In a recent blog post, Tiffany Yates Martin offers advice on mastering flashbacks. “Used unskillfully, flashbacks risk yanking readers right out of your story, confusing or overwhelming them with backstory, and stopping momentum in its tracks,” she writes. “Well executed and woven smoothly into a story, flashbacks can bring your characters more fully to life; deepen reader investment in and understanding of them and of their arcs; and make the story more vivid and visceral.”
So how can you master this technique? Yates Martin suggests four key questions to ask before writing a flashback:
1. What key information or action does the flashback contain? Flashbacks aren’t decoration. They need to convey specific, relevant information about your characters or story, which can’t be revealed in the present.
2. How does the flashback essentially illuminate the character or story? Even when you flash backwards, your story should move forward. “Well-used flashback accomplishes this by serving to spark a realization, reaction, or action in the protagonist in the present-day story, moving your character further along their arc,” Yates Martin writes.
3. What makes flashback the strongest way to present this information? Why should you use a flashback instead of context or memory to convey this information? “Depending on what information or action the flashback comprises, it may carry more emotional heft and resonance to briefly pull readers away from the current scene and let us live the flashback memory with the characters directly,” Yates Martin says. Because you are taking the reader out of the present scene, flashbacks are more relevant when a character is reflecting or considering new action. Avoid using flashbacks when the action or tension is high.
4. What makes it essential to show the flashback now? Is the information contained in the flashback necessary at this moment in the story or will it be most effective? If not, consider placing the flashback elsewhere.
