Flashbacks and Backstory

The problem with flashbacks in the beginning is that the reader doesn't know enough about the character to care very much and it makes for a slow beginning - which you don't want.

As for backstory, it usually amounts to just a big info dump because you know these characters, and you want the reader to know everything about them as well. Again, I (as a reader) don't care yet and it also slows the story down. Backstory is better served cut down to the barest minimum at first, with the rest woven in throughout the rest of the story. You can use dialogue (just avoid the "As you know, Bob" syndrome ) or flashback later on if you must.

You want to yank your reader into the now portion of the story - not the then portion, if that makes any sense.

Get the reader involved with the protagonist, let us get to know her then drop in flashbacks in appropriate moments--
Ex: A woman cuts her hair, straightens her blue uniform and goes out to fight in the Civil War for the North in 1862. We get the straight story til ch. 5 where she's pinned down with her company, sees men dying and wonders how this is alike to when she helped her sister deliver twins back in 1858 with all the blood, the screaming and the stillness after.

Just hint towards it using the character's behaviour and gestures, or maybe what old friends think towards her. What had shaped her in the past that caused her to be like this?

*Shrugs*... I don't think there are many "absolutes" when it comes to writing. While something might be frowned upon, there is the matter of what best suits the story. I happen to start with a flashback in a story that I am currently working on. I tried it both ways and there is just no getting around it, the story is better starting with the flashback. There is action in the flashback, and it's short... which might be what saves it.

There's dangers (such as the one Jersey Chick points out) in frontloading flashbacks or backstory. But that doesn't mean that it's never the right thing to do. Anything that's engrossing will work.

Also, if there's a way to engineer the flashback so there's some vital question on the table, and then we are diverted into the flashback, this can up suspense. Whole books have been constructed on this Spring Forward, Fall Back principle. For example, the novel Fight Club starts with the penultimate scene, then drops back and tells the story of how the protagonist arrived in this desperate situation, and then bookends the backstory with the ultimate scene which resolves the story. Tricky stuff--but wonderful when it works.

Be bold! One of the cool things about writing is you can always change it if you don't like the result.

If all you MC is doing is thinking back to her life so far, from a reader's standpoint, why should they care? They want action and something to make them want to read on. Someone they don't know musing about a life they aren't yet interested in probably won't draw them in. How she got there isn't nearly as important as what's happening to her at that moment, which I assume is something compelling to make the reader read on since it's the start of your novel. How she got there could be a nice carrot to dangle to keep them reading, so wy spill the beans right away?

Anything done right will work. Ask yourself WHY you want this particular flashabck here. If it's only becasue you feel you need to explain why the MC is doing what they're doing, or how they got there, or anything you feel the reader "needs to know" to understand the story and move on, cut that sucker right now. You're slowing your story down. If the flashback provides plot drive and hooks the reader then you might be fine with it.

General rule of thumb though, if you need to stop your story to explain a flashback, chances are your story isn't starting the right place or you're jumping the gun to tell the reader stuff they don't need to know yet. Be VERY careful with this and make sure your reasons are solid for doing it. Readers will give you a lot of lattitude as wait for some mysteries to be explained. especially in fantasy where they know it'll take a while to explain how the world works.

Another problem with flashbacks early in a novel is that most readers tend to attach themselves to the story and character introduced on the first page or so, so if your first three pages are interesting and action-packed and then you go back fifty years, readers are more likely to be bored, or at least pissed off. And if your first three pages are boring and then you flash back to exciting events of fifty years ago, your readers might get too involved in that storyline, and when you get back to the woman brushing her hair, they might be bored or at least pissed off. Momentum is a wonderful thing. (Sorry if this isn't terribly coherent, I missed lunch.)

Hm.
This is definitely something for me to think about considering the first part of my novel is going to be flashing back and forward (from chapter to chapter). I'm a little wary of this, but the past events have to be set up so that the reader will understand the rest of the novel. Usually I don't have a problem with flashbacks, as long as the flashback is interesting and kinda relevent and, of course, well written.

I guess I'll read just about anything if it's well written and interesting.