Flash Back Technique: How

[Lafayette]

I'm writing a new story and I feel a need to do Flashbacks. Do I employ italics or bold? Do I employ quotation mark? How do I keep from confusing my readers? The method I do use are asterisks to separate scenes and I'm comfortable with that, however I wonder if this is enough or do I need more?

 

[Susan Boulton]

Depends on how long the "flashback", is. in Hand of Glory, when a character was "remembering" i.e. a flashback, I used a scene break and just wrote it as a normal scene. It worked, and did not confuse the reader. I don't think you need more, personally, but others might disagree.

 

[tinkerdan]

Unless you are really fond of italics I'd avoid too much of them.
I remember reading a book using italic flashbacks and it was enormously annoying. Those flashbacks were several pages long and I can only tolerate a limited amount of italics. Small flashbacks of a few sentences--maybe--however those might slip right by in normal text as a memory because a real flashback might want a bit more meat to it with some sort of purpose.

The flashbacks I recall generally make use of verb tense to signal the entry into and exit out from the flashback.
So if you are in simple past you might slip into past perfect or even past perfect continuous. Do this only for a sentence or two and then quickly drop back into tense you were using and when exiting do the same.

It seems Sinclair Lewis when asked how to do flashbacks said "Don't."
However, this seems rather hypocritical in that he did and when he did he used the changing of tense as I mention above.

But once more about lots of Italics

Unless you are really fond of italics I'd avoid too much of them.
I remember reading a book using italic flashbacks and it was enormously annoying. Those flashbacks were several pages long and I can only tolerate a limited amount of italics. Small flashbacks of a few sentences--maybe--however those might slip right by in normal text as a memory because a real flashback might want a bit more meat to it with some sort of purpose.

The flashbacks I recall generally make use of verb tense to signal the entry into and exit out from the flashback.
So if you are in simple past you might slip into past perfect or even past perfect continuous. Do this only for a sentence or two and then quickly drop back into tense you were using and when exiting do the same.

It seems Sinclair Lewis when asked how to do flashbacks said "Don't."
However, this seems rather hypocritical in that he did and when he did he used the changing of tense as I mention above.

If this doesn't annoy you: go for it.

 

[Plucky Novice]

Hmmm I've used italics for "disruptive visions" which operate a little like flashbacks. I never realised that could be annoying. Time for a rethink.

 

[tinkerdan]

Perhaps not everyone finds them annoying.
As a reader I feel it a bit of a slight that the author doesn't think I'll recognize a flashback from a current event and he has to point it out.
What part of the flashback does he lack confidence with?

 

[Lafayette]

The flashbacks I recall generally make use of verb tense to signal the entry into and exit out from the flashback.
So if you are in simple past you might slip into past perfect or even past perfect continuous. Do this only for a sentence or two and then quickly drop back into tense you were using and when exiting do the same.

Unless you are really fond of italics I'd avoid too much of them.
I remember reading a book using italic flashbacks and it was enormously annoying. Those flashbacks were several pages long and I can only tolerate a limited amount of italics. Small flashbacks of a few sentences--maybe--however those might slip right by in normal text as a memory because a real flashback might want a bit more meat to it with some sort of purpose.

It seems Sinclair Lewis when asked how to do flashbacks said "Don't."
However, this seems rather hypocritical in that he did and when he did he used the changing of tense as I mention above.

If this doesn't annoy you: go for it.

I see your point. However I am now wondering if I have a long flashback (one or two pages long) if it would be proper if I started the first sentence with italics? Or would this totally confuse the reader?

 

[CTRandall]

I agree with @tinkerdan , avoid italics. A lot of people will find them difficult to read.

A flashback that's one-to-two pages should be able to stand on it's own as a scene without any confusion. You might need to be careful about quickly setting the scene for a flashback (different character ages, different fashions, technologies, etc.) to help a reader out but that would be far preferable than using italics.

If a flashback is really brief, that could be a problem. It might be better to stay in the present and experience the flashback as a memory or a current conversation/argument about the past.

 

[ctg]

Why don't you weave the flashback permanently into the story? Is it possibly that you could be writing a whole chapter on the encounter or at the event and make it as real story instead of a brief flashback?

In my own stories the chapter length can be a few paragraphs, which takes the reader out from the normal story and plants them into another, and visa versa. I mean you can have for example two main characters, and you do the story from both POVs, yet their stories are separated by time. Like for example, the pair is at the present, and the other one tells and every once and a while their stories get interrupted, or even brought forward as the overall story leads to a culmination point.

Think about the story and how many ways you can tell a story within a story, because at the end of the day, it's what we do and therefore, the flashback and flashforward loses their meaning. It is the overall story that has to have an impact, and the story is never remembered, even if it the Lost, from those tropes.