Flashbacks, place your bets...

[Deleted member 604]

Greetings Fellow Writers,

I think it's time for one of my Brainpicks again, which I do hope to make a regular thing.
Don't forget to check out Carol's Craft Chats :-

Craft Chat

Live discussion to learn about the industry, to encourage each other in our writing, and to learn our craft

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And I'm sure her latest is due soon @Carol Rose

Flashbacks is the first of two Brainpicks this week Inspired by Sundays POP-UPs, if you missed it or haven't had chance to catch up yet.
The link is below:

Pop-Up Submissions, 24th March

On today's Pop-Ups... "Russian Spring" by Ben Dymott; "The Moon Field" by Diane Doona; "Bad People" by Max Morpheus; "Perpetuus Island" by Matt Kenny; "Raven" by Tim Pearsall. Today’s special guest is RC Bridgestock, crime novelist & storyline consultant on BAFTA winning BBC One police drama...

colony.litopia.com

Are flashbacks a gamble in Writing?

For me, personally, I have only read two books where Flashbacks are effective and well executed - 13 Reasons Why By Jay Asher now a triumphant series on Netflix and The Time Traveler's Wife By Audrey Niffenegger which has been made into a major film.

Please feel free to add any book titles that have used Flashbacks and worked in your replies/posts.

Some forms of telling are;-

1. Narrative Summary
2. Exposition
3. Static Description
4. Flashbacks

What are flashbacks?

As well as another form of telling, a flashback is a vessel for a scene set earlier in the story. And is typically used when you as the writer have a definite need to show some backstory using all the showing tools at your whim and disposal - action, dialogue, interior emotion, interior monologue, and description etc.
But, the downside of using Flashbacks is they depart from chronology and interrupt the flow, the forward movement of you story. Naturally, the reader will be reading about your main character wanting to know what happens to him or her next. Every time you jump back into their past, you are refusing to answer that question and you make them wait a little longer to find out.

So for me, we must have an exceptional reason for using one. Is it really worth the gamble? Because readers will start to wonder why didn't you just simply start your story earlier if the flashback has such importance and make it clear within the story why it must be used.
And as I know, you know and as we know as Writers, readers won't care about backstory until they are invested and care deeply enough about your characters. So, for me I hold off using Flashbacks until I have done so and funny enough I'm toying with the idea of using a flashback in Mr Grey Sky at the moment.
Here is a brief starting point, basis for wanting to use a flashback in my writing - Every student in Dunbar has a ceremonial reading before each school year.
Dunbar's headmaster cuts off a lock of Sky's hair without him knowing and goes to The Iris and one of the cards that comes up in Sky's reading is DEATH. After looking at one of the Submissions on Sunday. I'm really questioning to use a flashback or not? And when would be the best time to use it?

I know how to trigger a flashback:

1. Make an explicit reference to memory
2. Immediately begin the new scene/flashback as if it were any other scene, using a different verb tense than you were using before the flashback.
3. After you've established the transition to the past, switch back to the original tense.
4. If possible, tie back in to whatever trigger or sensory device used to get into the flashback to begin with.
5. Bring the reader back to the present with some sort of reference, preferable identical and parallel.

But, would it be worth the gamble? That's what I'm currently thinking about.

I would love to hear any experiences you have regarding flashbacks and any difficulties you face as writers when considering using such a literate device as Flashbacks in your current WIP Manuscripts.

If you have any suggestions for any future Brainpicks, your suggestions are more than welcome.

Kindest Regards,
Alix

 

[Malaika]

I always skip flashbacks as soon as I realize that's what they are. And I hated the Time Traveler's Wife.

 

[Deleted member 604]

I hated the Time Traveler's Wife.

Why? As a Reader? or As a Writer?

 

[Malaika]

I'm not sure what the difference is but I read it for pleasure if that's what you're saying. Granted the plot was impressive in scope. But I'd better not start talking about all the things I disliked because when I hate something as much as I hated the time traveler's wife I can get tiresome about it.

 

[Chase Gamwell]

I've only used a flashback once in all the years I've been writing. The trio of chapters that used to be the beginning of my space opera found themselves reworked and compressed into a single chapter that expands on the MCs call to action. It's inserted as a standalone chapter that the MC dreams - a haunting memory of past failures that he's still struggling to fix. It's pertinent to the story and is delivered shortly after the MC tells another character that he won't be able to explain what's going on for a while. So, instead of leaving the reader hanging, I give them answers they want while allowing the narrative to hold the other character in suspense.

I think the flashback works because the chapters felt like they needed to be in the novel. Plenty of beta readers like the original beginning, but found the abrupt ending to the arc a jarring transition to what came next. The end result of placing the chapter in as a flashback wound up working for beta readers. The break came in the perfect place and many of them loved the chapter.

Like anything else in writing, it comes down to whether you can make it work.

 

[Ancora Imparo]

I've only used it once, too, in my current WIP – and interestingly enough it's the piece I'm thinking of putting into the writing critique forum (once I take a deep breath...), so I've no doubt people will tell me whether it works or not

I chose not to have a full flashback scene but rather small flashes of a memory intruding on the present moment. The memory flashes are important, because they explain why the mc is in the (bad) position he is now in. I had to show his motivation and make it clear he had no choice. That's why I did it, so I used it as exposition but kept it tiny. I kept it tiny because it's the beginning of the story, and I wanted to keep it tight. Also, if I had started with the scene the flashback referred to, I felt it wouldn't have been as strong as the scene I actually started with. If that makes sense!

I'll put it up, one of these days.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Stories used to start * here* and then move forward in more or less linear fashion. But now, book or film, they often start mid action, drop you straight in it, and bring you up to speed afterwards. This doesn't agree with the advice in this article but there is some middle ground.

 

[Deleted member 604]

I'll put it up, one of these days.

Please do

 

[Deleted member 604]

@Katie-Ellen Hazeldine. Just the person I’am after, I’m looking for some help and info regarding Tarot Card readings for some research for Mr Grey Sky. Is it okay to PM you and pick your head a little?

 

[Deleted member 604]

Like anything else in writing, it comes down to whether you can make it work.

@Chase Gamwell I agree and it comes down to the question will it pay off or not? When using Flashbacks I think writers are always conscious of this device, more than others. That’s where I’am now. Is there an actual time limit to using a Flashback? When is it to early? When is it to late? And do we really need to use them at all? Thanks to the article @Katie-Ellen Hazeldine has shared.

 

[Chase Gamwell]

When using Flashbacks I think writers are always conscious of this device, more than others.

How to use any writing device is an important consideration, but I don't agree that flashbacks somehow stick out as more important than any of the others. For me, once I put it in, and decided it worked, I never looked back. And when it comes to writing a novel, I spend far more time worrying about tense, word choice, sentence structure, etc.

Is how it's used important? Absolutely. Will it make or break your novel? No more than any other device, if used poorly, would...

 

[Deleted member 604]

For me, once I put it in, and decided it worked, I never looked back.

For me as it stands, I’m asking myself as a Writer have I given my readers enough to invest in and care enough about my protagonist. Because I’m considering putting/using a flashback quite early in the story. Will using a Flashback hinder? Be off putting? Or Counterproductive? I think like @Ancora Imparo I’ll probs put in up in Litopia’s Writing Room for comment.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

@Katie-Ellen Hazeldine. Just the person I’am after, I’m looking for some help and info regarding Tarot Card readings for some research for Mr Grey Sky. Is it okay to PM you and pick your head a little?

Be my guest.

 

[Chase Gamwell]

have I given my readers enough

I'm reminded of something I was told by someone far wiser than me - stop spending so much time trying to impress people and focus on getting the job done. The idea, of course, is to worry less about what other people think and blow it out of the park for your own sake.

It seems to me that you may be spending a little bit too much time worrying about the readers. Don't get me wrong, writing something that captures a reader's interest is the goal, but the craft is just as much about what you want as what the reader wants. If you spend so much time worrying about them, you'll never get anywhere.

 

[Rich.]

One of the biggest-selling fantasy novels of recent years – The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss – is almost entirely written as flashback. It's presented as a frame story. The frame is present day (in the story world), told in third-person omniscient, and concerns a man down on his luck. But the bulk of the novel, written in first-person, is about how the unlucky man came to be so. In this particular case the author chose to tell two stories simultaneously, each relating to a different period of the protagonist's life, each illuminating the other. There was a clear structural reason to use flashbacks, and it worked. It's perhaps a rather extreme example (so extreme that one might say the first-person account isn't flashback at all but rather a parallel story), but I think it makes the point that you can do whatever you want if it serves the story.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I think so. Just 'write and be damned.' Then read it back. Do you see past the page? Is it a wall or a window? If it's a wall, there's more work to do.

 

[Rich.]

What a lovely way to put it! Yes, knock out those walls.

 

[Deleted member 604]

They have got to have some good foundations though first

 

[Robert M Derry]

As a reader, I quite like flashbacks, but only if they fill in the backstory of a character that I've been itching to find out more about or it answers a question that the prior part of the story has left unanswered.

Fundamentally, a flashback still has to progress the plot, so it usually requires a character learning new information from another character that they need to learn in order to progress.

If a reader can skip over the flashback and still follow the story, then the flashback is unnecessary and should be cut. It's basically a story within a story and that, in the modern publishing world, ain't gonna fly.

 

[Deleted member 604]

If a reader can skip over the flashback and still follow the story, then the flashback is unnecessary and should be cut. It's basically a story within a story and that, in the modern publishing world, ain't gonna fly.

Agreed

 

[Leonora]

I chose not to have a full flashback scene but rather small flashes of a memory intruding on the present moment. The memory flashes are important, because they explain why the mc is in the (bad) position he is now in. I had to show his motivation and make it clear he had no choice. That's why I did it, so I used it as exposition but kept it tiny. I kept it tiny because it's the beginning of the story, and I wanted to keep it tight. Also, if I had started with the scene the flashback referred to, I felt it wouldn't have been as strong as the scene I actually started with. If that makes sense!

I'll put it up, one of these days.

I wish I'd thought of doing it this way in my WIP. I've just added a lot of flashback to explain motivation, and keeping forward momentum at the same time is tough. I've woven together past and present but snippets of memory is a great idea.

 

[Dan Payne]

Is it still a flashback if it contains a separate character? In one of my stories, I open with one of my primary POV characters and get the story rolling from her perspective. Then chapter two skips back to six hours earlier and introduces a different POV character and her story. The two stories meet at the end of chapter 1 / chapter 2, but for the sake of the overall plot as well as the opening I want, character 1's story is slightly more important. As a reader, would you be put off by meeting a character, and then skipping back several hours into that character's POV to see how she got there?

 

[RK Wallis]

Very interesting discussion.

A very experienced development editor read my fantasy last year and she recommended a flashback to explain the current situation of my protag. So I wrote a whole chapter, but soon after realised that was just my way to get to the heart of the flashback, I think I kept maybe 10 lines and I've sprinkled them in the forward motion of the story. Who knows if it'll work?

Ken Follett, in The Pillars of the Earth, wrote a long flashback which was slightly annoying at first but the flashback was so intense I didn't mind and, I vaguely recall, it was integral to the plot, I just didn't realise it at the time (which just made it even more satisfying).

 

[Deleted member 604]

As a reader, would you be put off by meeting a character, and then skipping back several hours into that character's POV to see how she got there?

Personally for me, I would want to know more about her first and that way the flashback would be natural not intrusive and complete her in some way, if that makes any sense.

 

[Leonora]

Is it still a flashback if it contains a separate character? In one of my stories, I open with one of my primary POV characters and get the story rolling from her perspective. Then chapter two skips back to six hours earlier and introduces a different POV character and her story. The two stories meet at the end of chapter 1 / chapter 2, but for the sake of the overall plot as well as the opening I want, character 1's story is slightly more important. As a reader, would you be put off by meeting a character, and then skipping back several hours into that character's POV to see how she got there?

If you've got two parallel stories you can't help going back and forth. I wouldn't call it a flashback, and it wouldn't put me off.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

I'm going to sound pedantic—it happens with age—but, it's important to differentiate between memory and flashback.

Flashback vs Memory - What's the difference?

My Cornish Detective protagonist, a widower for two years in Book 1, was hindered by flashbacks of being with his wife that intruded into murder investigations, which contributed to his clinical depression. Counselling has seen him gain better control of how he remembers her, filtering their time together into happy memories rather than overbearing flashbacks.

Coincidentally, I've just finished reading a historical novel that depended on flashbacks to propel the plot. I've raved about it in other threads, but Kate Mosse's protagonist in The Taxidermist's Daughter lost all memories of her first 12 years, following trauma to her head after a fall. She was trying to intervene in an attack on her hired companion, a young woman who was violated and killed. Through the story, she slowly pieces together what may have happened, stimulated by unpredictable clues, like seeing an unusually tailored woman's coat or hearing a name mentioned in passing, someone she thinks she should know from her childhood. The flashbacks slowly become more detailed, until she reveals the horrible truth.

To signify flashbacks, they're printed in italic.

 

[Tim James]

I use flashbacks fairly frequently in what I write, I'll admit it here and now. Maybe too much...

Two of the novels I have written use them extensively.

The first has a first and last chapter set in the present with the rest of the story set in the past, as one long flashback, if you like. This is more, as @Rich. called it, a framing device. In fact there are even smaller flashbacks within the rest of the book. So I actually have nested flashbacks. Maybe that's getting a bit too much, but as far as I can see it reads OK and makes sense when it happens. The reader is never in any doubt about which time part they are reading and the details of the flashbacks are all important to the story.
The reason for the somewhat jumbled timeline, in this case, is that the narrator looses their memory and only gets it back later in the story, so we the readers get these memories as flashbacks as the narrator gets his memories back. (Similar in concept to The Taxidermist's Daughter that @Paul Whybrow mentioned above, although I haven't actually read that book.)

The second book where I use a lot of flashbacks (almost a third of the text is in the form of flashbacks), I do because the flashbacks link together and tell a secondary plot that is both the cause and the resolution of the main plot. The flashbacks plot and the main plot intertwine, with the flashbacks providing reasons for things that happen in the main plot.
"Why move them into flashbacks?" I hear you ask. For better dramatic effect. So that the "Ah! that's why!" moment comes at the right time. Otherwise, if it were all written chronologically the reader would have many of the resolutions up front and the crisis later on. It wouldn't have an interesting story arc.

So to sum up, I feel flashbacks are a very useful tool, both for giving the reader background/backstory info at the appropriate time, and for manipulating the timing of key events in your novel to produce an exciting and interesting story arc for your characters. But like all tools they need to be employed with care and thought.

 

[Tim James]

Is it still a flashback if it contains a separate character? ...

If it is a different narrator and not locationally related to the main text then it is probably more of a parallel narrative, than a flashback. Technically it may portray events that happened at an earlier time, but it's not necessarily related to the first chapter's main character, so there isn't the feeling of flashing back in someone's thoughts to a previous time.

 

[David Weller]

Some time ago, I published a series of articles on my blog charting the editorial development of Truthseeker. I've pulled out the following paragraph and highlighted one of the sentences.

In the original version, the MC witnesses the Watch leave the village to try and catch one of the mysterious intruders. The following morning, she learns that they’d had an encounter and several people were hurt. She pays a visit to a friend who relates the tale. In the rewritten version, she insists on taking part. As a result, she and the reader experience these events at first hand. I was then able to cut out the second scene. However, it wasn’t wasted.

I suppose a third party relating an incident counts as a flashback. If it does, then getting rid of it in this particular case produced a more exciting read.

 

[Paul V]

My MS is set in 2010 but I have 3 interspersed chapters that go back 70 years to WWII and give the reader a back story to the malevolent spirit in my story. The two stories combine toward the end of the MS. The MC is written in FPV but the flashback is in 3rd person. I really enjoyed writing those 3 chapters and am including flashbacks in the second book. I would agree that if it included too soon, then the reader is drawn away from the main story.

@RainbowNerdAlix - Re your Taro research, my wife Nicki, reads Taro and Lenormand cards if you want any further info