know exactly what it is that character B is thinking and or feeling at that very moment in time that Character A said whatever he said.

Can I not just write a new sentence saying whatever it is I want the reader to know? Can I not just change the POV from sentence to sentence by simply indicating to the reader that Character A felt this. And then Character B felt this. And so on and so forth?

Is this not the purpose of the omniscient narrator?

I've been told I've got it wrong. I've heard the term "head popping." I guess my question is what is head popping. Is it a bad thing to do? If so, why is it bad? And by that I mean: How does it hurt the story?

Can anyone think of a good example of a popular book that uses this type of effect?

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2012-09-19T00:07:15Z (over 11 years ago)
Original score: 11