Writing question :)

[EmeraldKitten]

Hello everyone.

I'm currently writing something that's a true story, and I've started it in flashback form.
I didn't intend for it to happen that way, but it did. (Don't ya love the stories that write themselves? lol.)

Anyhow, my question~
What's the most effective way to write in flashback form?
I think what I've got is fine, but I was just curious to know other people's opinions on what works and what doesn't.

Furthermore, I don't think I've read too many stories with flashbacks, so I was just curious.

What do you guys think?
Or, if anyone knows of any stories, please suggest them.

Thanks for your time.

 

[rgraham666]

I've only written one story with flashbacks. Oh wait! Two.

The Orange Slip had a large number of flashbacks and Ruby and Bill started with one. I made sure I had very clear breaks between the main story and the flashbacks. I literally drew a line between them.

Colleen's story Bets also used flashbacks, but in a different way.

That's all I can think of at the moment.

 

[OhMissScarlett]

I'm writing a story that happens in little flashback vignettes. What I did was start out in the present and when the vignette in the present ended, I put asteriks and started the flashback segment with the date it happened to signify it being in the past. I'm going to repeat it the same way throughout, alternating and end it in the present of course.

I don't remember having read anything that consisted entirely of flashbacks, but I'm sure there's something out there. I think the important thing is to have a very definite line between your flashback and where you're flashing back from to keep the reader from getting confused.

 

[scheherazade_79]

Hi Kitten

My advice is - just go with it! I've only written one story using a flashback. It started off in the present, then the main character saw something and she was transported back into the past. It goes back to the present right at the end of the story. I can't remember plotting it out or having any system or technique in mind, but it dovetailed quite nicely, and it worked.

If you need to look at a template it's called "The Things Inside Your Heart", and I think there's a link to it in my signature. It's fairly long, but the first page should give you all you need.

Good luck, Kitten!

 

[Guest]

"Do you Still Love Me?" has three flashbacks, in reverse chronological order, and a sort of flash sideways. Also has two dream sequences. I think I pulled it off without being too confusing. I simply put the flashbacks in italics with a seperator.

 

[EmeraldKitten]

Thanks for the help so far guys.

I'm writing this more for me than anything else.
It's going along with my two non-erotic pieces, but this one is in story form.
Basically, it's about me going through the house and the various memories that hit me.
Like I said, I think what I have is fine, but I was just wondering.

Thanks again.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I use italics to signify the change in times. I think, though, when UI upload them here- I'll draw a line, or use asterisks as rgraham666 has suggested. Can a story be uploaded with text stuff here? If I add the html tags myself- would that work?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Hello everyone.

I'm currently writing something that's a true story, and I've started it in flashback form.
I didn't intend for it to happen that way, but it did. (Don't ya love the stories that write themselves? lol.)

Anyhow, my question~
What's the most effective way to write in flashback form?
I think what I've got is fine, but I was just curious to know other people's opinions on what works and what doesn't.

Furthermore, I don't think I've read too many stories with flashbacks, so I was just curious.

What do you guys think?
Or, if anyone knows of any stories, please suggest them.

Thanks for your time.

As Rob so kindly noted, Bets has a lot of flashback. The story was more or less an experiment on my part, in using flashback to build characters and carry plot.

It's a very useful tool, easpecially when your using alimited POV. However you are using it, just remember the key with it is not to have it interrupt the flow, but to have it blend into the flow of the story. As long as it does that, I'm sure it will be great

 

[gauchecritic]

I found myself using flashbacks when I first wrote for Lit because I just wanted to include another sex scene. (I've been accused of having too much sex in my stories)

The last story I wrote for Lit. was sci-fi (didn't come out quite right) and was essentially about time travel (though the whole first half is just dinner party/orgy) So the flash backs were about this time traveller meeting someone for the first time, every time as they travelled through his past. Complicated? Don't ask.

I used a flash-forward in 'Gliding'.

Now that I think about it, isn't a first person pov written in flashback as necessity? You can't atually be writing as it happens whatever tense you use.

Flashbacks are generally used (by me at least) to explain something about the present which would take more than a sentence or two otherwise.

In 'Hunting Dawn' I was very tempted to use a flashback where I needed to explain about a game the characters were playing. However, If I had, it would have spoiled the tempo I'd built to that point and also ever-egged the pudding for the denoument, which was essentially the main character witnessing a grown-up childsplay inspired, sexually enervating hunting scene played out in the dawn light by his naked cousins.

(Don't you just love spotting how intellectual you've been in a story without realising it? [How's that for ego?])

Edited to add: Colleen posted at the same time so I wasn't actually jumping on her point, really.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I found myself using flashbacks when I first wrote for Lit because I just wanted to include another sex scene. (I've been accused of having too much sex in my stories)

that's IMPOSSIBLE!

...I used a flash-forward in 'Gliding'.

Now that I think about it, isn't a first person pov written in flashback as necessity? You can't atually be writing as it happens whatever tense you use.

yes, you can write in first person present... imperfect? *grin*
go ahead, I dare you! *grin*grin*grin*

Flashbacks are generally used (by me at least) to explain something about the present which would take more than a sentence or two otherwise.

In 'Hunting Dawn' I was very tempted to use a flashback where I needed to explain about a game the characters were playing. However, If I had, it would have spoiled the tempo I'd built to that point and also ever-egged the pudding for the denoument, which was essentially the main character witnessing a grown-up childsplay inspired, sexually enervating hunting scene played out in the dawn light by his naked cousins.
...

Sometimes it is cooler to leave unexplained... I don't mind, once in a while, ending a story going "What was THAT about?"

 

[raphy]

Flashbacks are an integral part of how I write. Not often used in my lit work (I don't have very much of that and each one was a specific exercise in writing), but in my other fiction, I liberally pepper the plot with flashbacks.

Colly knows

Well, Goddamn is probably the only thing I've written on lit that has something that could pass for a flashback - The story starts in the present time, then the narrator runs through how he got to be there.. It doesn't 'feel' like a contrived flashback though, at least, I don't think it does. I tried not to make it feel that way, anyway.

Dunno if that will help

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Flashbacks are an integral part of how I write. Not often used in my lit work (I don't have very much of that and each one was a specific exercise in writing), but in my other fiction, I liberally pepper the plot with flashbacks.

Colly knows

I didn't reccomend she look at your works since the majority aren't posted, but yes, Raphy is masterful with flashback in his works, particualrly his cyberpunk work

 

[raphy]

I didn't reccomend she look at your works since the majority aren't posted, but yes, Raphy is masterful with flashback in his works, particualrly his cyberpunk work

No, and I lost a lot of them when my hard drive died.....

You wouldn't happen to have copies of all those ones I've sent you over the years, would ya, Colly?

*grins*

 

[Colleen Thomas]

No, and I lost a lot of them when my hard drive died.....

You wouldn't happen to have copies of all those ones I've sent you over the years, would ya, Colly?

*grins*

AS a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I do. PM me with the ones you lost

 

[raphy]

AS a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I do. PM me with the ones you lost

done and done

 

[neonlyte]

No, and I lost a lot of them when my hard drive died.....

You wouldn't happen to have copies of all those ones I've sent you over the years, would ya, Colly?

*grins*

I've got Silver and Absolution if you need.

Wills