Craft 6: On Flashbacks and Time Jumps

[harmony_bites]

Stephen King says the three elements of story are: description, dialogue, but first and foremost, narration that--"moves the story from point A to point B and finally to point Z"--he distinguishes this from plot. The problem I see most often with fanficcers in handling this is "walking to the problem" (see below) and ways of handling flashback.

Comments

[purpleygirl]

I hesitate using flashbacks for those reasons, usually because they seem so contrived.
am I the only one who wasn't crazy about all those Pensieve scenes in Half-Blood Prince? I found them rather boring and annoying actually. I couldn't wait to get back to the story. (Otoh, what HP fan, particularly Snape fan, isn't absolutely riveted by "Snape's Worst Memory" in Order of the Phoenix?)
I thought that the ones pre-HBP worked because they were still immediate -- they involved Harry's feelings and interpretations of the events as they were unfolding. Even in the GoF Pensieve scene, if I recall rightly (but that was relatively short anyway). But in HBP...I admit I skimmed through those, so maybe I'm wrong, but I think their major point was to introduce Voldemort backstory and didn't really affect Harry, at least on a personal level? The reason I skipped those is mainly because Voldemort is a stereotypical villain; I don't need to know his backstory. On the other hand, Snape I need to know about. *g*
When you're writing a story in the usual

[harmony_bites]

I think what you've said about why preHBP Pensieve scenes worked where the ones for HBP didn't makes sense--in fact, if anything, I was disappointed because it didn't do anything unexpected with Voldie

[purpleygirl]

You know, that was probably a silly question after all, since my particular dream sequence happens to be set in the past, so the same technique for flashbacks could work there, but dreams can also be in the future, or not in any particular time. So yeah, I didn't think that through. Not for the first time. :) You're clearly more well read on these things than me, so thanks for the article. It looks interesting for real dreams as well! My most vivid dreams were repetitive, at least in theme -- they were really imaginative. I managed to decipher them and solved the RL problem they referred to in the end (at least I suppose so, since they stopped then!), but I miss them in a weird way; they were so creative and vivid, so sensory

[harmony_bites]

You're clearly more well read on these things than me, so thanks for the article.

Trek was my first fandom, and I met my best friend there, and she has pro-writing aspirations--has sold two short stories and has a novel submitted to a publisher. Its just a hobby on my part, but at least partly because of her, I have indeed become well-read on the subject.

I once had a beta right at the start of my WIP who told me I was using 'said' too much. I suppose she was right -- but instead of simply cutting them out, like the dunce I am I started using saidisms instead.The best dialogue tag, if you can make clear to the reader who is speaking, is none at all. If it's just two in the scene, often you can have an exchange of dialogue with no tags at all. It's tricker with several characters, but you can use "beats"--action tied to the speaker, to break things up

[darth_luna]

The best dialogue tag, if you can make clear to the reader who is speaking, is none at all. If it's just two in the scene, often you can have an exchange of dialogue with no tags at all.

You can find great (and often hilarious) examples of this throughout Gregory MacDonald's Fletch series. The best of his dialogues have this amazing, cracking rhythm, and they're often stripped bare of any saids, saidisms or descriptors. CF the first lines of the first book, Fletch:

"What's your name?"
"Fletch."
"What's your full name?"
"Fletcher."
"What's your first name?"
"Irwin."
"What?"
"Irwin. Irwin Fletcher. People call me Fletch."
"Irwin. I have a proposition to make to you. I will give you a thousand dollars for just listening to it. If you decide to reject the proposition, you take the thousand dollars, go away, and never tell anyone we talked. fair enough?"
"Is it criminal? I mean, what you want me to do?"
"Of course."
"Fair enough. For a thousand bucks I can listen. What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to murder me."

[harmony_bites]

I rest my case :) That's a cool opening too.

[argosy]

I usually hate dreams, but I wrote one in As Sharp As Any Thorn, cause i felt I needed to get Lucius in there, and what he means to Draco. So who knows? No hard and fast rules, I guess. :(

[harmony_bites]

No rules--some guidelines. But I think it's like grammar--to effectively break the "rules" - you need to know them. Or at least know the common pitfalls for beginners. Lots of reasons to write dreams into fanfic--or flashbacks, and love scenes--just because they're often badly done doesn't mean you should shy away from them.

[darth_luna]

HB:am I the only one who wasn't crazy about all those Pensieve scenes in Half-Blood Prince? I found them rather boring and annoying actually. I couldn't wait to get back to the story.
PG: but I think their major point was to introduce Voldemort backstory and didn't really affect Harry, at least on a personal level?

Too true. And I'm pretty much a sucker for even extremely mediocre fbs (see highlander addiction, ref'ed above). HBP has been my least favorite of the books, probably in large part bc the story(ies) in it just don't hang together somehow, and you're right, it's seems largely tied to the fact that the various parts lack harry's own emotional investment until the end. Even the DRACOQuest! bits seem to lack real emotional urgency on Harry's part. And the pensieve parts definitely do. Red Hen (I think) wrote somewhere about Book 5 thematically mirroring Book 1 and Book 6 likewise mirroring Book 2. On the one hand, I can see what she means, there are repeated elements in Book 2 & Book 6, such as Draco being the suspected

[harmony_bites]

Its ironic, because its HBP that sparked my imagination and brought me into the fandom--because of the mystery and the way it raised the stakes for Snape, a character that before then just hadn't grabbed me. But almost all of that impact hangs on one chapter--the scene on the Astronomy Tower.

Otherwise, I do consider HBP the weakest of the Potter books. And Tom Riddle of COS is imo a lot more interesting than Hereditary!Insanity!Voldie! of those Pensieve scenes.

[darth_luna]

Its ironic, because its HBP that sparked my imagination and brought me into the fandom

No, me too, and for the same reasons-- I was such a Snapefan throughout the series and the ending felt so catastrophic for him. It was weird-- someone on a snapelist recently asked if anyone else found DD's death oddly lacking in impact compared with Sirius's death at the end of OOTP, and as fond as I was of DD, it's true: I was far less upset over DD's death than over the fact of Snape being forced to kill him.

And yet, frustrating as I found the first 3/4's of HBP, I also did love the elements of backstory it added for Snape. So ironic, when the backstory it created for Tom was so lackluster.

Tom Riddle of COS is imo a lot more interesting than Hereditary!Insanity!Voldie! of those Pensieve scenes.

yes, sociopath!Voldie seems like a replay from the serial-killer crime novel/tv-episode of your choice. Sigh.

[harmony_bites]

And yet, frustrating as I found the first 3/4's of HBP, I also did love the elements of backstory it added for Snape. So ironic, when the backstory it created for Tom was so lackluster.

I loved that he turned out to be a half-blood, and that he turned out to be so damn brilliant. Both things which I found enormously appealing. I'm not into Lord of the Manor types;-) (even if certain people *cough* have roped me into liking DM/HG)

[darth_luna]

even if certain people *cough* have roped me into liking DM/HG

;-) Hey, it's the smartn'snark-factor, just repackaged in a lighter, more Lord Whimsy-ish version...

[harmony_bites]

Also the Slytherin/Gryffindor and the redemption/Dark factor. I still prefer SS/HG--can't get away from Snape being my favorite--but I find DM/HG infinately more appealing than - say R/Hr which I tried reading extensively in--because like SS/HG, DM/HG doesn't take canon for granted but uses it with real imagination, and gives Slytherins like Snape and Draco complexity--doesn't let them be cardboard cut-out villains.