Flashbacks without confusing your reader

A flashback takes the reader back to an earlier event. It can add depth and mystery, but a badly signposted flashback leaves readers lost.

Have a reason

Only use a flashback if the past event explains something important now: why a character is afraid of water, or why two friends stopped speaking.

Signal the move into the past

Use a trigger and a clear time marker: “The smell of chlorine took her straight back to the summer she was seven.”

Use the past perfect to enter, then relax

Begin with “had”: “She had never seen the sea before that day.” After a sentence or two, switch back to the simple past so the writing does not become clumsy.

Signal the return

Bring the reader back clearly: “Now, twenty years later, the water looked just as cold.”

Keep it short

In a short story, a flashback of a paragraph or two is usually enough.

Try it: write a present-day scene of a character holding an old photograph, with a five-sentence flashback in the middle.