I was talking to (harassing maybe) someone on Facebook yesteday, and honestly Breanna is fantastic to put up with my ‘my-brain-is-drained-because-its-three-pm-and-i-still-have-work-to-do’ ramblings. She’s moved the discussion to her blog and you should all go check it out because it’s about flashbacks. Good. Bad. Indifferent, go share your opinion 😀
(and for the record, I’m not picking on flashbacks or Breanna. I could substitute adverbs, prologues, or third person present tense for ‘flashback’ and still feel the same way.)
I’m going to take it a step further though. A lot of people say flashbacks are bad. A lot of people say prologues are bad. A lot of people say angels are gender-neutral messengers of god with no free will and demons are a product of the devil.
I say a lot of people are myopic.
Picture this. A group of 10 writers is stuck in a room together. They don’t mind, they call it a critique group. Every person takes a turn reading from their story. Every time one of them segues into a flashback (or opens with a prologue or uses an adverb, whatever), the same person tells them they can’t do that.
Someone finally gets sick of hearing this and asks why not. The person explains it to them. It’s explained well. It’s a valid reason. Everyone nods and says ‘okay, we’ll be careful with our flashbacks’.
One person leaves the group and is replaced by another. As is prone to happen organically in situations like this. The new person hasn’t heard the explanation, all they know is that no one in the group likes flashbacks. And they learn flashbacks are bad.
More people rotate out over the months and years, until the original 10 are replaced with an entirely new set of people. None of them like flashbacks. A new person joins the group. They introduce themselves. “I write fantasy and contemprorary fiction. I use flashbacks as a storytelling device.”
And the room gasps. “You can’t do that.” “Flashbacks are bad.” “You’ll have to find a different way to tell your story.”
And the new person says “Why?”
And the group says “Because that’s the way it’s done. That’s the rule.”
(Originally this analogy involved monkies and hoses and a banana but I thought I’d modify it to suit our needs)
No one can tell new writer why flashbacks are bad. And new writer decides to drop them without ever getting feedback. The thing is, new writer’s flashbacks aren’t normal. They aren’t a character sitting around musing about the past in their own head. Their flashbacks are their own chapters. An entirely separate sub-plot. Same levels of action, etc.
But, new writer’s flashbacks will never see the light of day because as a new writer, they were told flashbacks were bad.
My point is (beyond self-justification for being a flashback snob ;-), you have to know why things are done a certain way in order to know whether or not you need to keep doing that way. Passive voice has its place. An adverb is not always the lazy way of describing an action. A prologue is no worse than a first chapter…if it’s used properly.
Which writing ‘rule’ do you think you break well and how have you made it shine?
So what writing rules are there about flashbacks? Maybe my head is completely in the sand, but I love stories that use flashbacks. They add so much more to the development of the character.
Wah, I’m singled out! 😉
Just kidding. Don’t feel singled out at all. These are great points, and I think I agree with more or less everything. (For the record, my rule is only “No flashbacks for Breanna” because I tend to get sloppy with them–I think others do them very well. :))
Oh, and the rule I think I break well? “In close third-person POV, people don’t know what they look like! You can describe how they look!”
Why not? This isn’t first-person for a reason. If I want to say he looked sullen, I’m going to say it, by gum.
What’s this about flashbacks? My whole novel is riddled with flashbacks. There’s one in every chapter. The whole second story is told through flashbacks….
@Angela – I don’t think people dis on flashbacks as much as they do on other things like prologues. It’s definitely not one of the louder rules. But one of my first critique groups had someone in it who was very anti-flashback. Oddly enough, I had forgotten about her when I wrote this post ^_^
@Breanna – singled out is awesome. There’s no such thing as bad publicity, right? Besides, I think you’re totally right about in close third person. There’s no point in going third person if you can’t show at least some things the narrator isn’t observing.
@Kate – yay for flashbacks! The way you did it in A9, for instance, is exactly what I’m talking about as being good.