Flashbacks

At a recent writer's conference, an agent in the Mystery genre told a group of us aspiring crime writers that she thought we should try to avoid flashbacks, as they tend to pull the reader out of the immediate story. This didn't mean that one should not make reference to events that occurred prior to the time of the story, but rather than such events should be reflected by other means.

In this genre, it makes sense to me. As I'm doing a final polishing on my police procedural, I can see where a flashback would be disruptive. But I wondered what other members of the group might think of this advice, with the understanding that genre might have some bearing on one's opinion (e.g. in a sci-fi novel with time travel, a flashback might not technically be a flashback ).

 

Hmm. Why would the Mystery genre be any different from any other kind of story, as regards flashbacks? The advice that a flashback can disrupt the story is valid, but I think that advice is valid in any story. Flashbacks need to be handled with care. But why, specifically, shun them in the Mystery/Police Procedural? If the flashback illuminates something important to the story—something the reader needs to know—I don't see any reason why it should be shunned.

I wonder if folks like your agent think that because there are badly done flashbacks, that flashbacks shouldn't be used? As with the issue of prologues, I'd say: a) learn how they can help your story, and b) learn to write them well.

 

I did say genre might be a factor. I can see flashbacks being less disruptive in, say, a literary novel. Or perhaps in a romance.

 

I file this under Paranoia Rules. Meaning I feel I must avoid doing it, and if I do, I feel terribly guilty.

But then, I see New Yawk Times Best Selling Authors using flashbacks all the time.

I'd love to get to the place where I can say, "Yeah, they used that device well," instead of "Oh my dear Lord, look at that awful, terrible, forbidden thing they did!!!"

 

What you said makes sense to me as well - about them pulling you out of the immediate story - but I think they are useful in some situations. For example, if something is ingrained in a characters mind, such as watching someone they cared about die or a conversation that changed their life, I think a flashback could be useful in showing how important that is. But yeah, they could definitely be used wrong. Probably something that people should be cautious of using.

 

That's a mouthful of broad-brush generalizing there, don't you think?

 

Surely there is nothing wrong with flashbacks, as long as they are important to the story?

Rgds

 

Yes, this. In general, I'd say writers should learn to avoid making mistakes or producing clumsy writing and gummed-up story structure. If a writer tries to learn this the shortcut way, by never using devices that can be difficult to master, then lots of great writing tools will end up gathering cobwebs—and writing will become more and more simplistic and formulaic as time goes on.

I don't deny that the problem of reader dislocation in a story can be created by using flashbacks. I just think that avoiding all flashbacks can be the wrong way to tackle the problem.

Learn when and how, rather than don't. Understand the effect each of your flashbacks will have on the reader. That effect might work for you, or against you. What good things will the flashback provide? How does it help you tell your story better? Have you put it in a place where the change of pace won't hurt? Will it provide fundamental information in a memorable way, without interfering with the forward movement of the story? And etc.

However, I'm still wondering why the flashback is particularly troublesome in a mystery or police procedural, as @EdFromNY mentioned. Ed, do you remember any of the reasons they gave for this warning? I'm just curious here. Is it because these kinds of stories may be more directly goal-focused than other kinds of stories?

 

I think it was just speculation on Ed's part that the genre might be a factor. I don't think the agent actually SAID it was genre-specific.

I can see there maybe being more of a temptation to use them in a mystery novel, though - so much of a mystery is about figuring out what happened, and I can see the temptation to just go and show readers what happened. But I think the really interesting part of mysteries is what's going on in the present - I don't actually care too much about some dead character I've never seen on-page, but I do care, if the author has done her job, about the living characters who've been affected by the crime. So I'd rather follow those current characters as they learn what happened than be separated from them via flashbacks, if that makes sense?

 

I'm wondering if what Ed meant were including flashbacks about the detective's early life, or something like this. I've certainly seen that done, and I know he's done it himself in his current book (and done it rather well, in my opinion.)

I can understand why some readers (not Columbo fans!) would not want to see any flashbacks about the crime itself. But if the flashbacks are about the detective or something similar? One that illuminates the detective's attitude or personality, etc? I was wondering if that was the sort of thing Ed meant.

BTW, I just re-read Ed's original post, and it was an agent in the Mystery genre (at a related crime writer event) who made that remark. I presumed the Mystery agent was talking about mysteries and crime fiction, not fiction in general. At least I hope so. Flashbacks are not only accepted in most forms of fiction, but have been around for yonks. To tell aspiring writers to avoid using them seems a bit much, although she was right to explain how flashbacks can have an unwanted effect, under certain circumstances.

 

I agree with @Homer Potvin 's interpretation that this advice was probably based on aspiring writers so often using flashbacks poorly. There are a lot of techniques (unreliable narrators, stream-of-consciousness, non-linear storytelling, etc.) that can be really effective when handled by an expert but that can be an unholy mess in the hands of beginners. I can see flashbacks definitely fitting into that category.

 

Yes. I have been irritated at times, when starting to read a book and discovering that the author has has begun with the story in the present, then immediately takes me 'back' into the past for a lengthy dive. Why didn't the author just begin at the beginning?

I did that skipping backwards into the past trick myself, in the very first draft of my own novel. It was hard to accept that this wasn't a good thing to do ...but it wasn't. My opener has since been changed, and I've told most of my story in chronological order. A couple of short flashbacks do creep in, later in the story—but nowhere near the beginning. None of my betas have complained about these later ones, but there were certainly some negative reactions to my original draft's jerky beginning.

 

Okay, here's what Ed meant.

I meant that the agent in question was addressing a group of 14 first-time novelists who aspire to be commercially published, almost all of us having written crime/mystery novels of one type or another. The suggestion that flashbacks be avoided was one of several pieces of advice that this agent provided in the hope that some of the members of the group would benefit from it and thereby enhance their chances of success in their quests. The speculation about use of flashbacks varying by genre was mine and mine alone. I did not mean any particular kind of flashback.

I have to say, I groaned at the mention of NY Times Bestselling Authors, because that's not the standard those of us who were in that room will be judged by. We will be trying to get an agent to like our work; the agent will then be trying to interest an acquisitions editor, who will then be trying to interest a senior editor, who will then be trying to interest a pub board sufficiently to agree to publish our work. The agent who spoke has a great approach to "rules". She called them "risks", and advised that we take no more than one with a debut novel, because each risk you take is going to turn off some of the people you are querying, thereby reducing your chances of success. So, in her estimation, flashbacks are a risk.

 

I like that approach, too, the rules/risks idea. These things aren't wrong, they're just risky. Works for me!

 

I don't know about this agent. I get that she was addressing amateur writers working on their first novels, but I've never read a book without any flashbacks. At least not one I can recall. And the rules are risks? Is it following them or breaking them that is the risk? It doesn't really matter because there is no set number of flashbacks or risks that will make a story better. Our stories are unique in the sense that there isn't going to be any blanket advice like this that will work for everyone. I would want my money back and cross this agent off my list.

I too am writing a mystery novel. I have tons of flashbacks and rule breaking going on. I think the key with flashbacks is to keep them short. I don't think straying from the present narrative for too long usually works. But then I can think of some authors who do this so flawlessly it really doesn't matter. I'm not a crazy rule breaker. If anything, I follow writing rules more often than I break them. But I also don't hold back giving the story what I think it needs and what I think works best. If the agent didn't read your work, who is this advice really for? Maybe it's the advice she would give to many of the writers she rejected, but that wasn't you and your book. Just something to keep in mind.

And you might not think a New York Times best selling author is your competition, but they sure are. Successful and published writers will be shopping their book around the same time you are. They are going to be your direct competition. And chances are they will have better agents than this one with wonky advice that I could see doing more harm than good.

 

Possibly we're defining "flashback" differently? Are you taking it to mean any memory or reference to the past? You must be using a really broad definition if you've never read a book that didn't have one!

I think the more common understanding, and I assume the one the author was using, is when the part from the past is a whole separate scene.

How are others defining "flashback" in this thread?

 

When I do flashbacks, I devote an entire actual scene or even chapter to it. It stands on its own and is generally written in simple past rather than any sort of past perfect tense. I love my flashbacks, but I don't do them like normal novels I think. I'm of the impression that most flashbacks are those snippets of italicised text that last anything from a paragraph to about a page or two long.

In a crime/mystery novel, assuming the traditional detective looking for a murderer type of novel, flashbacks could feel like cheating. So here's a piece of info that reader didn't have that is now conveniently revealed to you, that the character knew all along. It violates the reader's desire to crack the case themselves, which is the key thing driving them to read the book to begin with - so that's quite a "crime" to commit. Crime/mystery is also highly dependent on present tension - what's happening now. Flashbacks will rarely further action/plot and are much more likely to be a character development tool, which means on the whole it doesn't add to the tension a crime fiction reader is looking for.

If it were a non-traditional novel that, let's say, was written non-chronologically, flashbacks could be interesting. Or you see flashbacks used whenever there's a character with amnesia, because then it makes sense that there're things the character knows that are not revealed to the reader, and the flashbacks are part of the puzzle pieces that the reader needs to resolve the current crime. But this is pretty cliche and therefore probably hard to do well.

There are also genre market expectations that you need to keep in mind as a commercial writer. It's great to say all this, "As long as I do it well, I don't have to listen!" Or "But this is my book and I think this is perfectly appropriate." Yes, but genre markets have their rules and you don't have to abide by them, but then you also might not be traditionally published. If trad publishing as a commercial writer is what you're looking to do, then you may have to abide by the rules.

If flashbacks are generally a no-no for the genre (and there're likely good reasons for this - agents and publishers probably aren't into arbitrarily banning certain devices for laughs), then I'd say heed the advice until you've built yourself a profile and readership. Once you're Lee Child or Stephen King, you can go nuts.

 

I, too, am wondering about your definition of a flashback. I'd say that the majority of the novels I've read did not have any flashbacks. I'm not saying they're rare, but in my experience they're far from universal.

 

I think of flashbacks the same way as you, but I'm having trouble thinking of a book without them or at least one I can be sure didn't have any. I think I've always just thought of them as pretty common. I'm sure you're right and there are probably plenty of examples, but my mind is drawing a blank trying to come up with any. I still don't think avoiding them completely is good advice, but that's probably because they've never been something that bothers me.

 

I'm defining it as a whole separate scene or scenelet, largely indistinguishable from a regular scene.

 

See, that's what I think too.

 

And you've never read a novel that didn't have one?

ETA: You should read some of my novels! I don't remember ever having used one.

 

I'm feeling silly that I can't think of one. Please don't think I'm stupid or anything. I think that it's more of a thing that when done right is seamless. So now I have myself so confused about if I've read a novel without any. I really can't be sure and I feel like I'm probably wrong. I just kind of thought of flashbacks as a common thing and/or I don't think I ever gave it too much thought if they're there or not.

Tell me, was it a deliberate thing not to include any flashbacks? Was it hard? I sometimes have a hard time not letting a flashback go on for too long in my own writing. Staying with the present narrative is something I've gotten better with, but it does take effort, though, hopefully that doesn't show.

I would love to read one of your novels. I had planned on buying one, and I should have when I had some money. Someone's got to buy a story from me again one of these days. Or maybe we could do a beta thing. My novel should be done by the end of the summer. It's a murder mystery of sorts. Are you working on a novel now? We could chat about that through messages if you want instead of highjacking this thread.

 

See, I can't think of a novel that HAS a flashback. I'm sure I've read one, but I really can't dredge it up in memory.

Maybe this means that well-done flashbacks don't strongly announce themselves as such.