A Goodreads user
asked
David Wong:
What are your feelings on flashbacks? I'm writing a story and I'm not sure how to work in a character's -relevant- backstory in a way that won't be clunky and distracting.
David Wong
Personally, I think they only work when they up the stakes of the main story that's being told - like say the main story we're following involves a mysterious suitcase and the good guys have it in the trunk ... and then the flashback reveals one of their friends is a double agent and the suitcase has a bomb in it. If we're leaving the main story only to circle back and talk about the character's childhood (in a way that doesn't directly influence the main plot) then I feel like my patience is being tested.
Like in my last book I knew I wanted to work in some backstory on the origins of the suits but I also wanted the nature of the organization to be part of the mystery at the beginning since that's part of the situation the main character has to navigate. So I waited for the exact moment when her trust in the group was stressed to its limit and then paused to briefly circle back and shed a little more light on who she was dealing with. Not that this is the exact "right" way to do it, that's just what I was trying to keep in mind.
Keep in mind you're talking to someone who writes genre fiction and has a very short attention span, serious writers of great literature would surely give a different answer. I write as if two boring sentences in a row will cause the reader to toss the book in the trash.
Like in my last book I knew I wanted to work in some backstory on the origins of the suits but I also wanted the nature of the organization to be part of the mystery at the beginning since that's part of the situation the main character has to navigate. So I waited for the exact moment when her trust in the group was stressed to its limit and then paused to briefly circle back and shed a little more light on who she was dealing with. Not that this is the exact "right" way to do it, that's just what I was trying to keep in mind.
Keep in mind you're talking to someone who writes genre fiction and has a very short attention span, serious writers of great literature would surely give a different answer. I write as if two boring sentences in a row will cause the reader to toss the book in the trash.
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