Relationships & Partners and Writing Skills Tips. (A Writing Advice Guide Book

Flash-Forwards And Flashbacks

Both flash-forwards and flashbacks are scenes that take place out of the main chronological order of the story. A flash-forward is a glimpse of something that will happen to the characters in the future at the end of or perhaps even after the main narrative and a flashback is a scene that takes place before the main storyline/plotline started/began.

Flash-forwards are often used in first-person narratives with the narrator giving the reader a glimpse of an intriguing outcome before returning to the beginning and showing how the story worked its way up to that point. One famous first-person flash-forward is the beginning of Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard which opens with the narrator essentially starting his story from beyond the grave.

But using a flash-forward as a teaser to hook the reader at the beginning of a plot can occasionally come across as mechanical. You can use flash-forward elsewhere in a narrative, even at the end, skipping a period of time to show how the characters turn out years after the main chronology of the story. An effective example of this approach is Alice Munro's short story "The Beggar Maid".

Flashbacks of course are much more common. Many detective stories employ flashbacks. They can also be used to great effect in other genres and mainstream fiction. Indeed, flashbacks can often be used as replacements for or in combination with important or dramatic information about the previous history of the character. Toni Morrison uses this technique to show the dramatic birth of a character in her novel, "Beloved".
-Professor James Hynes

How do they impact storyline and plotline? What's their true purpose?
1. Also suspense and shock value.
2. Invaluable connection from reader to character

I won't be uploading the cover. You want to know the title of the Writing Guide book private message me, because their copyright rules are so stupid. I will not credit the company but will always credit the Professor in these parts until I am done. Private message is the only place you'll get an explanation from me.