How to introduce characters?

im wanting to introduce characters in a flashback as children and was wondering if anyone had any tips or suggestions for this?

 

flashback to a specific event, with specific words spoken [in the authentic childlike way]..just perhaps a few lines, framed in the contemporary adult narrative...also, you can use a cue [like looking out the window at an old tree, or finding an object in a trunk..this is the Proustian technique [a madeleine biscuit brings back memories of his childhood to the bedridden writer]..
the child is remembered looking out at the same tree, or playing with the object
good luck

 

Basically what Robert said, but I think you can also introduce characters via flashback without a cue.

 

The method of introduction would vary depending on WHEN you are introducing the characters, I'd think. Are you introducing this/these character(s) from the beginning, or are you introducing them later on?

 

what's your reason for doing that?... my best advice is, if you don't have a really good one, then don't!

 

I try to avoid flashbacks because they stop the forward movement of the story.

 

thanks 4 replying im thinking of switching between past and present so the reader can see how experiences in these characters pasts have resulted in the situation they're situation in the present im just having trouble working out how to do so in an engaging way