Forum: Author Hangout

Thanks for the added background, Shinerdrinker, but it doesn't really answer the question. Assuming I need to signal that a multi-chapter flashback is over, what's the best technique to show it?

Now that I think about it, it probably doesn't impact my story, since the flash-forward chapter switches to a new scene with different characters (the President and his advisors, discussing the events which occurred in the first chapter (previouisly the prior chapter, before the reorg)). As such, there's really no setting for a 'flash forward' transition.

returning to the main story timeline after a prolonged, multi-chapter flashback.

The tense is the grammar part. But you also need a transition to get you to the past and one to get you back to the present.

btw, you know you don't write the whole flashback in past perfect tense.

The tense is the grammar part. But you also need a transition to get you to the past and one to get you back to the present.

Switch, the problem is the flashback happens between chapters. One chapter happens in the present (in the story), the next drops back 10 days. After another 2 chapters in the past, it switches back to the present (in story time), but features an entirely different cast of characters, so there's no one to show responding.

When I flash back, I start the new chapter with:

Ten days previously, a single Suburban drove down a lonely road on a new-moon night so dark it was difficult discerning anything outside the headlights' glare.

Since the past/present scenes aren't next to each other, I'm not sure adjusting the tense would add much. Either the readers get that the time has changed, or they don't.

I guess your omniscient narrator can provide that information. The narrator is the one saying "Ten days previously."

Movies that do that flash a date and/or time on the screen before the scene starts.

Edited to add:

I don't know if "Pulp Fiction" was a novel before a movie, but it jumped all over the place.

I guess your omniscient narrator can provide that information. The narrator is the one saying "Ten days previously."

That's why, in most examples, the flashbacks are momentary, because it's first person perspective and you have to show how it affects the main character.

In another story I handle the flashback start with a typical I remembered scene and came back to the present with a line about shaking my head to clear the memories and in a third I had time and date entries at the start of each chapter so that was clear when they were.

A date stamp would help, but now that the story is finished without any dates, it would only add additional confusion. Besides, how often do readers pay attention to dates?

I suspec that, in my case, the scene change focusing on the alien attack covers me, as it's clear the attack has already happened (the flashback describes how it came about).