Flashing - only for Fridays?

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If you enjoy Facebook then you've probably seen at least one person who has posted a "flashback" picture from his/her youth on a Friday. A look back at years gone by and a reminder of happy memories or really bad hair days, depending on the photo. I've had enough of those bad hair days and bad hair color days that I won't be digging in my archives for those pictures!

As fun or crazy as that type of flashback may be, in this post I'm discussing the use of flashback in writing. This is a tool which may be used in any genre but too much flashback can be dreary for the reader. It's difficult to go from current action and then be thrown back into what happened at some point prior. If the novel is action based, flashback can slow the action down dramatically.

Imagine your hero is in the middle of a fight for his life with a villain. Suddenly he flashes back to when he was a child and was bullied. He thinks about his nine year old self and how he managed to overcome the school bully. And now back to the action as he wrestles the villain to the ground. You might be tempted to flip back to what was happening before the flashback.

If used correctly though, flashback can definitely add to the story. Can you think of a time when you came across flashback used in a story where you hardly noticed it but the story moved forward because of it?



Happy trails,

Leslie

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