In both my reading and writing, I’ve always struggled with flashbacks. As a reader, I’ve trudged through my fair share of voluminous, interminable flashbacks, wondering when I’m getting back into present action, and quite honestly, at times feeling like I’m in a lecture hall while my professor/author data-dumps all he knows about a situation and/or a character. And this, at the hand of established authors, you know, the ones with the “big five.”

As a writer, I’ve committed never to do that to my readers.

Those long character biographies inserted in mid-scene and halting the flow of the story? Not there. Those long descriptions of some cool technology or the inner workings of a government organization? Missing in action – because I won’t stop the action.

To avoid the type of writing I hate to read and don’t want to give my readers, here are four inter-related questions I ask myself when I’m about to write a flashback.

1. Does the flashback belong here and does the story need it?

I ask this double question first. In the past I’ve gotten it wrong, and I’ve had to fix it in editing. By then, it may be too late. Why? Because the question gets at the flow and structure of your story.

Chances are that if you get halfway to three quarters into your story, and at that point you need a long flashback to “clear things up” you missed your train stop a few chapters ago – maybe even earlier. Perhaps some or all of these important tidbits should have found themselves a home in earlier parts of your story. Maybe they should have happened to our character rather than told now in retrospect, as an afterthought.

Maybe, as you sought to start the story in the middle of the action, you started way too late, and you need to turn this flashback into chapter one. If it wouldn’t make a good chapter one or chapter two, then maybe you need to ask the second part of the question.

Does the story need this flashback? All of it? Really? If so, why?

I try to be merciful to my readers, and hence, efficient in my writing. I may need to know all the backstory for a given character, but the reader only needs that which matters to what’s happening now and is happening soon (see question number 3 below).

2. Is my flashback all back with no flash?

As someone who’s done his fair share of Strobist photography, the word “flash” brings a distinctive, vivid word picture into my mind, namely that of instantaneous and intense illumination. Many of the flashbacks I read are anything but instantaneous. They drag for page after page, sometimes even across chapters, maybe even a section of the book. Yikes! And they don’t carry any punch or intensity either. They just sit there, sentence after sentence, page after page, so that soon I am not quite sure what light they’re supposed to shed on the subject.

That’s all back with no flash in my book.

As such, they’re no longer true flashbacks but in fact backstory, usually of the expository, all tell no show variety. Sometimes writers pull out a rabbit out of the hat and the backstory proves interesting, maybe even moving. But more often than not it feels like a prolonged pause in the action, and when I get really cranky, it comes across like backfill – like someone was trying to pump up their daily word count or thicken up their novel.

I won’t do that to my readers. Most of my flashbacks will come in a true flash, a quick recollection, an intense experience (see question #4) for the sake of relevant illumination. That brings us to our next question.

3. Will the reader get why this flashback in Necessary or Relevant?

This may seem like a variation to question #1, but actually covers different ground. Once you’ve decided the story absolutely requires this flashback, and having done your best to strobe it like a true flash, will your reader appreciate the connection to what is going on in the story at present, or will your flashback seem tossed in like a hand grenade or something high, wide and a lot smellier?

This is probably one of the trickiest considerations for me. Without it seeming contrived or forced, what’s happening now must trigger the flashback, and the conclusion of the flashback has to impact what will happen next. That’s a tough one to write, but when it clicks, it carries the benefit of propelling your story forward rather than halting it in midstride, as so many flashbacks tend to do.

4. Is my flashback an experience rather than rote data-dumping?

If I succeed at nothing else in writing a flashback, this has to happen: the reader must experience the flashback through the psyche of the point of view character. This avoids the authorial narrative voice that tends to creep into expository flashbacks, the sort I aim to avoid in my writing. Going in through the point of view character’s eyes, emotions and mind we achieve a more personal take, one that as a reader I enjoy and strive to pass on to my readers.

Without further dissertation on this point, let’s go through an example from one of my novels.

An example from my debut novel

During the writing of DEAD BEEF, in chapter one, as I introduced Leticia Ortiz, I found I needed a flashback. I needed to show how she mattered to the lead character. But this was chapter one, and I was already inserting a flashback? That smelled like trouble. In the end, I found a way through.

To illustrate some of the points above, let’s see I could have written it (how I usually find it written), and how I wrote it, fortunately in my first draft to avoid future editorial surgery.

Flashback the data-dump way

Leti was a few steps away, running toward him, svelte and tall as ever in her black security uniform, military issue Beretta 9mm at her side.

“Mr. Spencer,” she said, and the way she called out his name made him remember the Iranian operation. It had been toward the end of it that Leticia Ortiz had come to his rescue atop a building along the Iraqi-Iranian border. She came as part of the special ops extraction team and exhibited great bravery that night. With bullets flying everywhere, and even though she got shot through a shoulder, she ran to him, grabbed him though the very act pained her greatly, and together they winched up to the helicopter.

“Thank you for all you’ve done for Luz,” Leticia was saying now. “She wouldn’t have gotten this far without your help.”

“I wouldn’t be here without you, Leti.”

Let’s acknowledge that at least that flashback is brief. It gets to the point and it makes a connection to the now in a couple of ways, but primarily showing to the reader why it matters (“I wouldn’t be here without you, Leti.”). But it feels like exposition, a little dry. Do that over a couple of paragraphs or a page, and my reader will soon enter into a deep sleep state. So let’s make it intense and more personal by putting the protagonist there, as if it’s happening inside his head right now. Because it is, right?

Character-based, Experiential Flashback

Leti was a few steps away, running toward him, svelte and tall as ever in her black security uniform, military issue Beretta 9mm at her side.

“Mr. Spencer,” she said, and for a brief instant Martin found himself atop a windswept rooftop, somewhere near the Iran-Iraq border, special ops officer Leticia Ortiz running to him yelling “Mr. Spencer!” as bullets flew around her, two of them ripping into her left shoulder, and she still kept coming for him like a tracer. He remembered how she grabbed him under his armpit with her good arm, and then they were up in the air, winching up to the helicopter, Leticia screaming in pain but never letting go.

“Thank you for all you’ve done for Luz,” Leticia was saying now. “She wouldn’t have gotten this far without your help.”

“I wouldn’t be here without you, Leti.”

A final word

Flashbacks are not easy to pull off. Even the example I offered above may need some more help. Nothing’s perfect.

As an alternative, if you learn by example, as I do, check out some of John le Carre’s work. He’s a master of the flashback. Whatever else you may say about his writing, his flashbacks feel immediate, relevant and intense. Sometimes he writes them in present tense, where the ongoing story happens in past tense. That’s quite a trick. It lends the flashback more tension while making it clear where the demarcation points are between present and past – even when reversing tenses.

More recently I’ve been enjoying K.M. Weiland’s writing. Her flashbacks and backstory are so well done, I’ve read right past them without even noticing she’s just taken me back and pulled me forward yet again. That’s also quite a nice and welcome trick.