Okay, I've read books on integrating flashbacks into your stories, and I've read that there are places for flashbacks. I know it's not to be done in the center of action, but here's my question:

How many flashbacks, at a minimum, in your opinion, could you put in a debut novel? And how far apart do you think they should be? Currently I have two flashbacks I'd like to have in my manuscript, mostly because it gives insight into a couple of my characters, and I found them fun to write. My problem now is where to put them. As of this moment, they are basically together, one after the other (which isn't good, I know).

What are your thoughts on flashbacks?

I suppose it depends on the flashback, but I am in favor of them, I guess I'd say!

Here's why--you want to start your story in the action. I am thinking about Cheryl Strayed's memoir WILD, which I loved. (It is just coming out as a move right now, too.) The memoir is about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Very close to the beginning of the book, Cheryl starts the hike, and immediately the reader is plunged into the high stakes of such a dangerous, physically challenging solo hike, which is entertaining. After a while though, reading how hard and scary the hike is, you start to wonder why the heck Cheryl felt the need to do this hike. And through lots of flashbacks along the way, you start to understand why: Cheryl's basically hit an emotional rock bottom and needs to start a new life feeling strong and capable. This was the way she decided to do it.

If you start the book at the beginning--for example, if Cheryl had started the book with the scene of her mother dying, which is central to the grief she has to work thru in the book, and then wrote the story purely chronologically--the memoir's structure is too episodic: This bad thing happened, and then this bad thing happened, and then this happened, and then the MC hikes the trail, and these things happen. Also, though super exciting and compelling things happen on the hike, the reader needs variation to stay invested in the story. So the flashbacks add to the story arc--each time we see one, something crucial about the character's motivation is revealed--and they add to the pacing, because we get these small chunks of time away from the monotony of the trail. Cheryl COULD have added expository back story (ie "I was hiking the trail because I had a lot of grief I needed to get thru") but that's not nearly as engaging as showing her life in scene. Flashbacks, then, are basically back story in scene.

OMG I loved WILD! I could talk about it all day!!

A tricky question, I think, because they can be done in so many different ways and for different purposes. Sometimes they're integral to the structure - e.g. Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending or Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. There it's integral because it's the main character trying to making sense of thier lives or of some particulat event that had deep repercussions.But if the flashbacks are more occasional and the book isn't actually built around them, I'd be a bit wary. It was Hemingway (I think) who said the writer must know everything about the characters' pasts but not put it in the book. So if it's just to give insight into the character, I'd ask myself if that couldn't be done in another way, basically through their present behaviour, because what they experienced in the past influences how they respond to present events. That doesn't mean there can't be references to the past, but maybe in lighter touches, not a large chunk. Of course, if they experienced some traumatic event which to a large extent defines them, that needs to be described at some point. But in that case we're back to the flashback as an integral component of the story.    

Curtis--you make a great point. With flashbacks you need to be all-in, or they seem too random and out of place. I hadn't thought about that before.

Love the Hemingway rule--totally agree! I sometimes make character dossiers as a way of getting to know who I want them to be, and it's surprising how much of the dossier doesn't end up in the writing itself. However, after doing such a dossier, I write more confidently.

And I loved THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS. Great example of good use of flashbacks!

I don’t do flashbacks, exactly. I do my insertions of what my characters think of events, the stream-of-consciousness that we all engage in constantly, also my own comments, and miscellaneous collateral material that develops character.

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As for placement, I do it when an idea strikes me, often abruptly, but that is part of my style, and part of my joke. I do believe my mix of action and digressions has a rhythm to it. When I’ve had too much of melody and want a jarring of cymbals, I throw in out-of-scene stuff, sometimes as punctuation, sometimes it’s a way to push through the murk, I'm not quite able to find a clean way forward. Sometimes, having later solved my problem, I go back and rewrite, make it go away, but very often not. 

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I guess my answer to the question is, when it feels right, and as a part of a pattern of authorial behavior, and part of the personality of the storytelling. I'm big on personality, also called voice.

--edited by Mimi Speike on 12/11/2014, 9:11 PM--

Thanks for the advice, guys. Each of your opinions are helpful to me. I think I'm going to keep the flashbacks for now, because I can't envision anywhere in the book I can give insight to these characters unique behavior any other way. These two characters are main ones, and I felt like a bit of insight into their past (basically how they met) was necessary.

However, if the day comes when I decide those two chapters need to go, I guess I'll scrap them.

Thanks for that, Mimi. I guess my main concern for now is the relevancy of the flashbacks.

The first one is about my main hero, Arashi. It takes place after he's banished from his father's pack as a young boy and accidentally frees a happy-go-lucky pixie named Nixie from a curse, gaining her as a friend who sticks by him through thick-and-thin and keeps him from becoming a bitter man with her sunny disposition. My reason for having this one is because I thought it gave insight into the pair's personalities, as well as into Arashi's situation as an outcast and how the two became bonded.

The second one, which currently takes place right after the first, gives a look at how Nixie can be devious. She's a prankster, loves scaring people to the point of hysteria in harmless ways. And she shows this by scaring little boy Arashi nearly to death. This flashback also gives insight into my system of magick, the different classes I have: Illusiona, Elementa, Healica, Emotiona, Light and Dark.

What do you think? As I can't and don't have anywhere else to give this information (specifically because I've no desire to drastically alter my second half of the book) do you think these scenes sound pertinent? I'm planning to upload my newest version of Destiny's Bond some time either this week or the next. Hopefully people can give me their opinions on the flashbacks.

@Mimi--totally! Me too.

@Amber--I think putting the scenes in question up for review is the right next step for sure. You can even edit your Book Details with the next draft to ask specifically for feedback on if those 2 flashbacks,

In my WIP, the heroine doesn't appear until halfway through the book, when she rescues the hero, hides him in her house, and teams up with him to frustrate the bad guys over the next few days. Her behavior toward the hero would make no sense at all except that they have a personal history which is revealed in a chapter-long flashback that appears right after she saves him. The flashback provides critical information for the actions of both the hero and the heroine, and I'm keeping it.

My current issue is in the first 25 pages of the book. The first draft is chronological and lays out the how and why the bad guys deal badly with the hero. It might be boring; as Lucy writes, we need to start the story with action. I'm working on a second draft. I'm starting with action, and I'm struggling to fold the historical context into the flow of the story. I don't want to write another major back story chapter. 

This thread has helped me think through my issues with those 25 pages. 

I've gone both ways with opening chapters. In early books I've written, I always developed the story. The opening chapters did nothing. Then I read a book on writing by Lawrence Block, either Writing the Novel From Plot to Print, or Spider Spin me a Web. In one of them he mentioned his agent telling him to swap the first two chapters. The first chapter was slow, and the second was action. It took some rewriting, but minimal and he said the book was stronger for it beginning with the crime and then bringing his protagonist, Matthew Scudder, into it in Chapter Two. I've noticed that every Matt Scudder novel since has opened with the action.

As Mickey Spillane said, "The first chapter sells the book. The last chapter sells the next one."

I try to always open with some kind of hook, whether action or something that needs resolution. From chapter two on it's a lot of words, sentences and paragraphs that I hope keep the reader interested to the end where the protagonist solves the crime or dilemma, or sometimes not while still satisfying the reader.

First the question of a debut novel having flashbacks, and how many: The answer is, no more, or less, than that of an experienced novelist. You stand no chance of acceptance unless the work you send in, if mixed with the opening pages of ten people who are in your bookstore today, can't be identified as being from an unpublished writer. In fact, because a new writer has no fan base, your writing (not the story, but the writing) has to be the best of those ten, and chosen over them. It's a tough business, and to join the big leagues you have to be pretty special.

As for flashbacks, the first requirement is that they are necessary. I know you had fun investigating the character's past, but for all the time you have the reader in the past nothing is happening in the story the reader came to experience.

As to where to place it, if we're in an active scene, tension is rising and the protagonist is frustrated because things aren't going right. Who wants to stop there and start a new scene? And if we're at a chapter end there probably has just been a plot turning point that makes the reader want to "read just one more chapter," and hopefully do that over and over.

One natural breakpoint is where you might insert a scene with some character other then the current protagonist. But before you begin the flashback, you should establish a desire in the reader's mind to know what you're about to show them, so it captures their attention when they realize they've been taken in the past.

If that last doesn't make sense because you're not certain what scene and sequel refer to, try this article: http://www.be-a-better-writer.com/scenes-and-sequels.html

Hope that helps.