I'm convinced that the device can be handled well in the written form, but I don't know what stories flashbacks succeeded in. Can someone give some examples? I ask because I'm reworking a story that's going to be dependent on flashbacks, and I don't want to wreck it like the [i]Lost[i] book was.
I'd re-suggest ST by Heinlein. Most of the book was a flashback, and it worked well.
George R R Martin also handles his flashbacks well.
I like what I do, but every crit I get -- they always mention it.
Now I have to figure out how to solve this problem, and it might be at the sacrifice of the style I've been developing for years.
So do yourself a favor and avoid flashbacks, if you can. Like drugs, they can lead you down a dangerous path.
If the flashback happens to a character, then you can do it easily. Just describe the mental process of the character having the flashback.
This roughly corresponds to the close up shot we get of a character having a flashback in film where the director relies on the actor's facial expression to indicate the emotional/reactive mode (surprise/recognition/confusion/etc.) that is invoking the flashback (if it's Dave Letterman, he'll say "Oh yeah" and rub his chin).
A good flashback always clearly signals both which character is having the flashback and the reason for the flashback. As long as you do that, and the reasons for the character to have a flashback are believable (as well as it being believable that the character in question could remember that information), flashbacks are fine.
But where you don't establish who is having the flashback and why, it can often be unclear that the scene is even a flashback. Nothing is more confusing than that.
Without the flashback the reader would not understand why Twilly is going to do what he's going to do.
The flashback is an entire scene set in the past with no ties, no segue into the story realtime.
In my opinion, this was a classic flashback. Needed. Not intrusive. Quite entertaining.
However, too many writers nowadays write with visual media like movies and television in mind moreso than the written word. We end up with a lot of crappy writers with good ideas and bad presentation.
Far too often we see styles that work in video seeping into the written word and failing.
Seems like in fiction they often try to establish that the character is literally flashing back, the phrase "he could still smell the weight of her perfume" or something like that suggests itself. Maybe I'm imagining fiction that is worse than really exists. As opposed to what it seems Dostoevsky did, which is have someone who is on their deathbed/drunk but improbably lucid tell someone a story about someone they met once. Or have someone tell a story someone told them when on their deathbed. That works too.
If you want to see flashbacks used extremely well and used extensively, as in the entire main plot is told through flashbacks, check out anything by Kazuo Ighiguro.
I've always considered the flashback to be more of a literal 'reliving' of a previous significant and/or traumatic event, not a simple recollection (however realistically nostalgic) of a grandfather sitting on a front porch in summer...remarking on the superiority of lemonade in the "old days" to the "store-bought foot powder" his grandkids enjoy.
If you want a character to recall something, but not necessarily in a common 'flashback form,' you can simply have them tell a story within your story (refer to Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy...it uses this method quite well, and so fluidly that you barely notice the odd narrative format). I'm not saying this is easy, but it's not impossible either, and much less cliché.
Just my two bits.
*Post-script Edit: One more thing...I consider flashbacks in the form of long italicized passages to be absolutely maddening. I try to steer clear of that particular format.
Inkwell
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"The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp."
-Anonymous
[This message has been edited by Inkwell (edited January 31, 2006).]
And in my explanation of disgust lies the answer -- flashbacks work when the reader cares. This may also be why some people don't mind some flashbacks and others do...not everyone cares about the same things.
There are some general rules of thumb to capture the widest audience. Starting with a flashback, for example, is usually a bad idea. Basically, if we don't have an opportunity to care what is happening NOW then why should we care what happened THEN? This is why many people, including myself, say that if you have to start with a flashback you have probably started in the wrong place.
When we are confused, we don't tend to care. Flashbacks within flashbacks, no clues as to their beginning and end, constant jumping around in time...all these cause confusion.
I enoy flashbacks when one of two things is true:
1. Simplicity. We get a clear, one time look into the past of a character, usually triggered by a specific and relevant action.
2. Symmetry. A number of flashbacks in a clear, precise order. Stephen King's IT is an example...we have scenes from the characters as adults, and then as kids, and then as adults...it keeps going back and forth in a clear and interesting pattern as we gradually gather the whole story, past and present.