Gracefull childhood memories

[Sesselja]

For my next novel, I want to include some bits from my main character's childhood, nothing massive or lengthy, just snippets that will go to explain her relationship with her mother and the way she acts around men. A chronological story, starting from childhood, is out of the question. The story starts when the MC is around 27 years of age, so it needs to be flashbacks. However, I'm not sure what would be the best way to do this.

Any thoughts on the use of flashbacks?

[Mayor of Moronia]

Some writers handle this by "speaking in quotes." That is, insert the information inside dialog. It keeps readers from becoming confused.

[Selcaby]

Can you make up a reason for your MC to tell stories of her childhood to another character?

Or put it in her thoughts, using "had" (maybe dropping the hads after you've established what time you are talking about - but be careful when you come back to the present day), at appropriate moments. For instance, an opportunity to go horse riding might make your MC think about the last time she rode a horse (if that's an unusual thing for her to do - wouldn't apply if she rides a horse every day). A character using a turn of phrase that her mother used to use might make her remember that.

[alleycat]

Rather than flashbacks, you could use another character to bring up the character's past.

For example, if her childhood is effecting her relationship with men, you could have the man (men?) in her life question why she acts the way she does and have the MC try to explain things in her past and why she feels the way she does, perhaps in snippets. Or the MC could have a best friend who questions the MC about her love life.

Or you could have some scenes where the MC thinks back over her childhood. For example, you might have a scene where the MC and her boyfriend gets into a big fight. The argument jogs a memory in the MC about something that happened in her childhood and she can't help but think back upon it and consider the effects on her life -- that sort of thing.

Of course there's nothing really wrong with flashbacks. The problem is they are often mishandled and distract from advancing the story.

Just some random thoughts.

Edited to add: While I was typing that, Selcaby posted. I guess we were thinking somewhat along the same lines.

[laurel29]

I'm running into a similar problem so I can't really offer advice, but I'll happily take what others offer you :).

I need to include bits from seven years ago into the story, I tried to work it in with reminiscing but it was perhaps too confusing. The problem I ran into was that I had a lot of these snippets that came from the same time period. Flipping back and forth in the beginning saved me a lot of words but I'm afraid it might confuse a younger reader. I am actually writing out the scenes I was trying to recall (I know you said you can't do it chronologically) and I was going to try skipping forward in time to the present. I'm not really happy with this approach either. I'm really interested to see how others handle flashbacks.

If you only have small pieces to recall, it might work to just have something trigger the memory. I don't find that jarring, as long as it isn't flipping back and forth every few lines.

[Sesselja]

Dialogue could be used for some parts of it, I suppose, but not all. My MC is a loner and she's a bit... wrong. I want her to be resentfull over things that most people wouldn't react to, so I can't have her talk to others about this without them going: "You fool!"

I think I might use the suggestions about current situations setting of her memories.

I seem to remember that method being used in several books I have read, and when done well, the changes from now and the past and back to now again is done so seamlessly I hardly notice. The problem with it being done so well that I hardly notice, is that I now have forgotten which books have these flashbacks. *off to the bookself to search for flashback-scenes to study*