A ponderance:
When reading a novel you've picked up at the bookstore/grocery
store/wherever, do you find yourself reading along, enjoying the book, when
suddenly you come across THIS:
**************************Flashback**************************
Or this:
Flashback
*********
Or this:
--BEGIN FLASHBACK--
Has anyone here ever run across this in a book of fictional prose? I would
assume not.
So my question is...
WHY do some fanfic authors feel compelled to use such breakers in their
fanfics, when it completely wrecks the flow of the story?
People, there IS NO REASON to smash people upside the head with a huge neon
sign that says "HEY! Hey you! Stupid reader person! Flashback here!
Flashback, you hear me? FLASHBACK!"
Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to segue to a flashback without
any grotesque indicator that you are doing so. Simply trailing off with a
line such as "I was washing my genitals when...", followed by a normal,
commonplace scene breaker, and then beginning the flashback scene is the
best way to segue to a flashback. Your readers are not idiots...well, not
usually. When they see "I was washing my genitals when...", a scene break,
and a complete change of scene, they are usually going to pick up on the
fact that the next scene describes what happened when the speaker/narrator
was washing...ahem, you get the idea.
So please...if you respect yourself as a writer, if you respect your
potential readers as possibly intelligent human beings, segue subtly into a
flashback. Don't try to bludgeon your reader with the fact that you are
about to cut to a flashback. They know. If they don't know, then they're
stupid, and that's their problem and not yours.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inferno: "As you command, My Queen!"
Megatron: "I wish he'd stop calling me that...'
The Eternal Lost Lurker
...who turns into a cold, wet, angry Lurker when splashed
with cold water, and who desparately needs an SO...
White Knight of the Knightly Order of Mihoshi Enthusiasts
Keeper of the Densetsu no Muundirudo
Necessity is a mother.
Spare the rod. Boil the child.
Live long and thump butt.
lurkerdrome@worldnet.att.net
http://www.geocities.com/~etlostlurker
ICQ# 22559724