Quick Questions.

[anthorn]

Here is a thread where i thought we could ask questions related to our works and maybe writing as well. So we could ask a question and anybody could answer.
for example. Mr. A could ask. How could i develop this character more. and B.C. and D could answer that question and ask ones for themselves...


OK so I'm Planning on using Flashbacks in my fiction in the same way Lost uses them. But what i would like to know is how soon is too soon to introduce them.

In my current work. I have a character who is depressed and suicidal. The novel begins with her jumping off a tower. Then cuts to a flashback, of several months before that when she was happy and not suicidal. I also in this flashback introduce the character who saves her as she falls by the end of chapter one. Basically for those wondering. The girl is suicidal because her lover has vanished and her child was still born.

[Urlik]

years ago I read a book called Cosmic Banditos by A.C. Weisbecker.
in that, the flashbacks start very quickly as the story is told in alternating chapters of where the book starts from to the end of the story and how the characters got to be where the book starts.

so in answer to your question, use the flashback when it feels right.
if you want to create some suspense, bring it in just after the decision to jump has been made but before that is resolved and she is rescued

[Kith]

If the flashbacks are as integral to your story as they are to Lost, then by all means introduce them as soon as they become necessary. I'm pretty sure Lost has Jack flashbacks from the first episode. I would take each flashback you intend to have, though, and make sure it has a very definite point for being there. It wouldn't work if Lost ran chronologically - but would your story lose impact if you were to start from a couple of months back and work up to the woman's attempted suicide?

[TheEndIsNigh]

Page one line one works for me.

[Teresa Edgerton]

Thread moved to Workshop.