posted
I was reading some of my older writings and I noticed that everyone of them had these flashbacks. I immediately wondered why I didn't begin writing the story at the flashback and move forward normally rather than play timeline hopscotch.
Of course some stories are really nothing but a series of flashbacks (ie Gerald's Game and books like that). But why are flashbacks so prevalent? I find most of them to be clunky and ruin the voice and flow of the story.
I personally belive the reason why flashbacks are so heavily used (especially by beginners) is that the writer discovers a essential piece of information needed to the story and is unwilling to start the story earlier. Because rewriting the story from a earlier point means another exhaustive rewrite. And the writer feels they are clever enough to work in this info without the extra labor to rewrite. What do yall think about flashbacks?
posted
I think its largely a problem of trying to start in medias res, which is basically terrible advice. Beginners start in the middle of an unexplained action sequence and then have to go back and explain how things got to be that way, rather than starting with the initial incident leading to the conflict.
Many other beginner stories seem to start at a point of "musing." The POV character is driving home from work, wondering how he got into some situation, remembering . . . and the flashback begins. This is really just a subset of in medias res, except that even in the middle of things nothing is happening, so the author tells the reader that something important is about to happen, and expects that to carry the reader through.
Another possibility is stories that attempt to imitate movie-style storytelling. Take Casablanca, for instance. The large flashback in that movie fills in many details and answers lots of questions in a very effective way. But if told in 3PL, most of that information would pop into Rick's mind the moment Ilsa walks into his cafe. In a movie (or in cinematic viewpoint--but that's generally a mistake in fiction) the flashback can be a good reveal to previously hidden information. In 3PL it's much harder to honestly hide the information in the first place.
posted
Is it possible to write a flashback containing action and information without completely halting the forward motion of the story? I have one flashback in my story that is basically a full scene with dialogue and action, not just a summary of events or thoughts. I feel that it propels the story forward, but of course, I’m sure every writer of a flashback feels that or they would not leave it in. How do you know if and when it is appropriate and if you’ve done it right?
Posts: 225 | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Try just cutting it, and see if the story can stand without it. If the story is just fine without the flashback, odds are it's not doing you any good in the story.
posted
I'm reading Stephen King's Dark Tower for the first time. The story structure is a series of nest flashbacks. It works here because each flashback is its own section and a complete scene by itself. I think most of them would work as stand-alone short stories.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I will definately try that suggestion, Beth, but my concern is that I'm not the best one to judge whether the story is better without it. I already know my characters and know these events that molded them so I could very well think that the flashback is extraneous when a reader may see a reaction from a character and not understand why it is happening. Make sense? Not to justify my own flashback...I'm just trying to figure out the best way to determine the need for them at any given time. I know when I'm reading a novel and there is a flashback relating just thoughts or a summary of events, I get frustrated and tend to skip over it. It doesn't matter to me at that moment. But of course, I think mine is different. It is not at the beginning of the story. Just to clarify that. It's about halfway through. But it is long. I don't know. I will have to find a friend who has enough free time to read through my manuscript when I finish it and tell me what they think, whether it is a hinderance or not.
Posts: 225 | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Well, if there's any crucial information conveyed in the flashback, you can find another way to work it in.
My first novel was chock full of flashbacks. Some of them had important information - but I could have just put a sentence or two in to explain it, rather than a 2k word flashback that wasn't really all that interesting to anyone but me.
posted
That's the crux isn't it? I find it interesting, therefore everyone will right? I will definately take another hard look at it.
Posts: 225 | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
I think it depends on what the flashback is being used for. It definitely has to be something worth stopping the flow of the story for and going back in time to read about. I think one character filling another character in on important information fits here. Or if a character is being forced to relive memories they'd just as soon forget.
I remember reading a romance novel where every other chapter, the author jumped from the present to the past via flashbacks. She did this as a means of showing how the main character developed into the dysfunctional man he came to be. It worked because the flashbacks were stories in themselves and were just as entertaining and interesting as the main storyline.
posted
I think that's my main question. Does every flashback, no matter what it is or why it's there or how it's written, ALWAYS stop the flow of the story? Is that a constant? Is there no flashback at all ever that could be considered to continue to move the story forward?
Posts: 225 | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
I love flashbacks. I never heard how 'evil' they are till I took up writing as a hobby. Before that, I never noticed. Or cared. Still don't.
If one takes the MICE quotient seriously, then to start at the absoulte beginning might be a mistake.
Lets say you begin the story when the character is 8 and then for a long time nothing happens and then he's 15, then 20, then 25. Now he's 29 and now he visits a strange milieu, or comes across a mystery, or a begins a character-alterting tranformation, or important events begin to develop. All that initial jumping around in the character's timeline would be more jarring.
How much better it would be if the story begins when he is 29 and he flashes back to only the relavant parts of his past.
posted
I think that is okay. I am talking more short fiction in particular adventure stories.
Let me give an example:
A hero is about to enter the lair of the monster. He then he flashes back to the oracle sending him on the adventure. Then he returns to the present. Enters the lair finds the monster begins his battle. Thenhas another flashback as to how he rec'd his magic sword returns to the present kills the monster and story ends.
Would the story not function better at the oracle with the info about the magic sword introduced then. Go to the lair find the monster and then get eaten alive...er I mean slay the monster.
posted
I'm all for flashbacks that represent the POV character remembering or calling to mind information that had not previously been in the front of the character's mind. If the information is something that was contained in a previous scene of the story, then I think that just the character's mental summary of the relevant points from that scene is quite enough. But if it is something from before the narrative opens, a more conventional flashback is justified.
By "more conventional", I still don't mean the often seen "drop the current scene entirely and go do this other scene" kind of flashback. The current action has to continue and should affect the flashback. It takes time to think over something that happened a while ago, and if your character isn't in a sensory deprivation tank, the present moment will intrude in various ways.
On the other hand, if the character is locked in a sensory deprivation tank (or drugged or something like that) then a "total" flashback could indeed be entirely acceptable.
But usually, you want to take an example from the appropriate way to portray something like a long narrative monologue by a character. Stuff happens. The characters listening ask questions or fidgit or lean forward in anticipation or sit there like lumps of coal. The person talking pauses for breath and/or dramatic effect or gestures expressively or uses variable inflection and intonation or speaks in a droning monotone without moving or pausing. Time passes, the sun moves, the wind blows, the fire burns low, the story is being told in a constantly illuminated room with no means of telling time. If you don't describe anything happening during the narrative monologue, then the only possible interpretation is that some characters sit there like lumps of coal while one character speaks in a droning monotone without moving or pausing in a constantly illuminated room with no means of telling time. But if something like that were happening, you should probably mention it explicitly, because it's pretty weird, don't you think?
Apply the same concept to your flashbacks, and you should be okay.
posted
<A hero is about to enter the lair of the monster. He then he flashes back to the oracle sending him on the adventure.>
I think in that case the MICE quotient calls for starting the story when the oracle sends him on the adventure. That renders a flashback unnecessary. Or at least that's how I understand it.
[This message has been edited by ChrisOwens (edited February 27, 2005).]
posted
I think in a lot of cases it's hard to do a story without some flashbacks. It sometimes is the only clean way to fill in the blanks. I agree with ChrisOwens, I like flashbacks if they are done well and are pertinant information needed to propel the story. Flashbacks seem to be big in fiction, especially SF since a lot of stories start in the present day and go back in time or start in the future and flashback to some earlier time to tell how things got to be the way the are.
Good question though because I'm going to take a look of some of my stuff and see how heavy the flashback thing is!
posted
I don't mind flashbacks at all (just in case I gave the wrong impression earlier--I was just talking about bad reasons for flashbacks). On the other hand, I have to admit that they are, for some reason, terribly appealing, and thus are often used when they shouldn't be.
I don't mind full scene flashbacks, either, and just see them as one more authorial tool. However, it seems to me that the only place for them is when the events of the primary story have enabled the flashback to become meaningful--and it would NOT have been as meaningful earlier. If it's just stuck in there somewhere, because it's necessary to know for the present, then it should be at the beginning, or condensed to a mini-summary to get the information in.
The worst kind of flashback (in my general experience, not in theory) are the ones that go back and forth--a chapter on the current events of the novel, then a chapter on the POV character when he was young, now, then, on and on. The reason I really hate these (usually) is that one thread or the other is less interesting than the other, and I always think, "Blah! I've got to read another chapter of that before I can get back to the good stuff." That's a really good way to get me to put the book down permanently.
[This message has been edited by rickfisher (edited February 27, 2005).]
posted
I think the danger with flashbacks is POV violation. If you are about to face a dragon do you really want to be thinking about something that happened in your past, or how not to get roasted?
IMO flashbacks or ok if they are consistant with what the POV character is thinking.
quote:If one takes the MICE quotient seriously, then to start at the absoulte beginning might be a mistake.
Lets say you begin the story when the character is 8 and then for a long time nothing happens and then he's 15, then 20, then 25. Now he's 29 and now he visits a strange milieu, or comes across a mystery, or a begins a character-alterting tranformation, or important events begin to develop. All that initial jumping around in the character's timeline would be more jarring.
How much better it would be if the story begins when he is 29 and he flashes back to only the relavant parts of his past.
Not necessarily--this is where "telling" comes in. You can start when the character is 8 and spend a couple of pages telling about how he grew up, noting significant events and information along the way, but never stopping to show individual scenes until he reaches the age where most of the story takes place. Done properly, this can flow very well and work just fine for the story.
I think beginning writers often make the mistake of jumping in time too often. Instead of starting a new paragraph and saying "The next day," they put a line break and jump straight into the next scene. This is jarring, and completely unnecessary. And the reason people do it so often is, I suspect, because of that evil bit of "show, don't tell" advice.
Telling can be used as an effective tool to resolve problems like this, and especially to avoid the dreaded flashback.
Personally, I'll put up with flashbacks, as long as they don't start to take over the story. If the flashback is short and to the point, and I have a clear idea of the question it's trying to answer, then I'll tolerate it. But if continues interminably or I can't see a clear reason to be disrupting the action for a flashback, I'll get pretty annoyed with the writer.
[This message has been edited by AeroB1033 (edited February 27, 2005).]
posted
Well, you'd have to show a significant reason why you were starting so early; the story has to be about something that begins when the character is 8. I think the reader will be fine with it if this is the case, and you make it obvious that something important is happening at this age. Though you might start by showing the scenes at 8 and then telling the rest as he grows up.
If it's just historical summation--just exposition of details--then of course it's a poor choice to start at that age and tell all the way up. But it really depends on what your story is actually about, of course.
posted
Yeah, the MICE thing says to start the story JUST BEFORE the critical event. Other backstory should then be fairly trivial and can be filled in easily.
As for flashbacks vs POV: if you're telling the story in a single POV, then the flashback pretty much has to be some sort of memory. But if you're jumping around between POVs, you can jump around in time a bit, as well. It amounts to authorial intrusion, but so does POV jumping, and they're both about on the same level. Still, I don't recommend it as a general rule.
posted
I try to start the story at the moment a catalyst is introduced into the character's life or environment. But figuring out when that is is sometimes a challenge for me. (I don't think the following will be spoilers) The childhood skimming could work. Like in OSC's Treasure Box, he briefly skims over Quentin's childhood, BUT only from the point that his sister died. That was the catalyst for what happens later in his life. Also, the occurances of his childhood are an interesting story in themselves, that's what makes it interesting enough to keep reading.
In The Shining, King starts the story at the catalyst. The story begins shortly before Jack accepts the job at the hotel. Then thoughout the story, King flashs back a couple of times to Jack's alcoholic days, and his father's alcoholic days, but the flashbacks are always triggered by something that happens in the current story. And as Survivor pointed out, the current story does not stop to wait for the flashback/memory. If Jack is driving and recalling memories, then every so often he stops recalling the memory and concencrates on driving again.
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It is not at the beginning of the story. Just to clarify that. It's about halfway through. But it is long. 
