As you know I switch quite regularly between different POVs and plotlines, and I make use flashbacks in my novel Blood & Fire. I’ve just started looking at Part Two in my process of revising it, and I have a question for…
Part One covers Eleanor getting lost in the mountains from Ben and Hanna’s perspective with occasional glimpses into how Eleanor is getting on.
Then in Part Two, I roll the clock back and go back over the same period in time but from Eleanor’s perspective.
Nothing wrong with that you might say. However, currently Part Two currently starts where Part One left off and is a little prologue to Eleanor’s story. I then go back to the beginning and tell Eleanor’s story as if in the current time (ie. not a flashback). I’m thinking that this is going to get very confusing for the reader.
So what would you suggest? I’m thinking maybe it’s best to chop the ‘prologue’ from the beginning of Part Two and work it in to narrative when I get there. But my only problem there is that I have Eleanor’s story dovetailing in and out with ‘the present’. Ggrrr, I’m not really explaining this very well, which probably doesn’t bode well for it…
Views and opinions gratefully received!
I promise I’ll get back to you on this – you might need to remind me! – having rather a hectic day as A. is off to London today for a work training course and won’t be back till Friday. He hates travelling (he’s going by train) and is in total Panic Mode!
Actually I’m thinking I probably need to have this in front of me to be able to offer an informed opinion – could you email it to me? I won’t critique it, just let you know how it reads from the point of view of real-time vs flashbacks.
OK, I’ve had a chance to read. I think it works fine as you’ve done it – the only thing I’d suggest is to make it crystal-clear when you begin Eleanor’s ‘back story’, just with a row of asterisks or something. You lead the reader into it – Eleanor is going to tell them what happened to her – and I don’t personally have a problem with the ‘backstory’ being in present tense, as the rest of the book is written in that tense. Anyway, that’s my 2p’s worth 🙂
Thanks for looking at this/considering it…
Because the Eleanor story is so much of this chapter I was wondering whether I could leave it in roman type and save italic for ‘real’ flashbacks? Or should I put all scenes that are not happening in the hear and now in italics?
I would save the italics for the genuine flashbacks, I think. Reading through, I didn’t find it confusing, because it seemed very clear to me that we were reading Eleanor’s story, which had already been set up for the reader.