Most Common Writing Errors (ONGOING)

Flashbacks

Read the disclaimer if you haven't already.

This chapter covers flashbacks in the first chapter and why you should be cautious about using them. I will also talk about flashbacks in general later in the chapter.

Okay, I'm very aware this will make me sound rude. Are you ready? Alright, here goes nothing.

I click off most stories that have a flashback in the first chapter.

Okay, okay, go ahead and boo me, put the boos here in the inline comments.

But before you judge, let me explain.

I'm not saying flashbacks in the first chapter are inherently a bad thing; in fact, they can work very well in some cases. The problem is, they're very risky (depending on the story you're writing).

Imagine reading a new story with a new world, new characters, a new plot, etc. You read a quarter of the first chapter and are trying to learn the new world. Then, bam! You're thrown into a flashback that easily could have been put in a different chapter or been the very start of the story instead of halfway through chap 1.

Do you see why this would interrupt the narrative flow?

I'll talk more about pacing in a future chapter (I already talked about slow pacing though!), but for now, I'm going to focus specifically on what a first chapter flashback can do to the story.

By the way, I'm not talking about narratives where the first chapter takes place fully in a flashback. Most prologues do this where they take place in the past. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about stories that start in the present timeline of the story, then later in the first chapter, switch to a flashback. Again, I'm not saying this is inherently a bad thing, just a very risky thing.

I never cared for flashbacks in the first chapter. I thought that, in many cases, they interrupt narrative flow because the author is trying to do too much in one chapter.

You know what? I respect that. As an author myself, I totally understand getting super passionate and ending up with a longer chapter than you wanted (cough Starfield cough); however, that's where the phrase kill your darlings comes from.

The popular phrase, "Kill your darlings," comes from the idea that no matter how much you love a scene, character, plot point, etc., if it doesn't serve the story, then you need to have the strength to eliminate it from your book or save it for a time where it does serve the story.

There are many different interpretations of that phrase, but the most common is to eliminate scenes you love if they don't serve the story.

We'll talk about how to know if something serves the story + combining scenes to make one scene that tightens the pacing later, but for now, let's focus on how flashbacks relate to this saying.

There are many times you may want to put a flashback in the first chapter because it shows a core part of the characters' backstories; however, I ask you this: Would it be better to save it for later?

Would it be better to save the flashback for later when the audience is more adjusted to the characters and the world you've created? Would it be better to save it for later so you create mystery as to what the characters' pasts look like?

Is the flashback even necessary, or can you have the information you need to tell the audience be told in a different way, such as by having an emotional scene between character A and character B where character A explains the flashback instead of the scene jumping back in time?

I'm not saying all of these questions will apply to your story. It fully depends on what you're writing and how it fits with the character(s), plot, and world.