I have found over time that I'm more and more impatient with flashbacks, dream sequences, and the like. In fact, I just put down a book I was reading where every other chapter is set in the distant past (as compared to the initial story line). I don't know whether I'll pick it back up again or not--I have so many books to read. I'm enjoying the main story but not the flashback story. Too often, I feel like I'm being drawn out of the story I'm enjoying for an aside that I don't really care about. A flashback or dream sequence necessitates a stop in the ongoing action. I find that even for books I ultimately finish, I'm much more likely to put them down when I hit a flashback or dream sequence than at other times, especially if those sequences are long. That's not to say that authors cannot pull these off successfully and in a way that maintains my interest--they can, of course. It's just that more often than not they don't really work for me and I wish the author had made a different choice. How do you all feel about these?
I think the flashback needs to either be it's own interesting story, or the present-day story needs to generate enough mystery that the flashback sequences offer some answers or insights into the main story. I don't care for dream sequences unless it's a dream related setting like say 'Inception'
I really dislike flashbacks. Every time one happens I immediately lose interest. The point of them are, I suppose, to elucidate motivation of a character in the current time, but they accomplish this by bringing everything to a halt. Don't get me invested in a story and then drop me back twenty years, or five years, or ten minutes because you couldn't express how a character feels about something without some unrelated sob story. I've never cared more for a character, or have become more invested because of a flashback. For example, I recall reading Steven King's The Shining, and for some reason there is a chapter long flashback about Jack being a drunk, and running over a bike. It's supposed to get across that Jack was an alcoholic and was afraid of hurting somebody because of it, but it really just sidelines the story. I almost stopped reading at that point, because it was so boring. I felt like, "Yeah, I get it. He used to be an alcoholic. I have all the information I need. Move on." Maybe someone does them right, but I haven't seen it. I think dreams are alright if they are done correctly. They have to move the story forward, usually by revealing something to the character. If they alter the character in some way then they've done their job. I think a good example of this is in the Sopranos when Tony dreams about Sal being a talking fish, in reference to the mob phrase about sleeping with the fishes. Tony had been ignoring the fact that Sal had been acting very strange for a long time, and his dream bring this blind spot into focus. Because of this Tony investigates Sal and finds out he's an informant. Bada bing bada boom, the dream meant something. So yeah, I hate flashbacks, but dreams are OK if they are used correctly.
♫ 'Tain't what you do; it's the way that you do it ♫ My WIPs have two flashback scenes, a reported memory, and a reported dream (I have 3 WIPs, so the below isn't all the same story) The flashbacks mark a structural pattern where each section ends with a short flashback that turns everything on its head Which I thought was what everyone used them for I know what I'm imitating: Exotica (1994, Atom Egoyan), which closes on a flashback that provides the interpretative key for the entire film I think flashbacks mustn't tell a story in the past, but advance the story in the present from the outside. The reported memory is the abuse disclosure in a postmodern story about someone deciding to make the abuse disclosure that is the story. I've run into a problem with it becoming so long that it's a story-in-itself. I think this is a genre problem of writing someone else's life story which they've been unpacking for months with more and more detail. I have a decision to make of whether to turn it into a big framed narrative, or to take it out and make it into a separate story, or to push some of the memories forward to earlier places in the story... because currently they're thousands of words long and derail everything. The dream is a brief reported nightmare rather than a long dream sequence. It's about showing the character's understanding of her fears, and introducing a tonal shift the story's about to take. I don't like dream sequences per se. I write a lot of interior monologue, but to include dreams in that seems hazardous to me, as being:- indulgent; or likely to breach the character's privacy and therefore the narrator-reader trust; or to be automatically unrelatable since whenever someone relates a dream honestly it makes absolutely no sense to anyone else. A dreamlike purple passage or two is okay, as that's veiling and unveiling context, rather than replacing it with authentically Freudian (or Jungian?) goop.
I'd say brevity is one of the more important considerations. This reminds me of the Maddaddam trilogy. Those books were primarily flashback, and it did make the first one hard to get through at first. Go in, do your thing, get back to the current timeline/reality.
I like books where past and present are intricately entwined. If it is done well, one supports the other. I don't care for extended dream sequences, especially when they're presented as reality until the dreamer awakes and exclaims, "...and then I realized it was all a dream."
Some of my current WIP has one character extracting memories from the MC to look for a key bit of information she is hiding. The memories are directly related to the plot. I'm still trying to work out how to interwine the actual memory being replayed to the action in the present between the two characters. It's fantasy. Bit worried about everything I read regarding flashback scenes and the negativity associated with them.
Depends on whether it's a true flashback or a narrative told out of sequence. King is a perfect study. The Shining example is an extemporaneous flashback where the story stops, shows something that happened ago, then resumes story. On the other hand, "It" is told along separate timelines... roughly half the book along each, with multiple first person interludes, epistolarly interludes, and just about every other literay trick that exists. I have no beef with the latter. Flashbacks? Meh. They can work but are usually lame. I guess if the theme or vibe of the flashback continues along the same arc as the main story it can be fine. Less so if it interrupts the flow. Same thing with dreams. If it reveals or develops and doesn't overstay its welcome, it can be fine. But if it interrupts, no good. Like everything else, it's all in the execution.
