WRITING FLASHBACK AS SCENE

Hi folks,

With the generous and gracious permission of my student (who shall remain unnamed), I want to show a recent submission she made on the novel she’s writing and my comments/suggestions on a flashback scene she’d written. This is a Christian novel, but the same basics are important as in any other genre. At her request, I’ve also changed the names of the four characters in the Japanese concentration camp, as this novel is based on a real-life story and she needs to get permissions to use their names before the novel is published.

If those of you who know me wonder how in the heck a reprobate like me can work with a Christian writer, all I can say is that the word on the street is: God works in mysterious ways…

Boy, does He ever!

Also—I feel confident that when she’s finished, this is going to be a publishable novel. She’s a terrific writer and has a compelling story.

I ask all of my students to provide a 15-20 word outline for their novel, which will be the first item. This outline isn’t like Comp I outlines, which list topic sentences. Instead, the statements indicate the results of actions taken to resolve the story problem. How they get to those results is up to them. It’s not intended to necessarily be clear to an uninformed reader, but simply shows the main plot points and how they ended up and is intended solely to keep the writer on track and focused. She’s the only one (well, besides me) who has to understand what the statements represent.

As with my other client that I recently used in a posting, I’m going to give this author the same pseudonym of “Susan.” Once she sells her book and it comes out, I’ll reveal who she is. Count on it!

With the editing as indicated, this is what she sent in this week and my comments:

INCITING INCIDENT:

Miyako learns brother’s killer will be in Osaka

DEVELOPMENT:

Miyako plots to assassinate killer

Miyako fails

Miyako joins Christian seekers group

Miyako attempts to assassinate killer, stabs brother instead

RESOLUTION:

Miyako receives brother’s forgiveness, converts to Christianity, is arrested (I always ask my clients and students to have an ending that reflects both a win and a loss.)

*

(What follows is from later on in the novel. We’ve been introduced to Miyako and her story problem is clearly on the page. This is perhaps twenty pages or so into the novel and is in her target’s pov. She’s employing multiple povs. This is also a bit later on in his chapter and we’ve already been introduced to his character. He’s on the bridge of a ship, on his way to Japan to begin a speaking tour.

A dash of cold spray across his sleeve brought him back to the present. He blotted it on his jacket, then turned and paced along the railing.

How ironic. Forty months in prison, and he spent every moment desperate for a way to escape the Japanese. Now that he had his freedom, he was heading back by choice. And he couldn’t wait to reach Japan.

He tried again to pray, but encountered opposition. A thought echoed from a darker corner of his mind. It was almost like a voice, challenging him.

Why are you so eager to come back here? Don’t you remember what they did to you last time? Don’t you remember how they treated you and your fellow POWs? How they executed Smith and Quince and Nance? How they starved Nix to death?

Remember how it felt to waste away from malnutrition? How it felt to watch your buddies starve? How it felt to have nothing to look forward to but hunger, beatings, and an early grave?

Why are you coming back to the people who did that to you?

Bill stopped pacing. He stared straight forward, his hands balled into fists in his pockets.

The Japanese are not open to you. They’re not open to your God. They’re not interested in His message of love and forgiveness. You’re wasting your time.

So why put yourself at risk again? Especially now that you have a wife and son. Don’t you owe them something?

Just leave the Japanese alone. Let them sit on their little islands and pay for what they’ve done.

But the last bit was a mistake. One goal had kept him sane during those last months of imprisonment. Had kept him grounded through his sudden release and heady first weeks of freedom. Had driven him to finish Bible college in record time.

Unlikely as it seemed, he was sure Jesus had appointed him to take His vital message of forgiveness to the Japanese. If millions of Japanese people were going to die in their sins, it would not be because Bill had failed to bring them the message.

“Get thee behind me, Satan!” he shouted into the wind.

This won him a brief respite. But the inner voice tried a new tack. How do you know Jesus has called you back to Japan? What if He didn’t? What if it’s just your own idea? Your ego talking?

He mentally retraced the steps that had brought him here.

Susan, you might want to reconsider casting the above in a scene rather than in Bill’s mind. Perhaps an exchange between him and his wife for at least part of it. Characters ruminating over past events (backstory) often are deadly dull for the reader. We really want to see people interacting. An interior monologue is mostly passive. Conversation can be as well, but it’s at least a small cut above a character’s thoughts, especially extended thoughts such as these. Also, such a conversation shouldn’t be just an info dump, but the two characters should be somewhat at odds and whenever possible, have their dialog written as off-the-nose more than a Q&A type of exchange.

The fork in his road came during his third winter in prison. He was in solitary somewhere near Nanking. By then the five surviving airmen looked more like skeletons than men, but Larry Nix was in the worst shape. For weeks he had been growing weaker, to the point where he could no longer exercise at all during their fifteen minutes outside each day. He would just sit on a bench and watch the rest of them.

They were all concerned about Larry, but none of them were prepared for what happened.

Bill was in his cell on a winter morning when an unusual racket started in the yard. The single, small window at the top of the wall was designed to let a beam of light in, not to permit prisoners to see out. But he had learned that if he braced his feet on the side walls of the narrow cell, he could scale up them until he could just manage to look out. It took some effort, and he had to be careful that the guards did not catch him at this trick or there would be a beating. But curiosity overcame caution this morning, and he made his way up the walls.

He discovered that the source of the noise was a project the guards were busy with. They were hammering away at a large box. This was something new. His imagination ran everywhere as he tried to work out what it could be.

The next morning, he found out. A guard opened his cell door and brought him outside. In the middle of the yard, resting on bare earth, he saw the box—with Larry’s emaciated frame arranged in it. He stared down at what was left of the young officer.

He had admired him. Larry was a prince of a fellow—perhaps the best of them all. A hero who nearly drowned trying to save a fellow crew member after his plane went down off the coast of China. A man of faith who continued to believe they would all pull through somehow, even after the rest of them had lost hope. A thinker who was first to see the signs they were losing mental acuity in solitary. Larry had challenged each of them to come up with intellectual exercises to keep their minds fresh. He had passed his own time composing philosophical essays.

This last paragraph is mostly telling. I’d consider a brief scene here dramatizing this, showing Larry and the others talking and Larry doing what you summarized—urging them to come up with the exercises. Even a paragraph or two delivering this bit with a scene raises the interest level and dramatic level. One of the guys groaning and refusing to do so—the others seeing his wisdom, etc. That kind of thing.

And here he was, cold and still, laid out in a makeshift coffin. All his philosophies dead with him.

I could be next, Bill thought. Any one of us could be next. They could kill us all off here, one by one, and no one back home would even know.

He felt exhausted. Numb.

You might want to break this up with Miyako in a scene. You’re following a passive block with Bill’s thoughts with another passive block when he’s basically summarizing his experience in the prison camp. It’s primarily backstory and told via exposition, rather than dramatized. It might be too much if both of these sections are together, back-to-back. Make sense?

CHAPTER 3

It was well after closing. The restaurant was deserted. Miyako sat across from an old family friend, Mr. Mitsumi, at one of the tables.

See how—automatically—the reader’s ears perk up? We’re in a scene now and the interest level automatically raises with scenes. Scenes deliver emotion while exposition/summary doesn’t.

He sucked his breath in sharply, surprised. After a moment, he let it out and looked her in the eyes.

“So, Miyako-chan. You want to poison someone.” He chuckled. “Well, I’ve known you since you were very small, and I didn’t think you’d come looking for me at this time of night to trade small talk.”

She hadn’t decided how much to tell him. She took a drag on her cigarette and studied the ash tray as she snuffed it out.

“Can I assume it’s a matter of kao?” he said.

When she lifted her eyes to meet his, they burned with intensity.If you’re referring to Miyako’s eyes here, you’ve just left her pov. She can’t see herself to know her eyes are “burning with intensity.” “Hai, Mitsumi-san.”

“Then, since I have such a long association with your family, I must give you what little help I can. But I am afraid it will not be as much as you hope for.”

Susan, as always, this works very well. The main thing I’d caution you is to try to avoid too much of a character’s wandering about and ruminating in his head. A bit is fine, but try to find ways to dramatize these kinds of things. Same thing with flashbacks. Create scenes for those rather than “I remember when…” kinds of things, where it’s delivered totally via summary/exposition. As a small example, when he’s remembering Larry, which works better—what you have in summary--or perhaps something like this:

He had admired him. Larry was a prince of a fellow—perhaps the best of them all. A hero who nearly drowned trying to save a fellow crew member after his plane went down off the coast of China. A man of faith who continued to believe they would all pull through somehow, even after the rest of them had lost hope. A thinker who was first to see the signs they were losing mental acuity in solitary.

            “Men,” Bill remembered Larry saying one day during the exercise period. “We’re vegetating. The Japanese are winning our minds and we’re not doing anything to fight them.”

            They were walking clockwise around the compound in a loose group. Their usual exercise regimen. Walking was about all they were capable at this point and it was almost more than at least a couple of them could manage. Bill could see the Japanese guards sitting on the porch watching them. One—a kid who didn’t look any more than fifteen—turned to the older guard beside him and said something and the older man laughed.

            “It’s kind of hard to fight anything when you can barely walk,” Quince said. “Christ, Lieutenant, get real.” As if to punctuate his argument, Quince halted and lapsed into a fit of intense coughing. Bill limped up to him and tried patting him on the back. It seemed to help. He straightened up, eyes rheumy, and nodded his thanks. They began walking again.

            “I know what you’re saying,” Larry said, “but we can do things. Like…” he paused, his brow knit in thought, “…we can do mental exercises. Keep our minds sharp.”

            “Like what?” Nance said. He was the camp wiseacre. “Tell each other riddles? Here’s one. What’s black and white and read all over?” He began to cackle.

            “I know, I know,” Larry said. “It sounds foolish, but I think we need to try it.” His voice raised in excitement. “I know! There are things we all know that others don’t. For instance, I’ve always wondered what Occam’s Razor was all about. I’ve heard it all my life, but don’t have a clue what it is. I bet somebody here does. That’s the kind of thing we can do. Bring up stuff like this, figure it out. It’ll keep our minds sharp.” At the end of his speech, he seemed to be almost begging for the others to consider his proposal.

            “Well…” Joe Smith said. “I had a semester in college. Took a class in philosophy. Occam’s Razor means…”

            Thus it happened that Larry had challenged each of them to come up with intellectual exercises to keep their minds fresh. He had passed his own time composing philosophical essays. His first one, Bill remembered, was on Occam’s Razor.

And yet, there he was, cold and still, laid out in a makeshift coffin. All his philosophies dead with him.

I could be next, Bill thought. Any one of us could be next. They could kill us all off here, one by one, and no one back home would even know.

This is just a quick example, Susan, but do you see how dramatizing things like this instead of summarizing them can ratchet up the scene? It’s just good strategy to look for ways to get the material across dramatically (which means via scenes) rather than with exposition/summary.

Hope this helps!

Blue skies,

Les

And here’s how “Susan” ended up creating the flashback with her own originality:

He had admired him. Larry was a prince of a fellow—perhaps the best of them all. A hero who nearly drowned trying to save a fellow crew member after his plane went down off the coast of China. A man of faith who continued to believe they would all pull through somehow, even after the rest of them had lost hope. A thinker who was first to see the signs they were losing mental capacity in solitary.

He remembered how he caught up with Larry during their exercise period one afternoon. “Damn it, Smith’s at it again,” he whispered.

 “Oh, Lord, sure enough,” Larry said. Smith was standing in a corner of the yard—by himself—yelling incoherently.

“Poor fellow. I guess he’s had all he can take.”

“Yeah. And that’s where we’re all headed.” Larry looked around to see whether their conversation was drawing attention. He kept his voice to a whisper. “You know, I’ve been thinking about this. We’re all getting a little crazy, and I don’t think it’s just the vitamin deficiency. I think the strain of all the time spent alone is getting to us. You know what worries me most?”

“What?”

“What if, when we finally get out of here, they have to put us all in the psych ward because we’re mentally gone?” He glanced over at Smith. He had lapsed into silence now and was fingering the bricks in the wall.

“Yeah, that would be God-awful.”

“We’ve got to come up with ways to keep our minds sharp.” Larry thought a minute. “Look, how many Presidents’ names did you learn in school?”

“What?”

More slowly. “How many Presidents’ names did you learn in school?”

“Well.... 32, of course.”

“How many can you remember now?”

“Roosevelt, Hoover, Coolidge… Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson… Adams… hmm… Grant… umm…”

“See what I mean?”

“Geez, yeah.”

Larry put a hand on his shoulder. “Look, when you’re back in your cell, remember as many as you can, and tell me tomorrow how many you get. Also, you need to come up with some other pursuit to engage your mind. Something you care about.”

“Like what?”

“Well…. I’ve started an essay on philosophy. I’m committing it to memory.”

“Oh, I see.… Maybe I’ll try a poem.”

Larry clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s the ticket. You can recite it to me tomorrow.”

Larry had challenged each of them to find ways to keep their minds fresh. He had gone on to compose several essays on philosophical problems himself, entirely in his head.

But here he was, cold and still, laid out in a makeshift coffin. All his philosophies dead with him.

I could be next, Bill thought. Any one of us could be next. They could kill us all off here, one by one, and no one back home would even know.

He felt exhausted. Numb.

See how Susan appropriated this and made it hers? This is why she’s progressing leaps and bounds as a writer and why she’s creating a novel folks are going to want to read.

Hope this gives the writers out there a little useful info. Avoid that deadly-dull exposition/summary in flashbacks as much as possible! Your story will gain untold energy by doing so. One of the keys in creating good fiction is to avoid stalls where the reader’s interest flags and give him or her an excuse to put down the story. Sometimes… never to return. Sometimes those parts are inevitable, but the writer should do his or her very best to avoid them. Backstory and flashbacks are particularly deadly and the best way to avoid slowing down or dulling the read is to capture the flashback/backstory portion in scenes rather than exposition/summary. To write like Harry Crews, who says he “tries to leave out the parts readers skip.” It’s easy to skip summary for the reader. It’s much more difficult to skip a scene! We’re all voyeurs at heart. We love to eavesdrop on people interacting. Most of us aren’t interested in someone’s relatively boring ruminations…

Blue skies,

Les

P.S. I'm in heaven. It's football season and (right now, anyway) my Irish are beating Purdue! Next week my Colts start their trek toward the Super Bowl. And yes, they're "my" teams!