Flashbacks in Fiction

Flashbacks in Fiction

A fledgling writer recently asked me about flashbacks. They were writing a novel where the story flashed to and from the present day to the recent past. I warned them against making it too confusing and impressed the importance of keeping it clear for the reader. If each chapter is supposed to be present, then past repeatedly then the author may want to think about perhaps starting each chapter with a year, date or time. We don’t want the reader to be going back to a previous chapter to re-read something just to make sure they know when it happened. That could be very frustrating.

We’ve all seen films where it is expertly done; Quentin Tarantino is legendary for throwing his viewers about in time and location. But in the literary world, this is more difficult. We have to paint the scene with words, and if a sitting room is decorated the same way in both time scales we cannot paint it any other way. A clever use of tense is used to ensure the reader knows where they are, as is a carefully placed, time-accurate adjective. Do not underestimate the necessity of accuracy of time. You cannot talk about un-employment records being at an all time low, when in fact they had never been so good. This may confuse someone who was around at the time. It’s all well and good describing the clothes people wear, but what about the kind of language they used or the attitudes they had. We think and speak very differently now as a community than we did 20 years ago. All this has to be considered.

My current novel is based 40 years ago and required a lot of research. I talked about research in a previous blog and how important it can be to a factually accurate novel. But my novel doesn’t flit to and fro; it starts in present day, then heads off to 1974 and remains there until the end of the story. Not original, I know, but it is how I wanted my story narrated. Each fictitious tale is a creation of its author’s mind and should be respected as such. Everyone tells their story the way they want, and if you go back and forth in time, then that’s up to you, each to their own preference. But if you want your novel to be commercially viable, then you must make it easy for your readers to enjoy.

Tell me what you think; do you prefer a novel that’s basically one big flashback? Or flitting to and fro? Do you like stories based in the past or perhaps futuristic tales are more up your alley? Read, follow, comment and enjoy. M x