Before asking how to write a flashback, you must ask yourself why you want to write a flashback in the first place.

This storytelling device can be a great way to draw the reader deeper into your character’s inner world or heighten the tension. A well-crafted flashback can reveal riveting information or raise new, compelling questions.

It can also be a gimmick, a bore, or a complete waste of page space.

That’s why understanding how to write a flashback starts with simply understanding how a flashback functions.

And that’s exactly what you’re about to learn.

We’ll discuss the pros and cons to writing a flashback, how to determine if this device is the best way to deliver backstory, and, of course, how to write a flashback like a pro… should you decide to go for it.

Let’s start with the most important question.

Does Your Story Really Need a Flashback?

Hands sort through old polaroid photos.

Allow me to start by clarifying: a flashback is a scene that transports the reader to a moment in the backstory. It’s not just a reference to something that happened in the past but a recreation of that experience.

So, this is not a flashback:

Harold cracked an egg the way his father had taught him back when they made Mother’s Day breakfast together. Then he reached for the bacon.

This is a flashback:

Harold cracked an egg the way his father had taught him the first time they made Mother’s Day breakfast. His dad had gently shaken him awake while his mother still slept, and the two of them tip-toed down the stairs to the kitchen. (Plus a bunch of other stuff that probably includes egg breaking, dialogue, and a strong sense of relationship.)

Now, if you’re familiar with the popular writing advice “Show, don’t tell,” you may be thinking a flashback is always the way to go for revealing backstory. Here’s why it’s not.

The Trouble With Flashbacks

For one thing, flashbacks pull your reader out of the timeline they’re engaged in. This means you want to make sure your flashbacks:

Also, flashbacks can be confusing if you don’t nail your transitions. If it’s not clear that your character is looking back in time, your reader will be lost when a character shows up out of nowhere asking for a divorce. 

Most importantly, flashbacks aren’t always necessary. A flashback is not the only interesting way to unload exposition. (In fact, here are several others.) If anything, a flashback is the most disruptive, cumbersome way to get your reader up to speed.

That doesn’t mean it’s bad. It just means you need a good reason to use it.

Excellent Reasons for Including a Flashback

So what are the benefits of writing a flashback?

Well, for one, a flashback can be an effective tool for building suspense or presenting the reader with a mystery. The Bullet That Missed opens with a scene where some woman with Bethany has a gun, knows she might die today, and sends a cryptic text.

Then suddenly we’re in the current timeline where Bethany has been dead for a decade and the Thursday Murder Club is trying to figure out what happen. Because we experienced the flashback for ourselves, it feels like we’re coming into the story already equipped with clues. We’re part of the investigation, which is exactly how a mystery writer wants us to feel.

On the flip side, a flashback can offer meaningful clarity. A Man Called Ove repeatedly flashes back to scenes from Ove’s courtship and marriage. The more the reader understands the bond he shared with his wife, the easier it is to forgive him for raging at the world after her death.

And I’ll let that same example illustrate this next flashback benefit: showing readers who a character used to be. Who was the protagonist before their life-changing trauma—before “The Ghost”?

You can even use a flashback to dig into the backstory of a side character who wouldn’t otherwise get the protagonist treatment. In fact, this can be a strategy for helping readers sympathize with the antagonist.

Now that we’ve established the good and the not-so-good of this storytelling device, let’s delve into how to write a flashback.

Because whether or not you still plan to do it in your current novel, it pays to be informed.

How to Write a Flashback 

A person writes in a notebook at a cafe table.

1. Time It Carefully

Now that you know why you’re writing a flashback, ask yourself where to place it in your story to best accomplish your goal.

Consider:

When you know where you want to put your flashback, then you can move on to step two.

2. Transition Gracefully

The transition is everything. Everything. If your transitions into and out of the flashback aren't good, your readers won’t realize they’re in a flashback. Confusion and chaos will follow.

Here are some classic strategies for how to write a flashback transition.

Create a “Door”

This is when you create some kind of magical door that allows a character to see into the past. 

Now, the line between flashback and time travel gets a little blurry here. For our purposes, we’re talking about scenes where a character can observe the past but not participate in it.

Well-known examples of the magical door include Harry Potter looking into the Pensieve or the Ghost of Christmas Past showing Ebenezer Scrooge his regrettable choices.

The transition strategy is pretty straightforward. Your character sticks their head in a bowl or follows the ghost or looks in a mirror or whatever. They see what they need to see and leave the same way they came in.

Trigger a Memory

Signal to your reader the narrative is shifting into the past by showing that your character is remembering something.

Now, if you only need one to three sentences to tell the reader everything they need to know about this memory, it’s not really a flashback. Just say what you need to say and move on.

But if this is going to take a few paragraphs, clarity is key. Phrases like “she thought about” or “he remembered” can help. So can using past perfect tense when you’re easing into the flashback. “It had been a hot summer” rather than “It was a hot summer.” (Side note: if you’re writing in present tense, simple past tense will suffice for flashback transitions.)

Then make your return to the present moment super clear. 

“Now he was stranded on the side of the road feeling miles away from who’d been back then.” 
“But none of that was worth thinking about now.” 

Something like that.

Use Physical Breaks

A simple line break can signal a shift in time. But be aware that most readers will assume the timeline is moving forward. 

So use the final line of the previous paragraph to reference the backstory your reader is about to see. Then give the reader an immediate sense of time and place after the break. For example:

“...This wasn’t who she used to be. She used to be the brightest star in Greenfield.
[Break]
The day Misty was crowned Corn Queen, cameras seemed to follow her everywhere…”

You can also use a flashback as a prologue. Or, if you want to go big, you can turn flashbacks in entire chapters all their own. 

That’s not the same thing as alternating timelines. If your novel has alternating timelines, you’re telling two stories that carry equal weight. They probably complement one another in some way, but neither story exists purely to explain the other.

A series of chapter-long flashbacks, however, functions to shed light on the conflict of the central story. It can (and probably does) contain its own conflict and character arcs. But as readers, we devour those flashback chapters in search of answers that affect the main storyline.

This is why flashback chapters:

Get Fuzzy

A blurred image of a restaurant.

There is one time when you can blur the transition between the current timeline and the flashback.

That’s when the line is blurry for your character, too.

Maybe they have dementia or PTSD or they’ve suffered a blow to the head. Whatever it is, something in the present moment has triggered an old memory, and now they’re living it again.

Now, in order to make this work, your reader needs to understand that the character is not experiencing things exactly as they are. 

You can provide that clarity by establishing your character’s memory challenges ahead of time. Another reliable tactic is to put something there that obviously does not belong, like a phonograph in a public restroom or a lover who died twenty years before.

3. Keep It Brief (Probably)

Once you’ve artfully transitioned into your flashback, don’t get too comfortable there.

Give your reader the information they need. No more, no less. Then get them back to the story they came for.

Now, as I give you this advice, I do want to admit that sometimes a long flashback is satisfying. Little Fires Everywhere is the perfect example of a book that features a backstory so juicy (and relevant!) readers don’t mind spending full chapters in the past.

Most of the gasping I did while reading that book was flashback gasping.

But if you plan to pull a Celeste Ng and go long with your flashbacks, you need to follow the golden rule of how to write a flashback:

Know why you’re doing it. And make sure your reason is air-tight.

On that note:

4. Make It Relevant and Revelatory

For us writers, a deep dive into our character’s past makes for a thrilling Saturday night.

But most readers only want to know about your protagonist’s spelling bee humiliation if it helps them experience your novel on a deeper level.

So what new insight does your flashback provide for your reader?

This could be something straightforward, like the revelation that the butler couldn’t possibly be the murderer since he was at the horse track the whole time. 

Or it could be deeper insight into your character—something that stirs empathy, clarifies context, or raises the stakes.

Suzanne Collins does this in The Hunger Games when Katniss remembers the time Peeta tossed her the loaf of bread he’d been commanded to give to the pigs. This person had once saved her family from starvation.

And now she has to kill him in order to keep providing for her family. 

Intense.

6. Use Concrete Details

Finally, let’s end this guide to how to write a flashback the same way we began it: by acknowledging that flashbacks are a “show, don’t tell” storytelling device.

The entire point of recreating your character’s near-death experience instead of just mentioning it is to help your reader experience it. You want them to feel what your character felt and invest more deeply in the story’s central conflict.

To do that, you have to provide specific, concrete details. What did the air feel like that day? What were the physical sensations that told your protagonist they were feeling a sense of dread?

If you could use a quick primer on your “show, don’t tell” skills, we’ve got some worksheets to help you out.

How to Write a Flashback With Dabble

If this guide was a little more involved than you expected, don’t lose heart. It’s true that a lot of things can go wrong with flashbacks. But when you get your timing, purpose, and prose just right, so much more can go very, very right.

Need a little help thinking it through? Dabble’s got you covered. This writing tool has an adaptable Plot Grid that makes it easy to see how your flashbacks function within the main storyline. 

A screenshot showing how to write a flashback using the Dabble Story Grid.

Plus, comments, stickies, and labels provide an easy way for you to keep track of new ideas or problem areas as you go.

Best of all, you can try every premium feature Dabble offers absolutely free for fourteen days. No credit card required. Click here and start exploring.

玻璃钢生产厂家鄂州玻璃钢雕塑设计四川景观玻璃钢雕塑市场玻璃钢雕塑包运费吗新安玻璃钢雕塑加工厂家武汉仿铜玻璃钢雕塑朝外大街商场美陈张掖玻璃钢卡通雕塑定做广东多彩玻璃钢雕塑优势桂林商场美陈玻璃钢哈巴狗雕塑玻璃钢圆雕塑广场玻璃钢花盆玻璃钢花盆座椅的供应商吉安佛像玻璃钢雕塑制作玻璃钢雕塑定做厂家哪里有河北开业商场美陈哪里有热气球玻璃钢雕塑生产厂家青海玻璃钢卡通雕塑厂家批发雅安市玻璃钢雕塑定制文安玻璃钢花盆花器德宏玻璃钢雕塑生产商普洱玻璃钢雕塑定做永康玻璃钢人物雕塑生产厂家宁夏卡通雕塑玻璃钢贵州多彩玻璃钢雕塑设计石家庄公园玻璃钢雕塑设计玻璃钢雕塑完整视频中卫商场美陈镜面校园玻璃钢雕塑定做上海周年庆典商场美陈采购香港通过《维护国家安全条例》两大学生合买彩票中奖一人不认账让美丽中国“从细节出发”19岁小伙救下5人后溺亡 多方发声单亲妈妈陷入热恋 14岁儿子报警汪小菲曝离婚始末遭遇山火的松茸之乡雅江山火三名扑火人员牺牲系谣言何赛飞追着代拍打萧美琴窜访捷克 外交部回应卫健委通报少年有偿捐血浆16次猝死手机成瘾是影响睡眠质量重要因素高校汽车撞人致3死16伤 司机系学生315晚会后胖东来又人满为患了小米汽车超级工厂正式揭幕中国拥有亿元资产的家庭达13.3万户周杰伦一审败诉网易男孩8年未见母亲被告知被遗忘许家印被限制高消费饲养员用铁锨驱打大熊猫被辞退男子被猫抓伤后确诊“猫抓病”特朗普无法缴纳4.54亿美元罚金倪萍分享减重40斤方法联合利华开始重组张家界的山上“长”满了韩国人?张立群任西安交通大学校长杨倩无缘巴黎奥运“重生之我在北大当嫡校长”黑马情侣提车了专访95后高颜值猪保姆考生莫言也上北大硕士复试名单了网友洛杉矶偶遇贾玲专家建议不必谈骨泥色变沉迷短剧的人就像掉进了杀猪盘奥巴马现身唐宁街 黑色着装引猜测七年后宇文玥被薅头发捞上岸事业单位女子向同事水杯投不明物质凯特王妃现身!外出购物视频曝光河南驻马店通报西平中学跳楼事件王树国卸任西安交大校长 师生送别恒大被罚41.75亿到底怎么缴男子被流浪猫绊倒 投喂者赔24万房客欠租失踪 房东直发愁西双版纳热带植物园回应蜉蝣大爆发钱人豪晒法院裁定实锤抄袭外国人感慨凌晨的中国很安全胖东来员工每周单休无小长假白宫:哈马斯三号人物被杀测试车高速逃费 小米:已补缴老人退休金被冒领16年 金额超20万

玻璃钢生产厂家 XML地图 TXT地图 虚拟主机 SEO 网站制作 网站优化