flashbacks

[corvus]

I've been writing some flashbacks, and I was wondering how everyone else dealt with it. It's such a drag to have to maintain the perfect past, especially if the flashback is long. For example, in 100 yrs of solitude, it begins with one of the characters thinking back... and it takes a third of the book to return to the 'present'. I'm sure the first third wasn't written with 'had's before every verb. Is it okay to cheat and switch to past from perfect past? Are there tricks for said cheating? I think it gets especially tricky when the flashback is long... but not too long.

 

PS My first thread. How exciting!

 

PPS And I am unwilling to announce: FLASHBACK! and write a flashback. To me, that seems rather...

[Graeme]

If you'd like to see a Hugo Award winning example, try to track down a copy of Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light novel. In that case, most of the novel is flashbacks. It's not written in perfect past tense.

[Benji]

If you'd like to see a Hugo Award winning example, try to track down a copy of Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light novel. In that case, most of the novel is flashbacks. It's not written in perfect past tense.

 

 

......R. Milchners "The Source" was pretty damn good also!

[Menzoberranzen]

When I edit, one of my big pet peeves is people who don't use the correct tense. Perfect past is the only way to do it, if you're integrating it into the main story. However, if you can stylistically set it apart from the main narrative (i.e. use italics, separate it with indentations/new chapter/whatever then I think it's fine to do it in plain past. I would go the second route (I often use flashbacks, and it works well for me) because it is clearer to the reader what is happening and the past perfect can be largely avoided.

 

Menzo

[Graeme]

When I edit, one of my big pet peeves is people who don't use the correct tense. Perfect past is the only way to do it, if you're integrating it into the main story. However, if you can stylistically set it apart from the main narrative (i.e. use italics, separate it with indentations/new chapter/whatever then I think it's fine to do it in plain past. I would go the second route (I often use flashbacks, and it works well for me) because it is clearer to the reader what is happening and the past perfect can be largely avoided.

I think this is one of those cases where you need to know the "rule" (ie. use perfect past tense), and then make a conscious decision to break it (if you feel it's appopriate). As always, don't break rules lightly -- but it is possible to do so if you know what you're doing and are good enough

[rec]

I assume that annoucing a flashback means what you say.

 

Clealy, you can introduce a flashback as a new chapter or a new section of a story with some kind of demarcation. Then, you can write it in any tense you want.

 

My only caution, as an editor, is to make it clear from the first paragraph the time and place of the flashback through some clue or observation of the flashback time. For example, the type of lighting changes over the decades; the type of transportation changes; the President changes; technological items change. A mention of a character turning off a gas light would put the reader in the 19th Century. An iPod would put one in the 21st Century.

 

After you've attained the reputation of a Faulkner, say, you can be less forgiving toward the reader.

 

rec

 

I've been writing some flashbacks, and I was wondering how everyone else dealt with it. It's such a drag to have to maintain the perfect past, especially if the flashback is long. For example, in 100 yrs of solitude, it begins with one of the characters thinking back... and it takes a third of the book to return to the 'present'. I'm sure the first third wasn't written with 'had's before every verb. Is it okay to cheat and switch to past from perfect past? Are there tricks for said cheating? I think it gets especially tricky when the flashback is long... but not too long.

 

PS My first thread. How exciting!

 

PPS And I am unwilling to announce: FLASHBACK! and write a flashback. To me, that seems rather...

[corvus]

Thanks for all the advice.

 

Menzo -- My flashbacks are more like memories, so they're quite embedded in the flow of things, and I'm hesitant about otherising them stylistically. It's like thinking back or remembering something. The trouble comes when the remembrance is a page long. Maybe it's fine to use 'had' and I have some sort of complex with perfect past.

 

Graeme -- haha! rule breaking. I love this.

 

rec -- A reputation of Faulkner. Ah. I only managed to read a Rose for Emily. I expired halfway through Quentin in Sound and Fury. *sheepish*

[BeaStKid]

I use ----> ***** to separate parts of the story and that includes flashbacks as well. Alpha and Omega contained a lot of flashbacks in the first part and I employed this strategy in it...

[Hylas]

I usually hate flashbacks and dream sequences. But there are some good exceptions.

 

I've never written flashbacks before... if I would, I'd write them in exactly the same way I write the rest of the story, in simple past, and not in past perfect. Though, I may have exceptions in dialogues, especially if the character is actually thinking back.

 

I'd just make them a separate chapter to avoid confusion and let the reader realize on his own that it is indeed a flashback without having to spell it out for him. No introductions like "blabla started thinking about his childhood" or "blabla remembered the days when..." I like it when I get confused for a little while on reading a new chapter and realize it's a flashback.

 

Dates would be a nice touch though, especially for historical flashbacks (e.g. reminiscing about world war II, etc.), like "Dresden, 1943". Or something.

 

Anyway. That'd be my style, if I write flashbacks.

 

Roger Zelazny! Graeme is a sci-fi junkie! woot

 

Try reading Ursula K. LeGuin's The Dispossessed, also Hugo and Nebula award winning I think. The scenes shift between the past and the present at almost every chapter. From the present to his childhood. Strongly political though. I love LeGuin. (Also her short story The Day Before The Revolution, can be considered a flashback to the entire novel. Heh)

[FrenchCanadian]

I use ----> ***** to separate parts of the story and that includes flashbacks as well. Alpha and Omega contained a lot of flashbacks in the first part and I employed this strategy in it...

 

It would depend on how long is my flashback. The easiest for me is to use, like BK, some "****" to separate part of the story. In fact I use those even when I make some distinct scene change. But I find that using "***" for only a short part makes it look weird.

 

Therefore, for small flashbacks, depending on the narration type, I'd go something like "Brandon could remember having done that before. a few weeks ago he was having lunch with,,,,,"

 

sacha

[Graeme]

Roger Zelazny! Graeme is a sci-fi junkie! woot

Yep! Most of my print library is either SF or Fantasy. And I do own a copy of "Lords of Light".

 

Try reading Ursula K. LeGuin's The Dispossessed, ...

Try, being the operative word. I read it when I was in school, and hated it. I think I preferred adventure stories at that time, and The Dispossessed is almost pure politics. One teacher, who knew I loved SF, almost put it on the reading list for the class in one of my later years -- I convinced her not to, as it would have bored almost everyone to tears.

 

Therefore, for small flashbacks, depending on the narration type, I'd go something like "Brandon could remember having done that before. a few weeks ago he was having lunch with,,,,,"

That's the technique I used in my first novel. I had one character refer to a post event, and then had the narrator recall the details of the event. It only really works for short flashbacks, as you mentioned.

[Hylas]

"I read it when I was in school, and hated it."

 

Wrong time to read it then. Heh. I read it when I was a junior in college. Oh come on! She's not that bad! Poul Anderson is also political, and I love him. Arthur C. Clarke was. And I love him. Carl Sagan, Philip Jose Farmer, Silverberg, Heinlein, bleh. Even Niven can be political at times.

 

But yeah, I like William Gibson the most. Since it's "new" sci-fi. LOL. With computers and stuff.

 

The best book I've read by Zelazny was his last work, "Donnerjack", coauthored by Jane Lindskold.

[BeaStKid]

for small flashbacks, depending on the narration type, I'd go something like "Brandon could remember having done that before. a few weeks ago he was having lunch with,,,,,"

 

sacha

Yup...same goes for me...

[Graeme]

After giving it some thought, here are my personal views (without reading any literature to see if I'm on the right track, so take it with a grain of salt):

 

Flashbacks that are explicitly a character recalling something (eg. "John remembered that day. It had started simply enough. ...") should be past perfect.

 

Flashbacks that are entire scenes, and it's up to the reader to realise that it's a flashback, don't have to be past perfect because they aren't written from the perspective of a future point of view. They're written as if the viewpoint was there at the time, and doesn't know what is about to happen.

 

My opinion only....

[Lugh]

hum.. I actually had to go look to see how I handled them in my stories...

 

In Erebi Seeking there are many POVs so each POV change is labeled so I just changed the labeling for the flashback to this:

 

Jiovanni

[Ieshwar]

I have tried flashbacks a few times in my stories. In one (Blood ties, Love bonds),I switched the POV's. In the present I kept it first person and all the flashbacks in third person. It gives a feeling of viewing the flashbacks. So this separates both the presenta nd the apst and there's not much verb worries. It feels like writing two inter-related story.

 

Hope it works

 

Take care,

Ieshwar