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How to write flashbacks. Examples of flashbacks. Book Outline Generator. Choose your Fiction or Nonfiction book type below to get your free chapter by chapter outline! What are flashbacks? Flashbacks are simply flashes back to an earlier event in a story’s narrative. They can occur at any point in a story. Most prologues are flashbacks.
- Overview
- Writing a Flashback in Prose Fiction
- Using Flashbacks in Screenplays
A flashback in a story or a film is a way to show action that took place prior to the main events of the story. Flashbacks can be useful for giving the reader or viewer background information or shedding light on a character’s motivations. For a flashback to be effective, it must move the story forward in some way, feel immersive and interesting, a...
Determine why you need a flashback.
Flashbacks can be useful, but they aren’t always necessary to tell a clear and engaging story. Before writing a flashback, think about what exactly you are trying to accomplish and how it will serve your story.
For example, you might use a flashback to:
Provide information about a character’s past that sheds light on their current actions, beliefs, or attitudes (such as revealing a past trauma or other formative experience in the character’s life).
Give context or information about events that are happening during the present plot (such as an important clue to a mystery plot).
Helping the world of the story feel deeper and richer (e.g., providing historical background for the setting of a fantasy story).
Choose a powerful, important moment as the focus of your flashback.
Just like a flashback in prose, a film flashback should support the story and capture the viewer’s interest. On film, it can be even more important to convey information in a clear, concise, and impactful way. You can do this by writing a flashback that focuses on strong actions, sensations, or emotions that your character experienced in the past.
For example, maybe your character is afraid of water. You could flash back to a terrifying moment a few years earlier when she nearly drowned.
A flashback can also reveal key information about the plot. For example, perhaps your character is a detective at a crime scene. She might see a key piece of evidence, such as a hat left behind by the suspect, and then flash back to a memory of seeing a man wearing the same hat.
Pinpoint when the flashback takes place.
Fine details and strong continuity are crucial in creating a good film. If you’re writing a flashback for a screenplay, it’s important for the director to be able to tell exactly when it is happening relative to the main events of the movie. This will affect things like how much younger the character (s) need look in the flashback, or how different the sets, costumes, and props need to be in order to reflect the time difference.
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Nov 19, 2021 · How to Write Flashbacks: 4 Flashback Writing Tips. Written by MasterClass. Last updated: Nov 19, 2021 • 3 min read. When done well, flashbacks can bring depth and complexity to the emotional high-wire acts into your main story.
Mar 12, 2018 · A flashback gives you, the author, the opportunity to let your reader experience that back-story in the same way that your character can experience it at any time—as a memory. So a flashback is good, and it’s often the very best way to inject that back-story into your reader’s brain.
Want to learn how to write a flashback? Consider this your comprehensive guide to recreating your character's backstory for the reader. Discover tricks for doing it well... and deciding whether it makes sense to write a flashback in the first place.
- Abi Wurdeman
Here are 7 key steps for how to write a flashback scene: How to write flashbacks: Know why your story needs a flashback; Look at flashback examples in fiction for insights; Choose your flashback’s time-frame; List details that will be different; Practice how to write flashbacks with consistent tense; Decide how you will transition to ...
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1. Find a trigger to ignite a flashback. Think about when you are suddenly pulled into a memory. Memories don’t arise out of nowhere; they need to be triggered by something in the present.