Flashbacks in Stories

[Bizkit_Writer]

Hi I'm writing a story containing a flashback when two of my characters meet, how do i incorporate it into the story? Any help is appreciated!

 

[SweetErika]

Could it be as simple as, "Her mind traveled back to the day they met..." for instance?

Some authors use asterisk line separators or italics to delineate flashbacks, like:

***​

Flashback

***​

or

Flashback

 

[M's girl]

Make up and lay out of your document, but you have to be very consistent. You can use indent(ation?) and/or put the flasback parts in italics or even in another font. I always liked the way Stephen King would present those parts (that were flashbacks, thoughts etc) in his books.

 

[Bizkit_Writer]

I'll try them both! Thanks for the help!

 

[Chicklet]

once you've written it out, don't be afraid to toss the story to the editors to get feedback on how well it works = )

 

[Weird Harold]

Hi I'm writing a story containing a flashback when two of my characters meet, how do i incorporate it into the story? Any help is appreciated!

I don't think that there is any single "right way" to handle flashbacks.

Could it be as simple as, "Her mind traveled back to the day they met..." for instance?

Some authors use asterisk line separators or italics to delineate flashbacks, like:

***​

...

Using an Ellipsis (whether asterisks or periods) is certainly one of the more common ways of setting the flashback apart from the main timeline.

If there are going to be extensive or repeated flashbacks, using a date/time stamp as a chapter/section header helps keep track of "when" you are in the story.

A short flashback presented as a character's memory can be formatted as "internal dialogue" or "thought" and put in italics -- however, more than a paragraph or two of italics loses it's impact and (to many people) gets annoying.

How you decide to handle the flashback has to be based on how long the flashback(s) is and how much emphasis you want to place on the fact that it IS a flashback.

 

[A_Kefka]

My "Chrissy Serves" story is almost all flashback. It starts with present time and then goes into memories of the character. I planned to write more in present time, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Anyway, I just wrote it in a way that made it clear that these were the character's memories and not events happing at the moment. No special markings or anything, just words that made the transition clear (I hope).