Mary Rosenblum, Long Ridge’s Web Editor and a LR instructor has published seven novels, more than 60 short stories and a hardcover collection of her short fiction.  You can find out more about her at:  www.maryrosenblum.com

 

 

 

Flash Back

 

By Mary Rosenblum

 

            Back story.  It’s necessary.  Readers need to know your characters’ past in order to appreciate their actions in your story’s present.  You don’t want to ‘tell’ your readers everything, that’s a big ‘no no’ of course.  Aha!  Flashback!  We can simply send our readers into the backstory and let them find out for themselves!  

 

            Right?

 

            Well, yes and no. 

 

            Flashbacks can be very useful and add a lot to the story.  But don’t forget that they stop the forward momentum of the story and send your reader backward in time.  And if your world of the past is more interesting than the ‘now’ of your story, your readers may not be happy when you return them to your main story. 

 

What Is It?

            Let’s begin with a definition of flashback, since many novice writers have a hard time distinguishing between thought and flashback.  If a character thinks about her encounter with a bully on the way to school, that is thought. 

 

            Angela pushed herself idly in the swing as she  remembered the morning walk to school, how she had hesitated when she reached the alley’s mouth, half expecting Paco to be waiting for her again.  But he had been hiding behind the bus stop shelter instead, and Angela swallowed, remembering how her heart had leaped with fear. 

 

            This is Angela remembering her encounter with Paco.  Essentially, she is telling us about that encounter by remembering it while we (in limited third person POV here) can overhear her thoughts.  We don’t leave her present, swinging on that swing, as she remembers.  Here’s the same example in first person POV;

 

            I pushed myself back and forth in the old swing, thinking about this morning, how I was scared when I walked past the mouth of the alley.  I was afraid any minute Paco would jump out . But he was waiting at the bus stop, this time, and  I push harder, still tasting the sourness of my  fear when I saw him. 

           

            Again, we’re still on the swing with Angela and she is telling us about this morning.   We never leave the swing as she remembers her fear and the taste of her fear.  So what is a flashback then?  The flashback is when we turn the clock backward.  We transport the readers to a previous event so that they can experience the event as the character relives it.  Here, the character does not tell us about the event in his or her thoughts or words.  Instead, the character relives it, and we share it as if it is happening for the first time.  A transition connects that previous event to the ‘now’ of the story, but while we are in that flashback, we no longer exist in the ‘now’ of the story.  For the duration, we exist in the ‘now’ of the flashback only.  Here’s Angela’s example in third person:   

 

            Angela pushed herself idly in the old swing as the events of the morning seeped into her mind’s eye.  She had left early, thinking Paco wouldn’t be there yet.  All the way down Serrano Street she hurry-hurried, her new shoes clicking like Mrs. Moreno’s metronome on top of the piano.  It seemed to take forever to reach the alley and the chilly shadows flowed out of it like a river, making her shiver as she got closer.  For a moment she hesitated, her heard pounding.  She ran, catching one flash-bulb glimpse of dumpsters, cats, wet asphalt, breathed garbage-smell and then she was past it.  Gasping for breath, wanting to sing.  Not there, not there!  She smiled as she spied the bus shelter.  She’d read the new library book while she waited, she didn’t mind waiting.   And someone else was already there.  Good.  The somebody stuck his head around the frosted glass.  Paco!  Her heart froze in her chest. A crow squawked and Angela started, foot catching the grass, jolting the swing to a jangly halt.  She stood up, wiped sweaty palms on her shorts.  I can’t, she thought.  I can’t go, tomorrow.  

 

            Notice that the first sentence is in the story’s ‘now’…in the swing.  The second sentence takes us into the flashback…she had left early, thinking Paco wouldn’t be there yet.  This is the transition. The third sentences shows her hurrying down Serrano street and we are completely in the ‘now’ of the flashback, the swing’s ‘now’ doesn’t yet exist here, because it hasn’t happened yet.  Angela meets Paco.  Notice that the crow’s squawk startles Angela and we drop firmly back into the ‘now’ of the story.  The swing jolts to a jangly halt.  She stands up, her palms sweaty. We are back in the story.  You can do the same thing with first person:

 

I push myself back and forth in the old swing, thinking about this morning, how I got up early so I’d get past the alley before Paco got there.  All the way down Serrano Street I’m hurrying, listening for him, like I can hear him breathing or something.  I almost can’t go past it…the alley.  I’m sweating, almost shaking, then I just run.  No Paco!  I’m bolting like a deer, I smell garbage, see a couple of cats all startled, them I’m past it, thank you all the saints, and maybe he got run over by a truck and I’ll never see him again. I slow down ‘cause I’m at the bus stop and I just want to laugh.  And then…he steps out.  Grinning.  Like he’s been watching me the whole time.  And I’m dead…  Right then this crow squawks and I catch my toe on the grass and nearly fall out of the swing.  I get up and I’m shaking again.  I gotta stay home tomorrow.  I gotta. 

 

            If you’ll notice, in first person, the flashback is less of an obvious skip back in time.  This is because in first person, the narrator is always telling us what is going on, so the transition isn’t as noticeable. Still, we start off in the swing, the ‘now’ of this story, and Angela tells us that she’s hurrying down Serrano Street, taking us into the ‘now’ of the flashback.  Again, the crow and that toe caught on the grass takes us back to the swing and the ‘now’ of the story.

 

              In both cases, it is very important to make the transition into and out of the flashback crystal clear to the reader.  It is not always a good choice to make an abrupt scene break, using a centered * and then drop the reader right into the new scene.  Since we are not merely switching time, place, or POV, but actually going back to a previous time, you are even more likely to confuse your reader with an abrupt transition like that.   Try instead to create a transition where your POV character thinks of  the past event, then falls into the flashback in order to lead the reader gently and surely into that ‘now’ of the past.

 

            Although flashback allows you to ‘show’ past events to the reader, you pay a price for using it.  Remember that it stops the forward momentum of the story and sends the reader backward.   It does not generally work well to use flashbacks often or as a ‘lazy way out’ to avoid embedding backstory in the ongoing action.  You run a significant risk of confusing the reader with every jump into the past. 

 

            Often, novice writers open the story with a brief action scene, then drop immediately into a lengthy flashback in order to set up the universe and the character’s backstory.  This can be especially problematical since readers are looking for ‘clues’ to the story in the early paragraphs of a story or pages of a book.  Since they don’t yet know the ‘now’ of your story well, they may fall in love with your flashback world and be disappointed when you bring them forward to that ‘now’ again.  Since they haven’t yet read very far in your book and may not have committed to your characters, you may lose them.  They may simply go read something else. 

 

            Use flashback when ‘showing’ an early event has significant dramatic impact and is important to the story.  Don’t use it as a quick and easy way to feed the reader lots of backstory, and avoid using it in the first scene if you can…although of course, anything can work just fine.   It’s a great window on the past, but you don’t want your reader to fall through it and be lost to your main story!