Flashback Technique
Clumsy gimmick or dramatic effect?

I have a question for all the brilliants minds out here. How do you feel about flashbacks? I seem to have a tendency to start in the middle of a story and work backward, then forward. I'm not sure why I do this. The only reasoning I have is that I start with whatever thought or image strikes me, and I work from there.

I'm working on a story that I started a few weeks ago, and it also starts in the middle with quiet a bit of flash backs—like 2-3 chapters of backstory, before it comes back to the present. I think I can change it pretty easily to be all past tense with no flash backs, but I really like where the story starts.

Any thoughts? Suggestions? —Teresa Blalock

I tend to live in the past because most of my life is there.   —Herb Caen

Interested in this topic? 
Follow the Participation image and share your thoughts with us.

From Joel A. Nichols
I think that whether or not flashbacks work in a given story are specific to that story...for every clumsy false flashback workshop story I've read in workshops I've taught or participated in, I could probably find a respected author who achieves something rather spectacular with the technique.

Despite that, I say avoid them. I have found that they almost always are clumsy and are the result of vagueness. I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard a workshopper give advice like "just need backstory here/add it in in a flashback." These cases are almost always places in a story where there isn't enough information being conveyed/demonstrated, so readers/writers want to reach back into the character's past to supply the specifics. I say, dramatize that information in present time. Don't jump from one plane of time to another when you can just as easily demonstrate whatever the backstory is by showing your characters interacting with each other.

Flashbacks are too often a lazy way out of dramatizing action. So until you figure out if that's how you (mostly) use them, try and avoid them.

(There's also a good point of view argument to be made: why lose the energy you've created with the reader by breaking the fictional reality and moving them around in time unnecessarily?)

From G. Gregory
I agree with Joel to an extent. Flashbacks can also be tedious in addition to frustrating to your reader. But then there are instances where flashbacks are not part of the story...they are the story. Diana Gabaldon comes to mind where flashback is superimposed over the present through a contrived transition to the past involving time travel, though it's in the context of present day. To Joel's point, there are some authors (Gabaldon) who can make it a masterful thing.

Consider using dialogue as an alternative where the characters can recall an event or issue or conflict that gives back story by virtue of sharing the memory.

I am not saying to abandon the use of flashbacks, I'd just caution to use them sparingly and only when they can be a more prominent part of the story.

From Kell Brannon
I'm OK with flashbacks, and I think they can be very well used, but I'm picky. They're fine, IMO, as long as:

- They're handled well, aren't nested more than a layer or two deep, and actually add to, or illustrate something about, story or characters.

- The current story continues to move forward in some satisfying way.

- They don't represent too jarring a shift in tone or voice.

- The flashback technique is there to support and illustrate themes, motivations, mindsets, etc., not just to be all groovy for its own sake. If a story is supposed to be one of those shifting-reality things in which the reader has to work to keep things straight, I don't find it very fun to read.

And if the flashback format becomes a rigid gimmick that dictates tone and pacing so much that it tends to clunk up the story (any other frustrated Lost fans here?), it gets annoying pretty fast! :)

From Jeanne Barrack
What concerns me is that you have 2-3 chapters of back story and flashbacks. That's quite a bit of past information for a reader. Occasional flashbacks - brief and pertinent - don't bother me as a reader. Do you feel you need these flashbacks to "explain" the present action? I cut out an entire chapter of "back story" in my latest release when I realized that an "info dump" could be introduced little by little as the story unfolded. 

Sometimes I used dialogue between characters but kept it to brief paragraphs, not long dissertations. Sometimes I brought it back as a brief comparison of present day situation and past. I have seen flash backs used extensively but as an example of a character's psychological fragility and in a wham/bang - "He was thrust back into the past" - technique. Look at your story. Does it jerk the reader back and forth and stop the flow? Do you want an affect like that? You might. Since I don't know what type of story you're writing, I can't say whether it's appropriate.

From Dangerous Bill
Flashbacks? I use them all the time, for several reasons.

They break up the timeline. Sometimes a story settles into a monotonous beat of 'this happened, and that happened, and then that other happened' and so on.

They can be used to control pacing. When the storyline involves a lot of exposition or dialog, and you sense that your future reader is ready to nod off, you can contrive a flashback to an action sequence.

To insert hooks. These days, the received wisdom is that you have to grab your reader in the first chapter, or better, in the first paragraph. Then you can go back to a logical beginning to the story.

To avoid long setups for a scene. Sometimes an event can't be understood until afterward, when the consequences are known. So you write about the consequences first, and flash back to the event itself. (The orphan child is found to have special powers. Flash back to the scene where the living parents tell the child about her special gifts.)

I guess there are other reasons, too.

Things I watch out for:

Are the entry and exit to the flashback well-marked, and is it absolutely clear to the dumbest reader that a flashback is in fact happening?

Have I avoided contrived entries into a flashback? "As I looked at the mangled corpse in front of me, I thought about our days together, hunting vampires in the streets of Levittown. (yada, yada)" (The equivalent of the screen going all wavy in 1940's and '50's movies)

Is it so long, I'd better find another way to present this stuff before my reader forgets where the original storyline was?

Can you avoid the flashback altogether with a bit of dialog where the same information is spoken between characters?

From Rose B. Thorny
Honestly...I don't believe there is an unequivocal "yes" or "no" to the use of flashbacks in literature.

I also tend to work the way you've stated you do. I have a starting point (much like the teaser of a movie scene, or TV show) then work from there with the story evolving and explanations coming verbally from the characters and via flashbacks showing how the characters got to the point where they were first presented to the reader. But the long story I'm working on now (okay, it's a novel) has flashbacks both to the immediate past and to the long past, throughout, because I'm examining the mind and emotional state of the MC, the issues she is facing, and how she is resolving (or trying to resolve) all those issues.

I am 100% in favour of flashbacks if they are well-executed, which means they must be clearly shown to be flashbacks. e.g. introduced with italics or a date, or something mechanical to indicate that we've just traveled back in time. They must also be integral to the story and explain the motivation of the characters in the present, and show/tell how the characters arrived at the current state of affairs. Too many convolutions, however, can just be irritating, rather than fascinating.

Personally, I love flashbacks both in literature and film ("Sunset Boulevard" and "The Usual Suspects" leap to mind). I absolutely love being given a set of circumstances to start, especially a bit of a mystery (and the mind is the biggest mystery of all), then being told and/or shown, just how it all got to be such a mess. I do this, mentally, when I pass road accidents; trying to ascertain, how and why it happened. We, of the analyzing personality, positively crave figuring things out and seeing cause and effect. IMO, seeing the effect first and figuring out the cause to "solve the mystery," as it were, is a total joy. Conversely, nothing annoys me more in a story than being presented with a character who is totally fucked up and the author never reveals how he or she got that fucked up. I want to know why and how and I'm not happy unless I find out.

I sincerely believe that a preference for flashbacks is totally subjective and that you'll just have to try it out to see what kind of a response you'll get. I also believe that it depends entirely upon what your objective is, what kind of story you're telling. Do you want to present your readers with a bit of mystery and make them ask, "How on earth did this happen,?" and reveal the backstory a bit at a time through flashbacks, so that things start falling into place and they start saying, "Ahhhhh. Hmmmm," then finally at some point say, "Ah-HA!?" You can do that the alternative way by having one of the characters telling what happened, but to me that is just kind of another "storyteller" within in the story. I mean it can work really well, but I think it depends entirely on the story itself and the specific circumstances.

Ask yourself, "How do I like these situations handled." What do you think of flashbacks? Have you read stories that do it well? What was it about those stories that made the flashback experience a good one? Have you read stories where flashbacks were poorly handled? Why do you think they were unsuccessful? Do a little of your own analyzing as to what appeals to you and what does not, and why. If you're still not sure, then why not just write it the way you feel like writing it, run it up the flagpole, and see if anyone salutes?

  E-mail this page

Copyright © 1996 and on, Erotica Readers Association, Inc.
All Rights Reserved World Wide.
Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited.