Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Flashbacks and infodumps

This is topic Flashbacks and infodumps in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Dame (Member # 8513) on :

I'm having a problem with flashbacks.

(I've spoken to my doctor and he says it's all the hard drugs I did in my youth, but that's by the by...)

I'm learning lots about story structure at the moment. The idea of starting as late as possible in the action, of starting with an immediate conflict, seems to lead to a need for flashbacks.

Someone said recently about flashbacks not being a good idea in a story under 5000 words but I can't escape them. In my current story, under 4000 words, I did want to put in two but now I'm panicking.

Anyone got any opinions about this?

How are you guys avoiding flashbacks or huge info dumps, while still starting late in the action? I know you are supposed to drip it in throughout, but, for example, I want to show the difference emotionally in a character over about 6 months, and a flashback would seem an obvious way to do it.

But that leads to the artificiality of having to find a space in the story when the MC has space to be drawn back into the past. Can you pull out in POV and just decide as an author to dive into a flashback without the MC specifically taking us there?

I seem to need 'em. I don't quite know how to do 'em. I'm even more unsure as to whether they should be there at all. Anyone know any good techniques on slipping 'em in smooth?

Thanks for any advice here.

Posted by BenM (Member # 8329) on :

I found this post under Writing Lessons useful on this topic. I try to see if there's a way I can 'show' the background material in the relationships between characters rather than tell it in an infodump. Doesn't always work - I'm still learning to balance it too

Posted by Dame (Member # 8513) on :

That's actually lots of help. I might change where I'm starting now. Thanks.

Posted by dee_boncci (Member # 2733) on :

The reader often needs less background information that we writers sometimes think. In general as a reader I find flashbacks annoying, especially in shorter stories. Sometimes they are "necessary evil" if large gaps of time are bridged (otherwise start the story sooner) or if helpful in explaining character actions that might not entirely make sense in the present circumstances, and that are driven by some past event. In general characterization is accomplished by showing how a character responds (acts) in the present situation (conflict), and why.

Also, make sure if you need them that they occur where there are natural lulls in the story's plot. You don't want to stop in the middle of the hero's climactic struggle against the villian to jump back and explain how she learned to disable an attacker with a pink pencil eraser.

Posted by tchernabyelo (Member # 2651) on :

While in general I'd agree strongly with that last piece of advice, it's worth noting that Scott Lynch did exactly that kind of thing in "The Lies Of Locke Lamora". He'd end a chapter on a cliff-hanger, with Locke or Jean in danger that they could only escape if they had a certain skill. The next chapter would be one of the flashbacks, conveniently showing how the relevant character acquired the relevant skill.

That structure, which neither foreshadowed anything properly, nor maintained any tension, was probably the main reason why I didn't buy the next book. However, his work does seem to be popular so it's worth observing that what works for one person doesn't work for another.

Posted by TaleSpinner (Member # 5638) on :

I had a similar question some while ago and Hatrackers offered much useful advice:

http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum1/HTML/004202.html

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

I'm not very clear on why you feel you need to start your story "as late as possible in the action."

As the person I paraphrase almost as much as I paraphrase OSC, Damon Knight, used to say (more or less), the story should start when something starts to happen, and that's usually when the main character gets involved.

So, if you wanted to start with a fight scene, for example, you wouldn't start with the first punch. You'd start with the main character minding his own business, when some idiot comes up and tries to pick a fight with him. Of course, the main character, being smarter than to want to get into a fight with some stranger, tries to defuse the situation (and provides the author with a chance to do some characterization and get the reader to care about the main character), but when the idiot goes ahead and throws the first punch, the fight can start and the reader is more likely to be hooked.

Probably one of the main reasons for flashbacks is to try to show the reader why the main character is in the opening situation in the first place. If that "why" is at all interesting, the author should consider starting the story with it instead of starting it later.

One of the biggest problems with flashbacks is that they tend to stop the current story action (which, if the author has hooked the readers into caring, the readers are not going to want to have stopped) while the story goes back in time.

You don't EVER want to stop your readers as they are reading, because they may decide not to start up again.

Posted by Natej11 (Member # 8547) on :

I have a bit of a problem with starting a story, then ending up going back and putting in more chapters of setting up scenes earlier on ad infinitum/nauseum. One of my books I started when I was, oh, probably around nineteen began with the two main characters going down into a tomb to combat the spirit of a dead hero and reclaim his sword.

I later added nearly forty pages of earlier content, starting it with them dinking around inside the city and then setting out, then realized that all the action is happening at the starting point I'd originally picked, and everything else could be explained in the story.

Posted by micmcd (Member # 7977) on :

On somewhat of a tangent -- I also read Lynch's "The Lies of Locke Lamora." I disagree with the earlier poster. I enjoyed the interplay of the childhood and adult timelines. To me it is no different than a switch between threads of a single timeline story, which I find almost all published authors do. It can be annoying, but it also leads me back to being interested in all storylines equally, in the sense that when I get back to the quasi-cliffhanger story thread, I don't have to think too much to remember what was going on.

The danger of picking a concluding point before switching threads is that the reader may put the book down and never come back. If it feels like a natural ending to one particular issue, and the reader isn't that interested in the new thread, the book may just sit to one side. I found this to be the case for me in Neal Stephenson's "Quicksilver." Though I did enjoy the book, I would often put it down for months at a time because I simply didn't feel the urge to finish it (unlike Snow Crash, which I simply couldn't put down). I didn't finish that particular trilogy because I never managed to finish the second book.

Lynch's "Red Seas Under Red Skies," on the other hand (the sequel to "The Lies of Locke Lamora" I eagerly picked up and enjoyed every second of. There was little to no timeline hopping in that book (he's done with the childhood timeline after the first book), so the previous poster may be interested. I'm a fan of Lynch, and can't wait for the third book in the series.