Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

by Sol Stein

If the flashback element is to consist of more than quick thoughts in an ongoing scene, the writer must be certain to create a flashback scene that stands on its own to avoid the flashback becoming a narrative of something that happened elsewhere. To move from what is happening in the present to a scene from the past without breaking the reader’s experience requires segueing to a scene in the past as inconspicuously as possible. The term segue is derived from music. It means to glide unobtrusively into something new. I prefer the segue into a flashback to the more direct method, moving from the present scene to a scene in the past inconspicuously.