Flashbacks essay intro

In my revision, the “had” in the flashback’s first sentence (“A few days earlier at the grocery store, Mom had bought yellow cake mix, chocolate frosting…”) has been deleted. It’s not necessary, since “After a few days” makes it clear that the scene takes place in the past before the past that we’re in, or the past perfect.

Rule No. 1 for flashbacks: until and unless you’ve invested us in a scene, don’t flash back (or away) from it. The point of a flashback is to illuminate the scene from which it digresses, to add dimension and tension to it.

Here are 7 key steps for how to write a flashback scene: 1. Know why your story needs a flashback 2. Look at flashback examples in fiction to get insights 3. Choose your flashback’s time-frame 4. List any details that will be different during your character’s flashback 5. Learn how to write a flashback that has consistent tense

Flashbacks are simply flashes back to an earlier event in a story’s narrative. They can occur at any point in a story. Most prologues are flashbacks. Flashbacks can be tricky little guys to nail, especially in written works. I see a lot of inexperienced writers mess them up big time.