i had no idea that "authors and teachers advise against flashbacks." That sounds crazy, to me. Flashbacks can be fantastic! And necessary! One thing I've noticed by reading these threads the last few months is that a lot of people have been given a lot of rules. There really are no rules (George has said this as well). You can do whatever you want as long as you do a good job of it. (I've seen Alice Munro mentioned here. She is the queen of writing all over the place in time. Her use of time--well, if you haven't read her, dive in anywhere. She's not just digressing--she often goes back and forth. It's amazing to see what she can do with chronology and time.)
To this particular questioner, I hope you don't mind my unasked-for advice. Just write your novel in any way that feels right to you. Don't listen to any rules. Finish your book and then analyze it. You'll see what's missing or what needs to be added. If your flashbacks or sequences aren't working, you can revise them. If you need more, you can put them in. I'm sure you're already on a good path. Listen to yourself and do what you feel is right.
I knew there was something unappealing about “flashbacks of convenience.” I just hadn’t seen the problem articulated so clearly. In essence, the reader feels the writer’s laziness in using the flashback to do the work the writer should be doing. Then, on some level, the reader decides she too can cut corners by simply checking out.
This was instructive and useful, and I appreciate it. Thanks.
George you are so often asking these challenging questions, like, do I know the relationship between my techniques and my rules [when to use a flashback] (it never even occurred to me that I might have rules for my writing) and my sense of what life is about? This is a hard question, but I am not whining, no. I'm groaning because I can see that the link between rules and my sense of things, or, put it another way, between heart and brain, is essential to my stories. Well, to anybody's stories? These questions, well, I'm a different writer today, and I thank you.
I remember The Mom of Bold Action, and I just reread it. Curiously enough, I had not remembered Ricky, who seems, now, quite memorable. How could I not remember? What grabbed me in this story then, and again now, was/is the brilliant weave of that voice, curling through time and event and desire. And the wham at the end is nice too, and made me ashamed at how, both times, I laughed and joyed my way through. Genius, really. I flashed back myself to living in Manhattan, and was following my first-grader down, no up West End Avenue when a gang of maybe 2nd graders jumped him and stole his bike before I could reach them. My son went back home and drew very violent pictures of the event, bearing so hard on the pencil, he went through the paper. I called the cops. Ha ha ha. I loved where we lived, but we moved the next month to LI. Can't raise a kid in a place like that. No freedom. No good. Now I need to read yet again and, for my own enlightenment, map the travels the voice makes, even if just for a page or two. Thanks, George! I keep saying this Story Club is teaching me to read! Sometimes it helps me read my own work and go back in and cut loose. If you can get away with it . . .
This discussion on flashbacks–inclusion, length, purpose, triggers, and structure/pattern–is so incredibly helpful to the struggling memoirist in me. Thank you, George, and I hope there are other nonfiction writers among us in your fabulous club. I'm learning so much, and I'm imagining you and Mary Karr sharing writerly notes.
I love this post dearly. Two things that stood out, among so many things: I am so intrigued by this idea of being “too on the nose.” And also the mention of Jack Kerouac. I really struggled with On The Road; his writing style made my head hurt. But then when I heard a recording of Jack reading part of it, it was so beautiful that my resistance ducked out. (One of my favorite passages of Kerouac is the first sixty or so pages of Desolation Angels, where he is writing his state of mind while working as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak in the North Cascades. [I have been there. A place of utter beauty, and not so easy to get to.] Those pages are basically the stream of his thoughts as he is living and writing by himself in the middle of a spectacular nowhere, without the distractions of friends, travel, parties or jazz. A most lovely and worthwhile read.)
I'm not a fan of 'flash back' structure, and yet sometimes it is the only way to get where you want to go. I absolutely love Evie Wyld's The Bass Rock whose structure depends on the chaos created by going back. It creates a sense of unease that she couldn't get to any other way. As with anything else, if it's done well, it works. I know the feeling though of, uh oh, can I pull this off?
I am also sorting through the flashback vs. backstory use in this post. I take the former to equate with a character's memory (as the brain works); the latter with the character's background, meant to inform the reader. Both seem necessary. Then there is the non-linear and linear narrative. I mention this because I'm reading McEwan's latest novel, Lessons (not offpress yet). I prefer linear storytelling generally so in reading a long novel (over 400pp) like this, a back and forth rendering of time, I am challenged, bordering on feeling manipulated. I wonder if anyone on this list struggles with what seems to me a trend, when chapters flip back and forth. Clearly a determined plan of structure by the author.
Thank you for this reflective and helpful post, this in particular: "The structure of a book is an enactment of a belief system, if we really think about it. What is allowed (in your book) and when?” I’ll come back to this quote....
This post clarified and enhanced my understanding of the purpose and effect flashback can have much better than a critique on a novel chapter of mine I received several years ago. When, in that workshop, the leader/teacher, a very accomplished writer, said I shouldn't use the flashbacks I had, I said, "But isn't the reader going to want to know WHY the protagonist is the way she is, why she's done these things?" he said, "No, not really. The reader just needs to see the world through the protagonist's eyes and, sort of, glean how she got there from who she is now."
That made a little bit of sense to me then, maybe a little more now, but I still like George's take on flashback better.
Well I read a ton of popular novels, mostly crime, and alternating between the past and present is a very common structure. Chapters will be like, "Jane, 1993. Tom, today. Marion, 1994. Marion, today." I don't totally love it and sometimes it's confusing. But flashbacks are far from dealbreakers in contemporary novels.
Flashbacks. Movies use this a lot, and a flashback is triggered by a present event in the character's mind explaining the why of the present reaction. But when the author writes a backstory, it would be called exposition. Digressions and side stories feel like decorations enriching the narrative, like a pleasant chat as in a Munro story ( like a btw). For me digression also add to the suspense and I start wondering why it is there. Flashbacks, exposition, digression.... . Enjoyed your idea of a narrative being a belief system....
I dunno, my memories can go on for quite a while. One time I ate a madeleine and had a flashback for like a thousand pages.
i had no idea that "authors and teachers advise against flashbacks." That sounds crazy, to me. Flashbacks can be fantastic! And necessary! One thing I've noticed by reading these threads the last few months is that a lot of people have been given a lot of rules. There really are no rules (George has said this as well). You can do whatever you want as long as you do a good job of it. (I've seen Alice Munro mentioned here. She is the queen of writing all over the place in time. Her use of time--well, if you haven't read her, dive in anywhere. She's not just digressing--she often goes back and forth. It's amazing to see what she can do with chronology and time.)
To this particular questioner, I hope you don't mind my unasked-for advice. Just write your novel in any way that feels right to you. Don't listen to any rules. Finish your book and then analyze it. You'll see what's missing or what needs to be added. If your flashbacks or sequences aren't working, you can revise them. If you need more, you can put them in. I'm sure you're already on a good path. Listen to yourself and do what you feel is right.
I'll shut up now. Thanks for reading.
I knew there was something unappealing about “flashbacks of convenience.” I just hadn’t seen the problem articulated so clearly. In essence, the reader feels the writer’s laziness in using the flashback to do the work the writer should be doing. Then, on some level, the reader decides she too can cut corners by simply checking out.
This was instructive and useful, and I appreciate it. Thanks.
George you are so often asking these challenging questions, like, do I know the relationship between my techniques and my rules [when to use a flashback] (it never even occurred to me that I might have rules for my writing) and my sense of what life is about? This is a hard question, but I am not whining, no. I'm groaning because I can see that the link between rules and my sense of things, or, put it another way, between heart and brain, is essential to my stories. Well, to anybody's stories? These questions, well, I'm a different writer today, and I thank you.
I remember The Mom of Bold Action, and I just reread it. Curiously enough, I had not remembered Ricky, who seems, now, quite memorable. How could I not remember? What grabbed me in this story then, and again now, was/is the brilliant weave of that voice, curling through time and event and desire. And the wham at the end is nice too, and made me ashamed at how, both times, I laughed and joyed my way through. Genius, really. I flashed back myself to living in Manhattan, and was following my first-grader down, no up West End Avenue when a gang of maybe 2nd graders jumped him and stole his bike before I could reach them. My son went back home and drew very violent pictures of the event, bearing so hard on the pencil, he went through the paper. I called the cops. Ha ha ha. I loved where we lived, but we moved the next month to LI. Can't raise a kid in a place like that. No freedom. No good. Now I need to read yet again and, for my own enlightenment, map the travels the voice makes, even if just for a page or two. Thanks, George! I keep saying this Story Club is teaching me to read! Sometimes it helps me read my own work and go back in and cut loose. If you can get away with it . . .
This discussion on flashbacks–inclusion, length, purpose, triggers, and structure/pattern–is so incredibly helpful to the struggling memoirist in me. Thank you, George, and I hope there are other nonfiction writers among us in your fabulous club. I'm learning so much, and I'm imagining you and Mary Karr sharing writerly notes.
I love this post dearly. Two things that stood out, among so many things: I am so intrigued by this idea of being “too on the nose.” And also the mention of Jack Kerouac. I really struggled with On The Road; his writing style made my head hurt. But then when I heard a recording of Jack reading part of it, it was so beautiful that my resistance ducked out. (One of my favorite passages of Kerouac is the first sixty or so pages of Desolation Angels, where he is writing his state of mind while working as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak in the North Cascades. [I have been there. A place of utter beauty, and not so easy to get to.] Those pages are basically the stream of his thoughts as he is living and writing by himself in the middle of a spectacular nowhere, without the distractions of friends, travel, parties or jazz. A most lovely and worthwhile read.)
George, to your mind, what's the difference between a flashback and backstory?
I'm not a fan of 'flash back' structure, and yet sometimes it is the only way to get where you want to go. I absolutely love Evie Wyld's The Bass Rock whose structure depends on the chaos created by going back. It creates a sense of unease that she couldn't get to any other way. As with anything else, if it's done well, it works. I know the feeling though of, uh oh, can I pull this off?
I am also sorting through the flashback vs. backstory use in this post. I take the former to equate with a character's memory (as the brain works); the latter with the character's background, meant to inform the reader. Both seem necessary. Then there is the non-linear and linear narrative. I mention this because I'm reading McEwan's latest novel, Lessons (not offpress yet). I prefer linear storytelling generally so in reading a long novel (over 400pp) like this, a back and forth rendering of time, I am challenged, bordering on feeling manipulated. I wonder if anyone on this list struggles with what seems to me a trend, when chapters flip back and forth. Clearly a determined plan of structure by the author.
Thank you for this reflective and helpful post, this in particular: "The structure of a book is an enactment of a belief system, if we really think about it. What is allowed (in your book) and when?” I’ll come back to this quote....
This post clarified and enhanced my understanding of the purpose and effect flashback can have much better than a critique on a novel chapter of mine I received several years ago. When, in that workshop, the leader/teacher, a very accomplished writer, said I shouldn't use the flashbacks I had, I said, "But isn't the reader going to want to know WHY the protagonist is the way she is, why she's done these things?" he said, "No, not really. The reader just needs to see the world through the protagonist's eyes and, sort of, glean how she got there from who she is now."
That made a little bit of sense to me then, maybe a little more now, but I still like George's take on flashback better.
Well I read a ton of popular novels, mostly crime, and alternating between the past and present is a very common structure. Chapters will be like, "Jane, 1993. Tom, today. Marion, 1994. Marion, today." I don't totally love it and sometimes it's confusing. But flashbacks are far from dealbreakers in contemporary novels.
So....why not flash forward?^^
Flashbacks. Movies use this a lot, and a flashback is triggered by a present event in the character's mind explaining the why of the present reaction. But when the author writes a backstory, it would be called exposition. Digressions and side stories feel like decorations enriching the narrative, like a pleasant chat as in a Munro story ( like a btw). For me digression also add to the suspense and I start wondering why it is there. Flashbacks, exposition, digression.... . Enjoyed your idea of a narrative being a belief system....
That's a tough subject to address, and I found much of what you said wonderful.