How to Write a Flashback: Five Tips and Four Examples

One challenge that you’re likely to face when writing a novel is how to fill the reader in about important events in your main character’s past. There are various techniques you can use for this—one of which is a flashback.

Flashbacks can be fun to write, but they can also present challenges. Where should they appear in your novel? How long should they be? How exactly should you lead the reader into—and out of—the flashback? Or should you avoid using flashbacks at all?

We’re going to dig into how to write flashbacks that work, taking a look at some examples, too. First, let’s get clear about what exactly a flashback is.

What is a Flashback?

In fiction, a flashback is a scene set in the “past” of the main timeline of the novel. There’s usually some kind of trigger in the present for the flashback, like a character hearing or seeing something that links with an event in their past—but there doesn’t have to be an obvious trigger.

A flashback isn’t the same thing as a character simply remembering a past event. We might get told a lot of events of the character’s past in a summary—but a flashback is a scene, usually including action and dialogue as well as narrative. 

What Isn’t a Flashback?

If a story repeatedly moves between a past and present timeline, with both taking up a significant amount of the book, that’s a dual timeline narrative.

If you have a scene right at the start of your story set at an earlier time, that’s usually called a “prologue” rather than a flashback. (A prologue can also be set in the future, though that’s more unusual.) 

Five Tips for Writing a Flashback Scene That Works (And Doesn’t Lose Your Reader)

Flashbacks are a powerful way to show the reader something important in your character’s past. But they can also cause problems. Sometimes, they might seem forced or artificial, jolting your reader out of the flow of your story. 

We’ll come onto some pros and cons later, but here’s how to make sure your flashback works and draws your reader along with it.

#1: Have a Good Reason to Use a Flashback

Not all stories use flashbacks—instead, they might give backstory through other means, like simply having us infer it from the characters’ dialogue and actions.

If you are going to use a flashback, you need to have a reason for it: the flashback should give the reader something new that it would be difficult (or boring) for them to find out another way.

You may also need a narrative reason for the flashback. Is your character in a situation where it makes sense that they’re reminded of something from their past? Or are they suffering from amnesia or some condition where they are actually experiencing the flashback as we read it?

#2: Think Carefully About Where to Position Your Flashback

Flashbacks give us new information—about characters, about the plot, or both—so you want to decide where that information is going to be most impactful. Unanswered questions can help keep up the tension in your story, so you may not want to have flashbacks handing your readers the answers too early on.

It’s also important to think about how the flashback fits with the pacing of your story. Inserting a flashback means bringing the forward momentum of the narrative to a screeching halt … which may well be fine, but probably isn’t going to work well if your flashback comes in the middle of a tense scene. Readers will start skimming to get back to the scene itself.

#3: Decide How Long to Make Your Flashback

Most flashbacks are relatively short: no more than a few pages at most. Your flashbacks should usually be short, self-contained scenes—they’re covering one incident, one moment in time, not days worth of material. You might, however, have a summary at the start and/or end of the flashback that covers a longer period of time.

Short flashbacks might work well even during relatively fast-paced scenes. Longer flashbacks might be best positioned during a lull in the action.

#4: Transition Smoothly Into Your Flashback

Sometimes, it works to begin a flashback immediately after a chapter break. But most authors will have a transition to a flashback within a chapter. Usually, this happens when something in the character’s present links to something in their past.

Some good options are:

• An item—often of some sentimental value or significance, but it could be something that’s at least seemingly mundane.
• A letter or message from someone they haven’t heard from in years.
• A sound, taste, or even a smell (scents can be particularly evocative, so often tied to memories).
• A line of dialogue—this could be what another character says to them, what they overhear, or even something they say that reminds them of a person in their past.
• A person, maybe one they haven’t seen for years, or who they suddenly see in a different light.

#5: Make Your Flashback a Full Scene (Not a Summary)

A flashback needs to be a scene that could work fine as the “present” of the story (if you decided to set your whole story in the time period of the flashback). It shouldn’t just be a summary of things that the character remembers. 

We’ll come onto some examples of the difference shortly, but essentially, your flashback should include things like dialogue and action. It’s as if you’ve transported the reader there to see this episode from your character’s past.

Formatting and Presenting Your Flashback Within the Story

What should your flashback look like on the page? 

Some writers wonder if they should use a different font (e.g. putting the whole flashback in italics). This isn’t necessary—and will probably make it difficult to read unless it’s a very brief flashback. 

You also don’t need to put a line break before your flashback, though if you feel it makes most sense to do so in the context of your story, it’s fine to use one.

Another issue that comes up for writers is tense. This one’s easier to solve: use the simple past tense for your flashback, with perhaps the exception of the first line.

Here’s what I mean:

John picked up the necklace from the bottom of the wardrobe. He had given it to Annie for their first wedding anniversary. When she opened the box, she looked up at him and gave him the most brilliant smile. “Butterflies!” she said. “I love it.”

Here, the line in bold is in the past perfect tense (“he had given” not “he gave”), showing that the action takes place before the simple past of the main narrative. But immediately after that line, we transition into the simple past again: we’re in the flashback, experiencing it just like the rest of the story.

We’ll look at the use of simple past vs past perfect in some of our flashback examples.

Examples of Flashbacks in Novels

It’s easiest to see how good flashbacks work with some examples—so I’ve chosen a few for us to dig into.

Example #1: From The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)

The mayor begins to read the long, dull Treaty of Treason as he does every year at this point – it’s required – but I’m not listening to a word. 

Why him? I think. Then I try to convince myself it doesn’t matter. Peeta Mellark and I are not friends. Not even neighbors. We don’t speak. Our only real interaction happened years ago. He’s probably forgotten it. But I haven’t and I know I never will…

It was during the worst time. My father had been killed in the mine accident three months earlier in the bitterest January anyone could remember. The numbness of his loss had passed, and the pain would hit me out of nowhere, doubling me over, racking my body with sobs. 

[…]

On the afternoon of my encounter with Peeta Mellark, the rain was falling in relentless icy sheets. I had been in town, trying to trade some threadbare old baby clothes of Prim’s in the public market, but there were no takers. Although I had been to the Hob on several occasions with my father, I was too frightened to venture into that rough, gritty place alone. The rain had soaked through my father’s hunting jacket, leaving me chilled to the bone. 

[…]

When I passed the baker’s, the smell of fresh bread was so overwhelming I felt dizzy. The ovens were in the back, and a golden glow spilled out of the open kitchen door. I stood mesmerized by the heat and the luscious scent until the rain interfered, running its icy fingers down my back, forcing my back to life. I lifted the lid to the baker’s rubbish bin and found it spotlessly, heartlessly bare.

I’ve cut down this passage, because it’s quite long. It starts off with a summary rather than a flashback, detailing all the struggles Katniss’s family went through when she was eleven. Even when the narrative hones in on a specific day (“on the afternoon of my encounter with Peeta Mellark…”) it’s still told in the past perfect – “the rain was falling” not “the rain fell”. But once we get to the heart of the scene, it’s in the simple past tense – “When I passed the baker’s” instead of “When I had passed the baker’s”.

Like Suzanne Collins, you could potentially start a flashback like this: giving a summary of what the reader needs to know about days or weeks in a character’s life, before focusing on one specific scene.

The flashback works in context, too: Katniss is remembering all this in real time while the Mayor reads the boring, lengthy Treaty of Treason. Collins draws us back to the present with another summary paragraph that begins, “To this day, I can never shake the connection between this boy, Peeta Mellark, and the bread that gave me hope…”

We’re then drawn fully back into the main story with “The mayor finishes the dreary Treaty of Treason and motions for Peeta and me to shake hands.”

Example #2: From 1984 (George Orwell)

Winston stopped writing, partly because he was suffering from cramp. He did not know what had made him pour out this stream of rubbish. But the curious thing was that while he was doing so a totally different memory had clarified itself in his mind, to the point where he almost felt equal to writing it down. It was, he now realized, because of this other incident that he had suddenly decided to come home and behind the diary today.

It had happened that morning at the Ministry, if anything so nebulous could be said to happen.

It was nearly eleven hundred, and in the Records Department, where Winston worked, they were dragging the chairs out of the cubicles and grouping them into the centre of the hall opposite the big telescreen, in preparation for the Two Minutes Hate. Winston was just taking his place in one of the middle rows when two people whom he knew by site, but had never spoken to, came unexpectedly into the room.

[…]

At this moment the entire group of people broke into a deep, slow, rhythmical chant of ‘B-B!…B-B!’–over and over again, very slowly, with a long pause between the first ‘B’ and the second–a heavy, murmurous sound, somehow curiously savage, in the background of which one seemed to hear the stamp of naked feet and the throbbing of tom-toms. For perhaps as much as thirty seconds they kept it up.

[…]

There was a fraction of a second when their eyes met, and for as long as it took to happen Winston knew–yes, he KNEW!–that O’Brien was thinking the same thing as himself. An unmistakable message had passed. It was as though their two minds had opened and the thoughts were flowing from one into the other through their eyes. ‘I am with you,’ O’Brien seemed to be saying to him. ‘I know precisely what you are feeling. I know all about your contempt, your hatred, your disgust. But don’t worry, I am on your side!’ And then the flash of intelligence was gone, and O’Brien’s face was as inscrutable as everybody else’s.

This flashback comes just after Winston has written a (forbidden) diary entry—which in itself is a form of flashback, about seeing a graphic war film of “a ship full of refugees being bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean”. The act of writing about this triggers a memory of the “Two Minute Hate” earlier in the day, a horrible spectacle of the power of Big Brother and The Party, and a sort of brainwashing of the audience.

Again, we see the hallmarks of flashbacks:

• Some incident in the present sparks them off: in this case, the writing of the diary (if somewhat indirectly).
• The flashback begins in the past perfect (“It had happened”, “They were dragging”, “Winston was just takin….”)
• The flashback moves into the simple past (“the entire group of people broke into a deep, slow, rhythmical chant” rather than “the entire group of people had broken into…”)

As with the example from The Hunger Games, this flashback begins with a more general summary (about a female coworker and the “Inner Party” member O’Brian) then we come to the end of the flashback with another summary (a paragraph beginning “That was all, and he was already uncertain whether it had happened”). A sentence brings us, and Winston, back into the current scene: “Winston roused himself and sat up straighter. He let out a belch. The gin was rising from his stomach.”

Example #3: From Project Hail Mary (Andy Weir)

A little streak of blood sits on the ground. It’s just a thin red line of—

I sipped my coffee, popped the last fragment of toast into my mouth, and signaled the waitress for my check. I could have saved money by eating breakfast at home instead of going to a diner every morning. Probably would have been a good idea, considering my meager salary. But I hate cooking and I love eggs and bacon.

The waitress nodded and walked over to the cash register to ring me up. But another customer came in to be seated right at that moment.

I checked my watch. Just past seven A.M. No rush. I liked to get in to work by seven-twenty so I could have time to prep for the day. But I didn’t actually need to be there until eight. 

I pulled out my phone and checked my email.

TO: Astronomy Curiosities astrocurious@scilists.org

FROM: (Irina Petrova, PhD) ipetrova@gaoran.ru

SUBJECT: The Thin Red Line

I frowned at the screen. I thought I’d unsubscribed from that list. I left that life a long time ago.

[…]

What the heck was that?

I remembered it all at once. It just kind of showed up in my head without warning.

I didn’t learn much about myself. I live in San Francisco—I remember that. And I like breakfast. Also I used to be into astronomy but now I’m not?

Apparently my brain decided it was critical that I remember that email. Not trivial things like my own name.

This is the first of many flashbacks in Project Hail Mary. The main character, Ryland Grace, is suffering from amnesia. He’s woken up on a spaceship, attached to various medical machines, and he’s trying to figure out who he is and why he’s there.

The flashback is more abrupt than the others we’ve looked at, starting right there in the scene rather than with any preamble. As soon as the email from Irina Petrova comes to an end, we’re right back into the present day of the story (with “What the heck was that?”)

We also see here how flashbacks can work when the narrative is in the present tense: this flashback starts in the simple past tense and sticks with it throughout. 

Example #4: Doors of Sleep (Tim Pratt)

Sitting here with my back against a solid wall, writing in this journal of endlessly scrolling digital pages the Lector gave me, helps to soothe the storm of panic hormones in my blood. (Though I get a spike every time I glance down at my left arm and see wood grain instead of flesh. I may have to start keeping my sleeves rolled down. Maybe wear gloves.) Minna and I talked for a while, until she started yawning and curled up on the floor and went to sleep. She looks so peaceful. Maybe the berries have a lingering calming effect. Maybe she’s just good at coping. I like her.

I remember taking naps. I used to do it back home on free days and vacations. We had a wonderful hammock in the yard that all the siblings and niblings used to fight over, until finally my parents drew up a rotation to keep us from arguing, and after that turns in the hammock became a sort of currency we traded for chores and treats. We all enjoyed those periods of blissful swaying and snoozing and reading and viewing beneath the green leaves, but I think I loved it the most.

No more naps for me these days, obviously. One of the Lector’s first interventions during our time together was to alter my circadian rhythms and sleep-wake homeostasis, gradually extending my periods of comfortable wakefulness until I can go about twenty-six hours before I get sleepy, even without the intervention of stimulants. 

I wanted to include an example of what a flashback isn’t. The narrator, Zaxony Delatree, remembers something that’s triggered by what he’s experiencing (watching Minna take a nap). But this is very much told as a memory, not a flashback: it’s a summary of naps and the hammock, of multiple occasions of “blissful swaying and snoozing and reading and viewing beneath the green leaves” … not a scene that shows one particular day. And during the memory, we’re still there in the present moment with Zaxony, while he’s watching Minna sleep.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that! Summary is an easy, succinct way to fill in backstory, and it can be a good alternative to a flashback, especially if you don’t want to stop your story for a whole scene set in the past.

Pros & Cons of Flashbacks (and Alternative Options)

Flashbacks are great for:

• Filling in character backstory quickly and vividly, revealing information that might otherwise take a long time for the reader to pick up.
• Letting the reader interpret events—rather than you simply telling them what to think.
• Giving the reader a more nuanced view of a character or explaining character motivations. A flashback might show why someone is standoffish, ruthless, untrusting, feels in someone’s debt (like Katniss to Peeta), and so on.
• Raising more unanswered questions or deepening a mystery—we might learn something in a flashback that makes us wonder about what’s going to happen in the present of the story.
• Setting up a character arc: effective flashbacks might help us see how a character has already changed from the past (for good or bad) or give us a sense of how they may need to change further.

Flashbacks can also be tricky. Using them means:

• Bringing the “present” of your story to a halt. You might well decide this is worth it, but it could mean losing momentum (or even, handled badly, losing your reader).
• Risking the reader paying attention to the artifice of your story, instead of being wrapped up in it.
• Potentially confusing the reader, if you move too abruptly into the flashback, or show events that are strange and unclear.

To avoid the drawbacks as much as possible, keep flashbacks fairly short and focused, only use a few of them, and position them with care in your narrative.

If you don’t want to use flashbacks at all in a story, there are plenty of other options for covering the backstory.

One way to do this is to have a narrative that’s split fairly evenly between the past and the present, so both storylines run in parallel, usually with some thematic linking between different moments in each. Behind Closed Doors (domestic/psychological thriller) and The Road Trip (romantic comedy/women’s fiction) both use a past/present structure well.

Another option is to use diary entries, letters, news reports, or other documents within the story to fill us in about the past. 

What you want to avoid is an “info dump” where you give the reader lots of information in a big chunk. It’s fine to sometimes tell rather than show … but readers won’t want a huge dollop of “telling” all at once. 

If you do use flashbacks, make sure each flashback is really justified—if it’s not particularly relevant to the ongoing story, it can probably be cut and summarized. 

What do you think about flashbacks? Do you find them engaging or confusing as a reader … and do you use them in your own writing? Leave a comment below to share your thoughts.