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]

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.

Your saidisms post is really good, too. I'm sadly guilty of those. I'm trying to refrain from using them now. It's just too easy to slip one in sometimes. Like a crutch, I guess. Bad author. LOL 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. Though, not long ones that spoiled the rhythm thankfully. Still... D'oh.

Keep these posts up! They're filtering through, trust me...

[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:

Snape sagged in his seat. "We're finished then."

Though even that can be overused.

But--yes, I think saidisms are easy to fall into because we all believe (and it's usually true) that we want to be as precise and non-repetitive in our writing as possible--so out comes the thesaurus. So not to use saidisms seems counterintuitive.

Glad these posts have been of help.

[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.