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Wednesday 15 April 2020

When and how to use transitions and flashbacks




In writing fiction there are a number of little ploys that you can use to move your story forwards or to explain the back story.  Sometimes you’ll need to move your story on, either from place to place, or from one time of day to a later time, or from one particular day to some time in the future. It may even be that your character needs to move emotionally forwards. If nothing important in happening in the story during these time spans, then you can use a transition.

Handling transitions

A transition might only be a few words, or it could be a number of sentences. You might need a transition to bridge a highly dramatic scene when the character needs time to think before moving on to a scene with a totally different atmosphere. Your one or two sentences can move your story on an hour, a week, a year; or from the highlands of Scotland to a beach in the Bahamas.

In time transitions, you could use simple phrases, such as:
The following morning…
That evening…
A week later…
At the end of the week…

Here are a few transitions where there is a change of scene:
Some miles away…
In the train on the way back…
Thick snow had fallen overnight…
The drive to the hospital was agonising...

A transition should be simple and swift with the objective of getting from here to there quickly and smoothly, so that you can get on with the story. And you would put that transition at the start of a new scene or a new chapter. After the transition, you get straight back into the heart of the story, writing through the protagonist or viewpoint character’s eyes and emotions.

It’s very important however that you don’t cheat the reader by using a transition to get you through a scene that might be difficult to write. And if important things are happening during that time span, then don’t use a transition and then reported speech. That’s another cop out!
If things are happening in your story, the reader needs to see and experience them. Use transitions only when nothing of importance is happening.

Flashbacks

If it is necessary to show something that happened in the character’s past, which motivates and affects the characters actions, emotions and attitude towards something currently in your story, this is called a flashback. Note that I’ve said if it’s necessary. Avoid putting in flashbacks just for the sake of them. They are there for a purpose, be selective of where and why you write in a flashback, and make sure the scene from the past that you choose, reflects why the character is behaving the way they are today.

To handle a flashback so it does not confuse the reader or bring the present action to a grinding halt, the author needs to write it with care. It does not have to come in one big scene, it can be effective to weave fragments of flashbacks into the action and dialogue of your story, so the reader glimpses bits of a tantalising past.

If your flashback needs to be a complete scene or a number of scenes, then find a way of framing this section between the present action, both before and afterwards, so there is no doubt in the reader’s mind when they are leaving the present to go into the past, and when they are leaving the past to return to the present.

A change in the tense is important. If you’re writing in the past tense, when the viewpoint character is reminded of something that sets their thought drifting back, change the past tense to the past perfect: had been. Continue to use that ‘had’ for perhaps another sentence or two, to establish that we’re now in a flashback. Then phase the ‘hads’ out and write normally. When the flashback scene is coming to an end, you could slip a ‘had’ back in again, reminding the reader it had been a flashback, and bring the story back to the present. Or putting in the word ‘now’ can establish we’re back.

Here’s an (abridged) example of a flashback scene taken from my award-winning children’s book, The Beast.

Karbel (the beast) is a ghost and he’s suddenly remembering the day he died. Killed (he believes) by one of the main characters in the story.



   It was him!
   Karbel’s yellow eyes became slits of hatred.
   In a flash, Karbel recalled that fateful day. His final day. A day which could never be erased from his memory.
    It had been a long, bitter winter, millennia ago. Snow was up to his belly and he was hungry. In the valley there had been a human settlement which normally Karbel kept well away from, but that winter hunger forced him to venture near. It would be easy picking to snatch a human’s baby offspring.
   Hunger drove him into the settlement
(the rest of the scene is written in normal past tense up to the point of the boy saving his baby sister and killing the beast)
…the boy thrust the dagger clean into the beast’s heart. Karbel’s spirit was ejected violently from his mortal body and he witnessed his own lifeless, bleeding carcass drop into the snow.
    The face of the boy without fear was etched into his soul. And now, as Karbel looked down into the valley he saw that same face. Recognised that same fearless spirit…

And on we go with the story. The flashback scene is neatly ‘sandwiched’, and the flashback was vital as there was no other way to show that Karbel believes the boy killed him and is now back to take his soul. And that leads to the whole book’s premise of Karbel going after the boy.

So, if you need to write a flashback, be bold about it. Sandwich it neatly between the point in the story when the character is reacting to something from their past. Change the tense, use those ‘had beens’ or similar phrasing. Show what happened, and then get back to the story, neatly and confidently.

An alternative, if your flashback is a short scene, it could be revealed through dialogue. Simply have two characters talking and one telling the other about a past event.

If the flashback scene involves characters from the past in conversation, be very careful that the whole thing does not get confused.

And if you find you are writing most of your story as a flashback, then possibly you have started your story in the wrong place at the wrong time. A re-think might be necessary. In short stories however, this can work effectively, especially if you are looking for a twist in the tail ending. As when you return to the present towards the end of your story, you can reveal something surprising yet believable.

Today’s Exercises:
·         Practice writing transitions. Link them up with some impromptu ‘before’ and ‘after’ scenes. These are just ‘throwaway’ scenes to practice this exercise.

·         Practice writing a flashback. If you haven’t got anything suitable in your work, use this scenario: Your character is starting a new job, only to discover that a colleague is someone they had a massive fall out with. Begin writing by showing the character starting their job, then the shock upon seeing someone, and then the flashback showing that unhappy scene. Then back to face the present.


Tomorrow: Keep the Reader Reading.

Thank you Rob Tysall, Tysall's Photograohy, for the lead photo. This was from an article we did on the British Motor Museum at Gaydon.



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