Pop culture
reference.
You godless
heathens.
So, one
thing I’ve heard from a fair number of writing gurus—both for books and
screenwriting—is to never, ever use flashbacks.
Which seems a bit odd, because there are plenty of well-known novels and
films that use them. Yet folks keep
saying it again and again. Don’t use flashbacks. Don’t use flashbacks.
The thing
is, it’s actually quite easy to do great, fully functional flashbacks. The kind that make your readers get a thrill
rather than leave them scratching their heads.
It takes
a basic understanding of story structure and a bit
of thought, but that’s it. They’re
something I wanted to go over in that big structure series I keep promising to
revisit, but... well, we’re all here now.
So...
flashbacks.
And this is
kind of big and sprawling, so I apologize now.
But it makes up for missing last week.
For our
purposes, the term
flashback can cover a lot of things. It can be an element within the story like a
recalled memory, dream sequence, letter or journal entry. Sometimes, like in my own
Ex-Heroes
series, it’s just part of the way the narrative has been structured. Whatever the flashback is, however, it’s
going to need to follow certain rules in order to work.
When
someone says a flashback doesn’t work, it’s almost always because it inherently
has one of four major flaws (I say “almost” because there’s always some bold,
daring folks who will find very unique ways to make something not work). And it’s interesting to note that these four
common flaws also pretty much define a successful flashback. Once I understand the flaws, I’ll understand
how to do fantastic flashbacks.
So, first
big helpful hint. I cannot start a story
with a flashback. Never. This is the first of those four
flaws, and it’s a simple logic/labeling problem so it’s pretty easy to deal
with.
Why is
starting with a flashback illogical? By
its very nature, a flash
back implies we’re going to a point in time
that’s before
now. This means
we need a now before we can flash back to anything else.
Indiana
Jones and the Last Crusade does not begin with a flashback. It begins in the “present” of 1912, when Indy’s
just a teenage kid trying to stop a group of treasure hunters. Again, this isn’t a flashback, it’s just
a different setting. The story
then moves forward thirty years to a new setting where Indy is an adult and
reclaiming that same bit of treasure for his museum.
Calling
this sort of thing a flashback (especially in a screenplay) is just going to
get my story labeled on page one as something by a rookie who doesn’t understand basic structure. Personally, that’s not a first impression I
want to make.
All clear?
Okay, moving
on...
Now, I can
use a flashback anywhere in my narrative (except at the very start, as I just
said), but this switch in the linear structure can’t affect the dramatic structure. If I’m going to drop linear
point D between R and S in my narrative, it has to keep
the story moving forward. D has
to keep advancing the plot. It also
needs to keep building tension. If it
doesn’t, there was no point to this flashback.
A lot of
writers use flashbacks as infodumps. The
flashbacks are seen as a chance to show how Wakko met Phoebe, how Phoebe became
a ninja, why Wakko hates snakes, and so on.
The mistaken belief is that if I do this in a flashback, I’m not
affecting the structure of the present storyline because these events aren’t
happening now—they’re happening in the past.
When I do
this, I’m confusing linear structure with narrative structure. This is the second major
mistake. As I mentioned above—and have
mentioned before—the narrative needs to keep moving forward. Just like a shark, if the story I’m writing
(or reading) stops moving forward, it dies.
So when I
have a flashback, it has to keep moving the story forward. It has to tell me something new
and relevant. It doesn’t matter where the events fall
in the linear structure of the story, but wherever I’m using them they have
to fit into the dramatic structure.
For example... here’s a flashback failure from a book I read
last year. Some names and situations
have been changed to protect those I wanted to pummel senseless a third of the
way into the book...
A man’s
family dies when they eat tainted meat (he’s off banging his mistress, so he
survives—no guilt there). The narrative
then flashes back a few months and spends three chapters in the
boardroom of the meat-packing company’s parent corporation. They’ve just found out the meat is
tainted. Should they shut down the
plant? Announce the problem? Should they do a recall? Realistically, how much would they spend on
lawsuits? Maybe it’s better just to let
it go and roll the dice.
So the plot
was put on hold for three chapters (three long, full chapters) so we could see
the board reach a decision we already knew they made—to let the meat be
sold. One could make the argument that
we find out their exact motivation in these chapters. Thing is, their motivation is exactly what
most of us would expect from a bunch of corporate executives. In this tainted meat scenario, what’s the
most likely reason the executives would decide not to issue a recall? Money, of course.
This flashback
served no purpose at all. It gave us a
resolution we already knew, with a motivation nine out of ten people
automatically assumed. It did nothing
except bring the narrative to a dead halt.
There’s a good argument to be made that it actually made the narrative
go backwards.
Now, the
reverse of this problem is also an issue.
It’s the
third one, as a matter of fact. This is when the writer confuses the
narrative story with the linear story.
This is very similar to a problem I’ve mentioned before, being clear on
the first time something happens in a story. When this problem arises with flashbacks,
instead of destroying all possible tension, as mentioned above, it destroys
logic.
Let’s say
I’m telling a murder mystery. On page 75
of my story, the lead character has no idea who the murderer is. Then, on page 125, I flash back two weeks to
something that happened “off camera” earlier.
Here I reveal that my heroine learned the identity of the killer because
of a clue she spotted near the mellonballer.
In a rough,
quick way, this makes sense. On page 75
she doesn’t know. On page 125 she
does. Except once I put these story
elements in linear order... well, now they don’t make any sense. While it makes sense that this is a new bit
of information for the reader on page 125, it’s not new to my heroine. She’s known all along. Which makes her actions and dialogue for the
last hundred pages complete nonsense.
I worked on
the really, really bad sequel to a fairly clever murder mystery film, one which
was far more famous for Denise Richards making out with Neve Campbell in a pool
then it was for its cleverness. At the end of the original film, there are a
series of flashbacks that show how the various characters were intertwined and
involved, and also how the various twists were pulled off. The film I worked on had these flashbacks at
the end, too, but with one major difference...
When you
put these flashbacks in place within the linear story, they didn’t make a bit
of sense. Either they added absolutely nothing to the story or else suddenly people had
conflicting motivations, plot points became bizarre twists, and once-clear
twists became muddled nonsense. The
writers were simply seeing this as “new information” and not considering that,
within the linear structure, it was all actually old information that
needed to match up with the rest of the film.
One of the
best ways to test this is to take a narrative apart and put it back together in
linear order. Are motivations still
clear? Do plot twists still make sense? That’s a good sign the flashback is solid.
At least,
solid in this respect.
There’s one
last way flashbacks tend to frustrate readers.
The fourth way. By
the very nature of a flashback being out of sequence, the readers or audience
have effectively seen the future. If my
character is alive at story point S, flashing back to show her in a life
threatening situation at D doesn’t really accomplish anything.
For
example...
Let’s say
I’m writing a story where Yakko and Dot are writing up their mission reports at
Monster Slayer HQ after killing the Great Vampire. And then they remember that they still owe a
report on the mummy outbreak in Cairo.
So they start scribbling their report and I write a big dramatic
flashback scene that ends the chapter with the two of them backed against a
wall, outnumbered and surrounded by a dozen mummies and the avatar of a very
pissed-off Egyptian god.
Thing is...
there really isn’t any tension in this cliffhanger, is there? Because the moment the reader pauses, even
for an instant (like, say, at this chapter break), they’ll remember Yakko and
Dot are sitting back at HQ writing up this report. Alive and well. No missing limbs or sensory organs. Not even any notable scars. Heck, we know they’ve gone on another mission
since this one (killing the Great Vampire) and survived that one, too. So in this case, the flashback actually hurts
the story because it’s sucking all the tension out and killing forward
momentum.
While it
wasn’t really a flashback (because, again, it wasn’t flashing back
from
anything), this was one of the huge flaws with
the Star Wars prequels. By peppering the story with
characters whose future we already knew, Lucas effectively tied his own hands
and sabotaged any attempt at tension. He
could threaten young Obi Wan Kenobi with all sorts of things, but at the end of
the day we all know he survives to become old Ben Kenobi. And old Ben had all his major limbs, all his
fingers, both eyes... He was in great
shape.
So, four
basic rules.
1) A flashback
needs to flash back from somewhere.
2) It needs to work within the dramatic structure.
3) It needs to work within the linear structure.
4) It can’t create tension that undermines the present.
Now, I’m
going to suggest a movie to demonstrate a fantastic series of flashbacks, and
you may laugh a bit.
Resident Evil.
Yep, it’s corny fun and the series has degenerated into near-nonsense that
just showcases Milla Jovovich’s figure, but—credit where credit is due—the
first film has a fairly tight story and uses flashbacks very, very well. There are three major flashbacks (each one a
slightly more detailed account of a past event as Alice’s memories come back),
and they’re a perfect fit for those four rules I just mentioned. Go grab it
from Netflix and check it out.
Next time,
I’d like to talk to you about some events from last week...
No, wait...
next time I wanted to talk about good genre stories.
Until then,
go write.
