Is a recollection a flashback?

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Ken

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as far as I understand it, a flashback is the insertion of an incident into a narrative that happened prior to the one unfolding. Do memories a character consciously invokes fall under this category?

For example, if a kid in a story is considering whether to swipe a cookie from a jar, but then gets to thinking about how he got punished last time for doing that would the account of his being made to stand in a corner be considered a flashback?
 

alleycat

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I think it would depend on how you handle it. If you just have the character thinking back to the time he stole the cookie, even if you describe the incident in some detail, then I wouldn't consider that a flashback. If, on the other hand, you "break away" completely from the story at hand to have the character mentally go back in time to when he stole the cookie, then that would be a flashback.
 

Ken

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that makes sense. The mentally going back in time might be signified by a switch from the past tense back to the present tense, perhaps, if the recollection was turned to a flashback? E.g. He had been made to stand in a corner. Time seemed to dwindle interminably. "I must move. My limbs are growing numb...
 

maestrowork

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I think flashback is specifically scenes/paragraphs that you describe in details (narratives, dialogue, etc.) that is written as an actual scene. If the character is talking about the events or "thinking" about the events, it's not really a flashback since you're still in the present timeline.
 

Ken

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yes, I believe so. Now that I have a clearer idea of what flashbacks consist of (thanks to MW and AC) I can categorize some of the scenes in my own work, and then do further research on the technique with the aim of honing them and other subsequent ones I write.

Knowledge of terminology is also helpful on another level, though I couldn't say precisely why. Maybe the sheer process of ordering information and tagging it leads to a clearer understanding, somehow?
 

Ken

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He had been made to stand in a corner. Time seemed to dwindle interminably. "I must move. My limbs are growing numb," he exclaimed while waving his fingers in front of his face and going "doodle de do, doodle de do!"

like that? ;-)
 
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