Being a Better Writer: Flashbacks · 7:20pm Apr 21st, 2014
Today's post comes via a multitude of requests on the topic. Whether it's been a discussion on pacing, foreshadowing, or other blogs I've posted here over the last year, one thing that has come up and been a major source of discussion in the comments on several occasions is proper use of the flashback. Commentators have poised varying opinions, but many have asked for mine (especially as I list them on my list them among my "poor writing peeves," and many of you have asked why). So today, we're going to talk about proper use of the flashback.
It isn't hard to understand how or why there is so much confusion on the flashback. Nowhere in a school is a teacher going to sit down with their class and explain the proper use and place for a flashback. Even in advanced college English classes, the only way a flashback is going to come up is if you directly ask about it, and even then the professor might not have anything to say.
Which means that most young writer's perceptions of flashbacks come from pop-culture sources: comic books, anime/TV shows, and whatever books they read growing up. And with exception of a few well-done examples, the average flashback you see coming out of those sources is poorly utilized, phoned in, or so completely misused that it barely even qualifies as a flashback anymore. The pop-culture commonality for flashbacks isn't to use a flashback as a narrative tool, but quite often as filler or a cheap narrative patch to cover up errors and mistakes.
Unfortunately, with this being the only use that most young writers encounter, it comes as little surprise that most (and by which I'd argue at least 95% or higher of most new writers) have no idea how to properly use a flashback. Most of them couldn't even tell you what a flashback was with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Worse, many of them seem to form their own idea of what a "flashback" is and why you'd use it, based on their broken pop-culture source, and then hold that as a "gold" standard, informing others that it is the appropriate use of a flashback. Search long and hard enough on the internet, and you can find "camps" of various flashback "style" holders that debate with one another over the use of the flashback, or what one is. Even worse, some of them reach positions of "authority" and soapbox them to enforce their opinion of the flashback on others.*
So let's get this out of the way immediately: What IS a flashback?
A flashback is a narrative tool designed to convey information to the reader and serve as a pacing element. When one wants to use a flashback, it's because they want to convey an event or information to the reader (not to the characters) that has already taken place in order to broaden the reader's understanding of the world (occasionally it can be used for a character discovery, but I'll get to that in a moment). A flashback is much like any other scene in your story, except that it is a jump backwards on the timeline, to an event early in (usually before) the events that kicked off the plot of the story. In fact, you could almost consider it a short story inside your larger story.**
So how do you use one? Easy. It's a different way of approaching information that the reader needs to know. Perhaps you want the reader to know about an event, but don't really want the characters to sit around discussing it as they already know it (the "as you know" conversation. And, alternatively, even if the characters don't all know it, you don't want to write an entire scene of one character telling the story because it'll keep the tension low for far too long. You've already had a whole chapter of low tension. And the next chapter will be too. You need to spice things up, and you want to introduce an event that happened a long time ago so for a narrative reason (plot, character development, etc).
This is the perfect opportunity for a flashback. You jump back to an event before the story began (whether the character is "remembering" it, "dreaming" it, or however you reach it, doesn't really matter). Now you have a complete scene shift (new things to pique the readers interest), you get to talk about something that you need the reader to know about without the characters slipping into a retread of what they already knew, and you have a jump in pacing to break up a low point between chapters and skip over a boring point in your story where nothing was happening.
Note that last word there. "Chapters." A flashback is going to change pacing. This is why when you place a flashback, you must take great care in where. Many of the best used flashbacks are set up in fiction as their own chapters, often returning to the story some amount of time after the last point the reader was experiencing in order to skip over dull or boring lull in story activity. Remember a few weeks ago when I wrote about pacing and tension? And what I said about a flashback almost being a short story inside the story above? Consider how that will affect your pacing chart. You don't want to stick your flashback in the middle of a tense scene, or the middle of a climactic battle, because it will destroy the pacing. You want to stick it in during a long low point, something to break up a slow period of low tension by adding a small rise and fall before coming back to the main story.
Properly used, a flashback is something that can lift a slower point in your story, allowing you to prevent your work from falling into a long trench of inactivity. Additionally, it can help you explain character or plot background, extrapolate on the world itself, or even be used to help extrapolate other details without the tediousness of an "as you know" discussion.
However, like all other tools in the writing toolbox, a flashback is only one tool. It is not a magic bullet, nor should it be considered as such. Like any other tool, using it in the wrong place, for the wrong thing, can quickly lead to disaster. In fact, when it comes to the writer's toolbox, the safest way to think of a flashback is that it's like a sledgehammer. Is it a tool? Yes. Does it have value? Yes. But you do not use a sledgehammer to drive nails or cut boards, and if you try to do so, end up doing more destruction than good to whatever you're trying to create. Sticking a flashback into a story is akin to using a sledgehammer in a home reconstruction: something that should be done sparingly and with great care. Like a sledgehammer, a flashback is easy to use, but also easy to completely level your structure with.
Which is why we're now going to look at a few improper uses of this tool. There are certain places where you should never, ever be reaching into your toolbox for this tool. Worse yet, each of these has become a fairly common usage thanks to one medium or another, distorting young writers ideas of what is appropriate use and entering into their own works. In fact, some of these improper uses are (as mentioned above) championed as "correct" uses of the flashback. Which, in some of them, is akin to telling a carpenter that a sledgehammer is the proper tool for cutting a board in half, not the table saw (ie, it might work once due to dumb luck, after a lot of disasters). If you're using a flashback in any of the following ways ... it's time to start rifling through your toolbox.
The first and most grievous offense is using a flashback in the middle of a scene. Wham. Cut-and-dry jump from something that was happening to a flashback. Why does this happen? Originally, I believe it stems from two sources: the introductions to flashback chapters and misinterpretation of character's "memory flashes" during a big scene (see footnote **). At some point, a writer thought back on the introduction to a flashback and though "well, they jumped right into it," forgetting that it was a standalone event, and that it wasn't jumping out of the key scene, but into the key scene of the chapter. Forgetting this, they saw no issue with splitting apart their own scene with a flashback, and since then, the practice has grown.
Unfortunately, this type of flashback usage destroys any and all attempts at pacing. Like I said, a flashback is a story within your story. Imagine what Star Wars would be like if during the final Death Star trench run, as Luke is flying up the trench with Darth Vader firing on him, the story jumped back to Tatooine, and we got a five-minute "episode" story of he and his buddies going out to fly their T-16s down the aforementioned "Beggar's Canyon" run before jumping back to the final run.
Pacing? Destroyed. Don't be this writer. Put your flashbacks where they need to be, and not in the middle of another scene. You might as well randomize your chapters for all the good it will do you.
Another unfortunate misuse is the attempted use of a flashback to replace proper foreshadowing.* In this case, the writer doesn't ever foreshadow events or occurrences, but instead cuts to the action as quickly as possible and then uses an in-scene flashback (sin number one) to explain to the reader how this occurred and why.
I almost question why I need to explain this one, but by the back-hair of dwarves people, it should be obvious! This completely destroys the narrative of any work you apply it to! Traditionally, you have a story. You have events in the story that lead and rise towards a climax. Characters experience smaller events along the way, and foreshadowed clues are given to the reader about the direction of the plot and the events coming up. Clever readers are rewarded for figuring out things before the characters (although to be fair, readers get direct allusions without any extraneous filler, which does make it a lot easier), and the reader gets to follow a narrative rise towards a conclusion.
This approach is a complete butchery. It ignores the narrative arc and shoves the reader into a scene without proper explanation required to understand it, and then attempts to cover its sins by "flashbacking" the explanation into the event itself. It's a case of turning a story into "3=1+1+1" instead of "1+1+2+1-3+1=3." It's lazy, hackneyed writing, and you shouldn't ever be doing it.
This is closely linked with another abuse of flashback (often occurring alongside it), which is the use of the flashback as a retcon. This is a another case where the author has failed to foreshadow, but in this case due to poor planning rather than negligence. They reach a climactic scene and realize that they never once established the main characters rival, or a pivotal event that is of great concern in the upcoming scene. But, rather than going back and rewriting the early events of the story. They simply throw in an infodump flashback to explain this obviously important character/scene that everyone knows about but never talked about up until now. This improper use stems largely from television, with anime being the most grievous offender. Since anime and television are largely written "as you go," a lot of TV shows find themselves writing in "important" characters and events out of nowhere, "flashbacking" them into existence, usually with a scene or an episode devoted to them. Anime is the worst of the lot, writing in a new character in the middle of a climax and then doing an in-scene flashback that takes three episodes to resolve before jumping back, but even our own MLP:FiM has succumbed to this on occasion (Shining Armor anyone?).
Basically, both are misuses of the tool in the purpose of a writer's out when they've failed to properly set things up. Rather than go back and rework an earlier scene (or perhaps just plan ahead), the writer takes the lazy way out and dumps a bunch of "explanations" on the reader, counting on them to just put up with the offense.
Don't. Both of the above tools are nothing more than a lazy writer who isn't worth your time to read. They don't want to (or are incapable of) the work that goes into writing a complete story, and are attempting to pass along a cheap imitation in hopes that you'll buy into it. Don't. And don't be the one who misuses this tool in this way. If you find a narrative error in your story or something that you forgot to foreshadow, go back and work it in.
The final misuse of the flashback (and again, one that stems from television) is using one as filler material. A writer needs to pad something out, and so they come up with a flashback story not to add to the main story, but simply to fill up space and occupy the reader. The reason to not do this is clear: it doesn't add anything to your narrative. Look, if you find a slow point in your story and decide to use a flashback to beef up the narrative by adding in some additional character conflict and depth, then by all means, go for it! But if you see that same slow point and decide to put in a flashback that adds next to nothing to the narrative, you've created filler.
Your flashbacks need to have purpose for the work as a whole, not just be self-contained curiosities. When faced with a low point in a story, don't immediately look to the sledgehammer as the possible solution. Look at other ways to add spice first. Don't let your flashbacks be filler material.
In summary, a flashback is a tool of narrative and pacing that allows you to avoid "as you know" events, shore up slower periods of your story, or jump back to important narrative events that took place long before the actual timeline beginning of your story. Used properly, it will add to the narrative power of your work. Used poorly however, it can frustrate and confuse your reader, or even shatter the narrative construction of your story. It's not a tool you'll use often, but used carefully, and in the right place, it can be a powerful one that helps your story sit in the mind of the reader for years to come.
Just make sure that your reader is flashing back on it because of what it added, and not what it took away.
So, writing prompt for the week: Write a flashback that would fit into a story you've already written as a supplement chapter between other chapters without disrupting the story itself.
Again, thanks for reading, I'll see you all again next time!
*This is one of the reasons I don't have a high opinion of EQD's fanfic department.
**A flashback is a narrative piece. A "flash" of memory of an earlier event that a character experiences in a line or a small, tight paragraph during a scene is not a flashback.
I think your bold tag malfunctioned, there. (Edit: And my post is somehow all bold as well.)
I'm reminded of Film Crit Hulk's essay on the problems with Man of Steel, its use of flashbacks being one of them. He noted that the flashbacks were placed haphazardly, and not only had no relation to the present-day scenes before and after them, but also had tenuous relation to the present-day plot in its entirety. My favorite is the one where young Clark displays restraint, having learned that there are better ways of dealing with bullies than by punching them, placed in a movie where adult Clark solves his problems primarily by punching them.
I'm a big fan of nonlinear storytelling and will fight to the death to defend them, but I couldn't find anything to criticise here. Well done.
This, though. This deserves more prominence, because it is (or ought to be) the take-home lesson here.
2032204
Well, I think there's a difference between nonlinear storytelling and just using flashbacks. With nonlinear storytelling, the entire story usually jumps around, and it's all done completely intentionally and for a good reason. Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse-Five come to mind as good examples. And while I personally prefer stories to generally stay linear, I'm okay with this sort of nonlinear storytelling when it's done well (Catch-22 is one of the few books I had to read for an English class that I actually really enjoyed). But when writers are using flashbacks poorly, it's usually just one or two in a story (and if they're using more bad flashbacks than that, I've probably stopped reading), and...well, I don't think there's much I can say that Viking hasn't already said. Just don't do it, people.
(And on that note, thank you for explaining why I don't like flashbacks better than I could.)
Good piece.
If you take requests for these blogs, can I ask for one I think is related to this: in media res beginnings. Especially the variant in which the story starts at its own climax and then cuts back to the "real" beginning at a critical juncture (usually when it looks like the villian is going to win and starts monologue-ing). I'd be interested to hear your thoughts in that, Viking.
2033010
You're right, there's an important difference there. Though I tend to use nonlinearity as an umbrella term for stories where the events aren't recounted in chronological order. So: flashbacks, flashforwards, in media res, how we got here, unstructured chronology like Catch 22, and heavily structured stuff (My favourite example is Use of Weapons, with two threads told in alternating chapters, one going forwards in time and one going backwards, with internal flashbacks which foreshadow the climax of the second thread).
I don't think I've encountered as many poorly-used flashbacks as you and Viking seem to have. It seems like there are some real stinkers out there.
2032114
Yeah, those flashbacks compounded a movie that to me was already fairly weak. Does the world really need another Superman origin story at this point?
2033010
Karibu. Pop culture has ruined the perception of the flashback. But, with a little work, it can be saved!
2033604
I can add "non-linear storytelling tools" to my list of upcoming blog topics. Thanks for the idea. An in medias res sequence is one of those elements (and makes for a very good narrative and plot hook), so I can definitely tackle that!
2035367
Non-linear stories and flashbacks, like J mentioned, are two very different things. Traditionally, flashbacks are something that happen before the actual timeline of the story, so if a story covers events occurring from points A to B to C, even in a non-linear manner, than the flashback will be something that happened before point A. Now a non-linear story can jump around from point B to point A to point F and work just fine (although it will take a lot more work), but an actual flashback is a reminisce of something that came before any of the story's events.
Granted, you could always just make the "flashback" point A, but then that would imply that you are, at some point, going to cover points between A and E.
I hope that makes sense.
But yes, there are some horrible abuses of flashbacks out there, a lot of them on any form of television show. But there are a bunch here on FimFic as well.
2036636
Well, there's only ever been one Superman origin story in the movies before Man of Steel. There was also the animated series adding one and the comics adding... I don't know how many, but most people don't know the answer to that either because they don't read the DC Universe, so it doesn't matter. Superman's just been so ubiquitous that it seems like a dozen. Maybe the answer to your question is actually yes, but we didn't need this one.
2033010
Catch-22 is one of my favorite books, though I'm not sure why the book is structured the way it was.
2036636 Many thanks. It's precisely because it's a useful tool that I think it needs to be talked about, because the obviously useful tools are the most likely to get misused by less experienced writers.
Oh, and if I may make another request? Openings.
2036636
Really, Viking?
For me the requirement to use a flashback is when the protagonist has the time to make a trip down memory line.
Also i agree with tankenstein, openings need to be adressed as well. An important part of the story is the opening because people will turn away if the opening is not very good. Also we need to learn of better ways to open up a story than talking about the weather, but it is difficult as the opening is an attempt to break the ice between the writer and the reader.
2037964 2037123
How embarrassing!
I actually know how that screw-up occurred. In the first draft, it was "you're building." Then when I saw "you're building" above already, I erased building ... and left what was now one of the worst offenses on the internet. Dang! You caught me...
As far as openings, they're on the list, but for a specific look at a part of an opening, there was this blog post on Narrative Hooks, Plot Hooks, and Story Hooks that could be of some use to you until then.
I have a question regarding to flashback placement. In the fiction I am writing currently, there is a flashback that takes place in a pretty action packed portion of the story. I wrote it is as sort of a dream sequence as the character was knocked unconscious from an explosion. It took place at the very start of a new chapter, so I'm not entirely sure if this is a narrative killer or not. Would that rule apply in that situation?
2227689
From what you've said here, it would depend on whether or not the action is seamless. If you stop in the middle, have a flashback and then come back, that's pretty hard to do and can be very jarring. If that's the end of that "scene" and then the waking up is another "scene," even if it is action, that's a different case.
Flashbacks are very hard to use right. Check with alpha readers as well as rereading it yourself to see what you think.