Flashbacks

I don't know a specific book but there's nothing wrong with flashback. It probably shouldn't happen so often that it thwarts your forward momentum of plot but even in this case there are exceptions. Thinking Memento.

Some people really hate flashbacks; I don't mind them if they're done well. Most of the time I don't think flashbacks are necessary.

chongjasmine said:

Are there books out there which teach you how to make proper use of flashbacks?

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Probably, but flashbacks aren't a big enough subject to merit an entire book. Why not search within AW? This place is a trove of information. Or Google it?

They're a valuable tool if not overused. You need a transition from the present into the past and another transition to bring the reader back to the present. There are a handful of useful ways to do this, but I'm too lazy to write out some examples.

As a reader, I find flashbacks to be confusing and pulls me away from the story.

My rule is: To not use them.
It's because I'm going to wait until I'm good enough to know when to use them correctly.

As a writer, I try to avoid them like the plague. I advise you to because they are like the plague: you just can't stop seeing them pop up with puss on the story and there is nothing you can do to stop it after a long time.

There are a lot of other alternatives, like starting in the flashback and moving through time to the main story as the character develops. There is also not having the flashback and characters speak or note at the past. And there are a whole list of others.

If you must use one, make sure the reader is far enough into the story to know it's a flashback. Then make it quick without a secondary story to it so that they main story can continue.

Like most literary devices: when done well, they work well. When not, they suck.

leahzero said:

Like most literary devices: when done well, they work well. When not, they suck.

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Wait, it sounds like you're saying

IT DEPENDS

chongjasmine said:

Is it good to include flashbacks of a character's life in a story, or is flashbacks a technique used so often, that it is generally better not to use it in a story.

Are there books out there which teach you how to make proper use of flashbacks?

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Read "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving. That'll teach you real fast how to do it and do it well

Flashbacks in Fiction

The scene-length flashback is an overused method of providing exposition (background information). These types of flashbacks are way overused, and they are a crutch for weak writers, so they should be used only rarely and with great caution.

I'm not talking about a mosaic story, where scenes are not given in chronological order. Those don't involve someone remembering, since there is no "present" from which to flash back.

I'm also not talking about a frame story, in which most of the piece is set in a previous time than the frame. I wouldn't consider that a flashback. It's part of the structure.

A flashback is weak for several reasons. First, it's usually not the best option for revealing background, just the easiest. Flashbacks are most often used as an easy way of inserting exposition into the story. But often you can get this information into the story by implying it through present action or dialogue, or hinting at it with some detail, or conveying in a couple of sentences of exposition. It's often better to hint and leave some mystery than to lay it all out there.

Flashbacks are often used under the mistaken assumption that a character can be explained by one or two things that happened in his past. This is not true of most people and tends to lead to shallow characters, rather than deeper characters. Writers like to think about the pasts of their characters--which they should--but then they want to include all they know about the characters' pasts in the story, which they shouldn't. That information belongs in your character file, not in your story.

Second, a flashback usually doesn't change anything of significance for the person remembering. That's hard, since he would know the information all along. And ideally, every scene in the story should change something of significance for the main character in that scene.

A scene-length flashback should only be used when it moves the plot ahead or significantly changes our understanding of the present action.

Third, a full-scene flashback is not an accurate representation of how we remember things. Realistic flashbacks are flashes, often a second or two long; perhaps ten seconds long at the very longest. Try to think about a single past even for more than ten seconds. The present intrudes. We don't remember in such detail, either.

A short flash like that, in the midst of a scene set in the "present" of the story, is fine. Those can be very effective. It's when they become longer that they are problematic.

I hope this helps.

Best,

Jeanne

Jeanne Cavelos
Director
Odyssey Writing Workshops Charitable Trust
www.odysseyworkshop.org

I recently read Water for Elephants. In this novel the major plot-line is a "flashback," interspersed with "flash-forwards" to the present, in which the MC is an old man living in a nursing home. I thought it was well-done.
In any case, I agree that flashbacks can be done well and be important to a novel, or they can be done poorly.

I think it depends if the past moment deserves to have a real-time scene. If so, then, yes, flashback.

Some tips for flashbacks:

Start with a sentence making it clear that we are going into the past. Show we are in the past by using "had." Go one step farther in past tense. If you are writing present tense, then tell the flashback in past tense. If you are writing in past tense, then tell at least the first part of the flashback in past perfect.

As you pull us out of the flashback, make it clear we are in the present. Authors often start such a sentence with "now."

She plopped on the couch as her mind wandered to when she was five.

Her mother had just given her, blah blah

Now she sat up from the couch, shaking the memory from her mind.