English essay flashback

The transition to some flashbacks is so clumsily written that the reader isn't even sure until halfway through the scene that it is a flashback. Others let us know we've moved back in time, but not how far or to what place. A reader who is expending energy trying to figure out where and when she is now is not able to engage with your story.

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.

Conventions have evolved about using verb tenses to signal both the start and end of flashbacks. Although most readers don't consciously notice these tense shifts, the shifts register below the level of consciousness to signal "Now we've moved back in time" and "Now we've left the flashback to rejoin story time."

Kress explains what makes a flashback work, and how to perfect your own time traveling techniques. Some stories behave conveniently for their authors: They take place in several consecutive scenes not very far apart in time, and everything the reader needs to know is contained in those scenes. Such stories are easy to structure.