Is a 7.6k word flashback too long?

[Phyrebrat]

I’m with Stephen Palmer on this. For me it’s the 7.6k chapter. If your story suddenly needs 7.6k outside of its organic structure, that suggests something needs fixing. Either splitting the flashback and peppering them throughout the story, or investigate why you need such a huge flashback all in one go, at one place in the book.

You can make the reader anticipate and look forward to your flashback scenes if they run in parallel to the main story, delivered in drips. (Relevant drips.)

 

[paranoid marvin]

In my opinion and experience, the chief problem you have with "selling" a flashback is initial resistance of the reader to leave the story they're invested in for something else. That is the same whatever the flashback's length. If you can overcome that initial resistance, then as long as you can keep the reader engaged with the flashback, it won't matter how long it goes on for, as that then becomes the story the reader is invested in. And having a chapter twice the usual length isn't likely to be itself a problem.

How to overcome the resistance? As well as the usual hook, make it immediately obvious that the flashback will answer questions the reader is desperate to have answered.

I agree. Pulling the reader out of the story they are reading and introducing potentially new characters and locations needs to be done carefully. You could have (as others have suggested) two time lines running concurrently throughout the story, but I think this would be tricky to pull off successfully, and has the potential to confuse the reader as to which timeline they are actually in. (this was done purposely in the tv show Westworld, and put me right off it). You could have separate chapters for the flashbacks, perhaps indicated by indicating the date, or the year, or a different style of writing (perhaps in the form of a diary?)

But as HB mentions, if you are able to build up a series of questions/mysteries, and have the reader think "at last!" when it comes to the big reveal in the flashback chapter, that would be a good way to go.