The Place For My Writers Notes

Original posting 24 August 2008

Make a Scene Chapter 18: Flashback Scenes

Walking through Make a Scene by Jordan Rosenfeld, we've been looking at part three, various scene types. The first scene, suspense scenes, dramatic scenes, contemplative scenes, dialogue scenes, action scenes -- and now it's time for the flashback scenes. Remembering the past . . .

Every narrative has a backstory -- the background history, facts, and so forth that push your characters along. It's all the stuff that happened before the current story. Growing up, past encounters, whatever happened before the first moment of the current story, that's your backstory. And when you dive back into it, that's a flashback.

Flashback scenes are just regular scenes, with setting, action, characters, plot, dramatic tension, cliffhangers, and whatever other bits and pieces you like in your scenes, but set in the past. They should:

• focus on action, information, and character interactions
• don't overdo the setting and sensory details, keep the pace rapid
• illustrate or explain something in the front story, usually a plot or character point
• help the reader understand the protagonist

Don't overdo flashbacks. They are a disruption in the flow of the story. Keep them short and sweet.

Transition into the past. Introducing the time setting is a tricky part of a flashback. A few words of transition and sometimes some verb tense can help. "A few days after they moved in, ..." can start a flashback about the current house. "He had spoken..." instead of "He spoke..." Or you can use a specific date or incident. Make sure the reader knows what the present date is, then clearly indicate the past date. Sometimes have the narrator tell the reader that we're re-creating the past. Or use remembrances. You can also sometimes use the trigger -- a smell, a phrase, or something else that reminds the character of their past. This also helps you get back out of the flashback into the present.

Using flashbacks. Keep them tightly focused on the information that's needed for the current story. Flashbacks often illustrate something that happened in the past which led directly to the present plot point. They can also create suspense, introducing tidbits from the events of the past to build up tension in the front story. There's usually a tension between the bits of the past and the current story in this case. You can also use flashbacks to help make a character deeper and to introduce dead characters. Absent characters can still affect the current story, and using a flashback to show their influence is one way to get around their current inactivity.

Ending the flashback. You need to transition back to the present, either returning the reader to be same point with a flashback started, or giving them a push into the current present. Since many flashbacks are very short, you don't want to the transition to be long, but be careful not to lose the reader. Make it clear that we've returned from the past to the front story.

Rosenfeld's checklist for flashback scenes:

1. Does the flashback provide action, information, and character interaction?
2. Does information in the flashback tie into the front story?
3. Use the flashback likely to confuse the reader about where they are in the front story?
4. Does the past told in the flashback directly affect the plot in the front story?
5. Do elements of the past in the flashback create suspense in the present?
6. Does the flashback deepen the reader's understanding of a character?

Flashbacks are kind of interesting. You may remember the advice of the King to the White Rabbit in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll? "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop." This simple linear flow gets interrupted by flashbacks. Classical theater also indicated that there should be unity of place, time, and action. One setting, one day of time, and one sweep of action. Anything before that should be recounted by the actors -- a flashback in dialogue, but not in setting or action. And we still prefer that stories start at the beginning and sweep along in a reasonably continuous flow to the end, although we'll accept the fade-out/fade-in and other transitions especially if they help the story move along. But those hops back in time . . . well, if we have to, we'll put up with them, but don't do it too much.

Incidentally, I found that this was one of the key differences between TV mysteries and samurai dramas here in Japan for me as a learner. The mysteries would often have talking heads discuss something that happened yesterday, and if I got lost in the chatter, then I had no idea what had happened. The samurai dramas, though, would say something like, "Yesterday I was at the bar . . . " and pop - we'd have a live flashback scene showing just what happened at the bar. Much easier for someone who was struggling with the language to understand.

So - your assignment? Okay, how about looking at your story, and finding some point of character backstory that really needs to be explained. And then put together the flashback to show it to us. Maybe it's their anger, maybe it's the gentle way they treat children, or whatever, but give us a short flashback to show us why they act that way. Make sure that the transition into it is clear, that the essential point is made, and that we get led back to the front story.

Now where were we? Oh, yes, once upon a time . . . and it happened just that way!
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