Writing Tutorial: THE FLASHBACK, Part 1

Strategies for getting background info onto the page without killing momentum. (Hint: it’s like making a yummy sandwich.)

sandwich

One of the things my writing clients and MFA students struggle with the most is the flashback. But I mean, don’t we all? Let’s be honest, no matter how long you’ve been doing this writing thing, flashbacks are tricky.

In every novel, in every memoir, in just about any story we write, we must offer background information so our readers can make sense of our characters’ present, via their pasts. Backstory gives readers essential pieces of the puzzle that make our characters who they are and help catch readers up to the present moment of whatever story we are telling.

As writers, flashbacks are the tool we often use to get this info onto the page.

However, as a reader, I often find flashbacks to be a huge drag—on momentum. You can have a story that’s zipping along wonderfully, and then BOOM! A flashback arrives and that momentum comes to a screeching halt. If not done artfully, you put down the book to get yourself more coffee, and perhaps don’t return to reading at all.

Especially when flashbacks often come dangerously close to becoming—or sometimes actually are—Information Dumps. An info dump is just what it sounds like—a whole bunch of background info about the characters or the world of the story and its history just dumped onto the page in a big, boring swath of unstructured information. Info dumps tend to be all tell, no show. They offer background that the reader might need (or might not), yet make no attempt to be artful—aka, the dump.

The flashback is (ideally) a useful storytelling tool, whereas the info dump is to be avoided at all costs.

The flashback has structure, perhaps it includes dialogue, and it tells a mini-story within the story. There is more show than tell, and involves an effort to draw the reader in while also offering background about the characters or world. The flashback can be a scene within a scene, an entire story within a chapter, or even its own chapter.

We writers must find strategies to include flashbacks in our work, yet without wrecking all our hard-earned momentum. Flashbacks are a particular art and writing them a skill we all must learn. Below is the first of my own strategies for getting out info without killing momentum.