In all the writing classes I’ve taught, I’ve always told my students not to write flashbacks and, for the most part, I still hold to this rule.

Flashbacks stop the forward momentum of your story. Why would you stop something that’s going along so well, drawing your readers further into your world, making them turn page after page? There would have to be a very compelling reason.

What do flashbacks do besides stop your story?

Well, they are an opportunity to show, rather than tell backstory—your character’s history.

But what could possibly be so important, so compelling, that you have to stop your entire story to share it? Is there something that just cannot be shared in a quick one sentence tell?

“Oh yeah, John was a real jerk when we got divorced.” Instead of showing the whole scene of him being a jerk. Is it necessary?

Before you write that flashback, think about the importance of it to your story. Think about what the disruption is going to feel like to your reader who is happily lost in your world. That flashback is going to pull them out of the world they’ve been in and plop them someplace new and, quite possibly, uncomfortable.

So why am I lecturing you today on flashbacks?

Well, naturally, because my WIP has a number of them.

“What!? Why would you do that?” I hear you cry.

Well, because they are the only way to get my hero’s story told. Ninety percent of my hero’s story took place a year to six months before the start of the book. Within the book itself, where he is emotionally and physically are the direct result of this story, so it must not just be told but shown; experienced first-hand by the reader and the heroine who is listening to his tale.

Also, since the book is otherwise purely told from the POV of the heroine, these flashbacks told, by the hero, are our only insight into his mind. His is a story told in flashbacks.

But clearly this technique, while vital, nay essential, to the story, is still praying on my mind—and do I write the flashbacks in first person, or third?

In fact, I’m worrying about POV for the book as a whole. Right now, I’m writing in it in first person so that the first person flashbacks won’t be such a jarring transition, but I’m not convinced that this is right for the story, which is a traditional Regency romance—a genre that’s normally written in third.

So, I worry. I ponder. I fret.

I don’t yet know the right way to write this story and I’m three-quarters of the way done. Is this a problem?

Actually, no. It isn’t because I’ve still got the editing phase to come when I can shape the story, rewrite bits, and yes, change all the pronouns if necessary.

So flashbacks are still a definite “don’t even go there if you can help it” from me. But if you can’t help it, if they are essential to your story as they are to mine, make sure the story doesn’t suffer from all the stops and starts. Use those flashbacks like a sling-shot to propel the story forward once you’ve pulled it all the way back.

So, how do you feel about flashbacks? Hate them? Refuse to read books with them? Think they’re all right?