And with good reason. Flashbacks are a multi-functional technique for stepping outside your story’s timeline and sharing interesting and informative nuggets about your characters’ pasts. But just as they can be used to strengthen your story, they can even more easily cripple it.

5 Tips in Writing Effective Flashbacks:

1. Find a trigger to ignite a flashback. Think about when you are suddenly pulled into a memory.
2. Find a trigger to propel a return to the present.
3. Keep it brief.
4. Make sure the flashback advances the story.
5. Use flashbacks sparingly.

Don’t begin with a flashback after spending only a trivial amount of time in the story’s present. Introduce important characters in the beginning. Begin with a scene that will introduce a major conflict.

A flashback gives you, the author, the opportunity to let your reader experience that back-story in the same way that your character can experience it at any time—as a memory. So a flashback is good, and it’s often the very best way to inject that back-story into your reader’s brain.

How to Handle Flashbacks In Writing

1. Make It Clear You are Moving Back in Time. Have you ever read a novel and somehow missed the fact that the author has moved back in time?
2. Hook the Reader First. However interesting an incident from the past might be, it still represents a disruption to the story currently being told.
3. Make the Flashbacks Natural.

To include a flashback in present tense, a writer can use the simple past. In past tense, a writer has to use past perfect. Flashbacks are just less wordy in the present tense. Present tense can add to characterization and tone of the novel.

Flashbacks may seem random at first. They can be triggered by fairly ordinary experiences connected with the senses, like the smell of someone’s odor or a particular tone of voice. It’s a normal response to this kind of trauma, and there are steps you can take to help manage the stress of a flashback.

An emotional flashback can be triggered by a situation, a circumstance or an event that reminds you exactly what happened to you in childhood. You can feel transported back to those feelings of helplessness and despair, with no safe parental figure around to make it all better.

Flashbacks can come on suddenly and feel uncontrollable. They are more like a nightmare than a memory because sufferers often cannot distinguish between the flashback and reality, feeling like the traumatic experience is happening again. Flashbacks are vivid, sensory experiences.

Tips on helping someone who is experiencing a flashback

1. try to stay calm.
2. gently tell them that they are having a flashback.
3. avoid making any sudden movements.
4. encourage them to breathe slowly and deeply.
5. encourage them to describe their surroundings.