Hey, authors & writers...

[stoda]

I've got an editing/rewrite technique question for you.

I'm about 2/3 through After, a fairly straightforward post apocalyptic 'girl and her wolf' survival story

Comments

[wedschilde]

i'm not a big fan of flashbacks as a reader but i've seen them done well in stories that weave the past events within the character's present thoughts. Not so much as taking the reader back into that time but more experiencing the memory with the character.

[silverfoxwolf]

I detest flashbacks and stories that jump from perspective to perspective. A nice clean cut story works so much better for me. It's only if there is a short aside style that I can really read them.

[kynekh_amagire]

It's hard to do well. I think, to make it interesting, you'd have to structure it as two stories told in parallel; and have them reinforce each other at key points. Otherwise, it would be really easy for the B story to detract from the A story, or vice versa. True flashbacks are such a hackneyed device that they're almost impossible to really make engaging.

I'd go linear unless there's a compelling reason to do otherwise, or the only other alternative is a "FIVE/TEN/TWELVE YEARS LATER" reintroduce-the-characters awkward bridge section between the two.

...although I'm more of a reader than a writer, so factor that in.

[unixronin]

There are writers (including Brust, Bujold, Butcher) who do them extremely well; and well done, they can be very effective.

[tenaya_owlcat]

I agree with Kyn... it's hard to do well. But when it IS done well, it can be very powerful. For example, Carol Berg used this technique in the first volume of her Bridge of D'Arnath series and it really worked well. Her way of doing it seems to work best--interleave the flashbacks as a parallel story for about half the book, then go forward as a single narrative from there.

And for the record, I'm speaking as a reviewer, of course. ;)