One challenge that you’re likely to face when writing a novel is how to fill the reader in about important events in your main character’s past. There are various techniques you can use for this—one of which is a flashback.
Flashbacks can
be fun to write, but they can also present challenges. Where should they appear in your novel? How long should they be? How exactly should you lead the reader into—and out of—the flashback? Or should you avoid using flashbacks at all?
We’re going to dig into how to write flashbacks that work, taking a look at some examples, too. First, let’s get clear about what exactly a flashback
is.
What is a Flashback?
In fiction, a flashback is a scene set in the “past” of the main timeline of the novel. There’s usually some kind of trigger in the present for the flashback, like a character hearing or seeing something that links with an event in their past—but there doesn’t have to be an obvious
trigger.
A flashback isn’t the same thing as a character simply remembering a past event. We might get told a lot of events of the character’s past in a summary—but a flashback is a scene, usually including action and dialogue as well as narrative.
What Isn’t a
Flashback?
If a story repeatedly moves between a past and present timeline, with both taking up a significant amount of the book, that’s a dual timeline narrative.
If you have a scene right at the start of your story set at an earlier time, that’s usually called a “prologue” rather than a flashback. (A prologue can also be set in the future, though that’s
more unusual.)
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