Mastering Flashbacks
Used skillfully, flashbacks offer a rich and vivid way to weave in essential backstory and add depth and texture to a story. But clumsily executed ones can be an eyeball-stopping intrusion on your story’s momentum that yanks readers right out of it.
As a career book editor with decades of experience working on thousands of manuscripts, Tiffany will show you what makes a flashback essential, and how good ones can add meaning and impact to the main story. You’ll learn the difference between flashback and other types of backstory, and how to assess whether and when flashbacks serve your story best to more richly develop your characters and their arcs, heighten stakes, and deepen readers’ experience of your story.
We’ll explore how to transition readers smoothly and organically into and out of flashbacks without the “cheese factor” equivalent of an old-movie dissolve, and how to quickly orient them to the flashback. The supplemental workbook lets you practice and review the techniques, and ask yourself the right questions to know whether and when flashbacks are right for your story. Learn how to avoid flashback faux pas to let your readers glance backward even as you keep the story moving forward.
If you want more online education, see the full list of WDU courses here.
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Register for the 2024 Writer’s Digest Annual Conference!
Writer’s Digest Annual Conference is excited to meet in person this October in the home town of Writer’s Digest!
Writer’s Digest Annual Conference offers everything you need to advance your writing career creatively and professionally. Gain invaluable tips to improve your craft, explore publishing options and learn how to establish a sustainable career—all while being inspired by successful authors and your fellow attendees. It’s all brought to you by Writer’s Digest, the experts at nurturing and developing writers at every stage of their career for over 100 years.