childhood, then come back to the youth, then to the present. This can be gotten away with, but it is not advisable.
There is no rule that limits the length of a flashback in proportion to the rest of the story. Suppose that the events of a story span several years and come to a conclusion in one last meeting between two characters. In order to focus that meeting, the author might first establish in a few lines the fact that these characters are about to meet; then, in a long flashback, present everything that happened in the past; and then, coming back to the present and the meeting, describe the conclusion in a final few lines. While reading the flashback, the reader waits for the story to reach the present again, anticipating that something will happen at the promised meeting between the two characters. And since the proper focus has been established from the outset, the final lines come across much more forcefully than they would have done had the story been told in chronological order.
The suspense and heightened interest of such a structure depends on the reader’s unspoken assumption that the writer is rational and has a reason for constructing his story this way. By contrast, a modem writer would start a story as described above and never come back to the present; or he would come back, but then nothing significant would happen.
It is legitimate now and then to remind the reader of the present during a long flashback—but only if you have a reason for it and you advance the story by that means.
The only rule for going into a flashback is to avoid confusing the reader. Mark clearly when you go from the present to the past and when you go back to the present again. The simplest way is to say: “He remembered the time when ...” or “He thought of the days of his childhood.” This is not bromidic, because it is direct. But there are more interesting ways of doing it.
One of my best flashback transitions is the one to Dagny and Francisco’s childhood. She is walking to his hotel, and yet she is thinking that she should be running:
“She wondered why she felt that she wanted to run, that she should be running; no, not down this street; down a green hillside in the blazing sun to the road on the edge of the Hudson, at the foot of the Taggart estate. That was the way she always ran when Eddie yelled, ‘It’s Frisco d’Anconia!’ and they both flew down the hill to the car approaching on the road below.”
Although the reader notices the transition, it comes naturally.
Now consider the scene in Atlas Shrugged where James Taggart spills water on the table before Cherryl starts thinking about the events of the past year.
“ ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’ he screamed, smashing his fist down on the table. ‘Where have you been all these years? What sort of world do you think you’re living in?’ His blow had upset his water glass and the water went spreading in dark stains over the lace of the tablecloth.”
I do not have Cherryl go into the past by means of the spilled water, but I use it later to bring her back to the present:
“What do you want of me?—she asked, looking at the whole long torture of her marriage that had not lasted the full span of one year.
“ ‘What do you want of me?’ she asked aloud—and saw that she was sitting at the table in her dining room, looking at Jim, at his feverish face, and at a drying stain of water on the table.”
I planted the spilled water early in the scene in order to mention it later, as a touch pertaining to this particular dining room at this moment. Recognizing it as such, the reader knows that Cherryl is now back at dinner with James, where she was before she started thinking of the past. Had I not used the water, or some equivalent device, it would not have been clear that Cherryl is now back in the present; it might have seemed as if I were describing some other scene of the past year.
A tricky transition is good when it is warranted by the material, so that it appears natural; but avoid artificial tricks that are planted only for the purpose of the transition. For instance, the spilled water in the above scene is legitimate because it serves another purpose: to