The "springboard" flashback

For a long time, I've noticed that there's this very specific type of flashback that gets used in story structure a lot--for lack of a better term, I'll call it the "springboard" flashback, or the SBF.

Plain ol' ordinary flashbacks are used pretty sparingly, and for good reason--they're boring. If we're aware that something happened in the past, it automatically has a kind of who cares? feel to us. The SBF is a more interesting kind of flashback though, because the character becomes aware of the importance of the flashback at the same time as the reader--and that awareness, in turn, affects the character's actions in the front story. Sorry if that came across as complicated--I've got an example to help.

It's the novel, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, by Peter Cameron. An SBF is woven through the first half of this book, in the form of a painful memory recounted by 1st-person narrator, James Sveck.

James is a witty, articulate high school senior and savvy Manhattan-ite, but he turns into a massive tangle of social anxiety around people his own age. He feels different in some fundamental way, which he says became clear to him during the "The American Classroom" (AC)--a corny school government project that takes him to Washington, DC, along with teenagers from all over the US.

The front story (the real-time action) takes place in the summer following the AC and follows James' attempts to withdraw from the world--he announces to his parents that he will not be attending Brown in the fall like he'd planned; he looks into running away and buying a cheap house in the Midwest instead; and he schemes to get the attention of the only person he regards as his "friend"--a sophisticated gay man named John who manages James' mother's art gallery. Alarmed by James' increasingly erratic behavior, James' parents insist that he talk to a psychiatrist, Dr. Adler, and it's through those office visits that James relives his "horrible experience" at the AC, generally via flashback.

I won't ruin all the delicious details of the "horrible experience" for those who want to read it, but little by little, the flashbacks tell the full story of a mental breakdown. Through this telling, the reader becomes aware of why James aggressively withdraws from everyone in the front story--and the effect makes it feel like James is becoming more aware, too, even if it takes him a while to admit it. In fact, it's the final telling of the breakdown to Dr. Adler that crystallizes James' crisis, both for himself and for the reader. In it, he recalls how he ended up at the National Gallery, staring at a series of paintings portraying the four stages of life in the form of a male figure sailing on a boat: for example, the male figure transforms from a youth sailing smoothly along, to a man facing raging waves, to an old man about to sail off the painting into a quiet, dark sea, accompanied by an angel. James explains that he was upset by these images because:

It's a real painting! Old Age by Thomas Cole, 1842

"... I realized I wanted to be in the last painting, Old Age. I wanted to be in the boat floating into the darkness. I wanted to skip the Manhood boat. The man in that boat looked terrified, and I couldn't understand what the point was: why crash through those treacherous rapids along a river that only flowed into darkness, death? I wanted to be in the boat with the old man, with all the danger behind, with the angel near me, guiding me toward death. I wanted to die."

This moment reveals James' greatest fear--of declaring his manhood and moving forward. The effect of this revelation is to catapult both the reader and James into the major confrontation of the front story--James' hidden feelings for John, his mother's gallery manager. Right after James delivers the final scene of his breakdown to Dr. Adler, he makes a romantically confused advance on John and is forced to put all his cards out on the table--including his sexuality. This leads to the final dramatic crisis in which James changes and grows into the next stage of life that he was so afraid of.

The SBF is a really interesting way to advance storytelling--it has a unique tension that comes from the feeling that you, the reader, are "catching up" with the past and its significance to the present at exactly the same time as the main character. Plus, the "catching up" in itself becomes a sort of "springboard"--one that touches off a turning point for the main character and offers a new direction. The overall experience feels a lot more like real life, and that in itself can make a reader stay tuned in.

Do the Time Warp now: Raise the Red Lantern

I'd always heard about Raise the Red Lantern (a novella by Chinese writer Su Tong), but then my husband brought it home and said, "You have to read this." And I'm glad I did. It's one of those stories that leaves a strong impression long after you read it--partly because of the story, partly because of the imagery, and partly because of its use of time (and space). I'm gonna focus on time for now.

Maybe it was or maybe it wasn't...

It reading other stories of Su Tong's and researching his authorial style, I've learned that he's well known for his technique of introducing uncertainty to past events--primarily, he's used it to cast doubt on the Chinese government's narrative of the Cultural Revolution and the events preceding it. In other words, he resists the black-and-white nature of traditional storytelling. For example, take the opening lines of another of his stories, Nineteen Thirty-Four Escapes:

"Perhaps my father was a mute fetus. His profound reticence left my family shrouded in a murky gray fog for fully half a century."

This makes for a shocker of a first sentence (a keeper for fantastic opening lines!), and sets up the murkiness of the narrative that follows--one that not only questions the past, but tells it in a non-linear fashion, moving fluidly in between earlier and later events, and even into the present.

Do the Time Warp

Rocky Horror Picture Show "Time Warp" scene;
snipped from RockyMusic.org

However, in my humble opinion, Su Tong uses his techniques to even greater effect in Raise the Red Lantern (RTRL). With stories like Nineteen Thirty-Four Escapes, his signature "time warps" feel more in-your-face, for lack of a better word. Additionally, they tend to blur the edges of events and narratives, whereas in RTRL, the time warps blend the characters themselves, which makes for an incredibly eerie telling that feels of a piece with the story.

RTRL opens when the orphaned Lotus arrives at the house of Master Chen to become his Fourth Mistress. She soon becomes embroiled in domestic politics with Chen's first three concubines, and also discovers a deserted well near her rooms, known as the Well of Death. The well's history is closely guarded and she's warned not to go near it, but Lotus gradually discovers that it's tied to the death of past Chen family concubines.

The ghosts of past, present, and future

One day, Lotus hears Third Mistress Coral singing near the well. It's a haunting Chinese opera aria, sung from the point of a young girl contemplating suicide. Lotus has already had several run-ins with the well, where she has experienced apparitions, so she decides to ask Coral about it:

"Lotus walked to the side of the abandoned well, bent over, and looked down into it; then suddenly she laughed and said, 'Ghosts, there really are ghosts in here! Do you know who died in this well?'

Coral remained seated at the stone table. She said, 'Who else could it be? One of them was you, and one of them was me.'" (p73, paras 3&4)

It's a subtle manipulation but it's really fine and so, so eerie. Simultaneously, it feels like Coral is speaking from the present (perhaps joking or experiencing a mental break), the past (impersonating a ghost or channeling a spirit), and the future (having a vision of their possible fates).

There are many similar episodes in the story where echoes of the past, present, and future collide, but this is my favorite. I love a good ghostly shiver, but it's even more alarming in light of Su Tong's characteristic theme of recurrence and the idea that individuals are powerless before the past.

Wisteria Tunnel at Japan's Kawachi Fuji Garden;
snipped from sun-surfer.com 

Now you see it, now you don't

In RTRL, this becomes an existential crisis, too, in which not only time, but identity--and maybe even reality--is interchangeable. Take this scene in which Lotus again approaches the well:

"Lotus picked a wisteria leaf off the ground, examined it carefully, and threw it into the well. She watched the leaf float like some sort of ornament on the dark blue surface of the stagnant water, obscuring part of her reflection; she actually could not see her eyes. Lotus walked all the way around the well, but could not find any angle from which to see her entire reflection; she thought it very strange." (p53, para 2)

Lotus has started to conflate herself with the image in the well, and now that image doesn't even have eyes--it's horrific.

Ceci, n'est pas une pipe

If you don't get the joke, click here! Warning: you
probably won't laugh. It's a dumb joke.

At times, Lotus' self-identification also moves beyond humanity or even logic, producing unsettling responses like the following, in which her comments on a flower arrangement point to a crisis of reality:

"Lotus took a few steps forward and said, 'Flowers are not flowers and people are not people; flowers are people and people are flowers; don't you understand such a simple principle?'" (p28, last para)

This is not a technique you can just whip up, because it has to flow seamlessly with and belong to the sense of the story, but it's interesting to read, and opens up possibilities for how to write--what opportunities could you create if you didn't take the timeline of your story for granted? In RTLR, it's magical.

Quotes from: Su, Tong. "Raise the Red Lantern." In: Raise the Red Lantern. Translated by: Duke, Michael S. HarperCollins Publishers Inc.: New York, NY; 2004.

Story nips and tucks

Speaking of cutting, did you know
scissors have terminology? Check out
All About Scissors.

I've always wished for more writers to publish their story drafts, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is, and posting a marked-up excerpt of Still Life With Tampon, a story of mine in Story Chord. This draft was pared down and improved by Story Chord guest editor, Erika Swyler--thanks, Erika, for letting me share your changes! I was delighted with how many smart trims she made, including cutting several filler words and phrases that didn't add much value, and removing some lines of dialog that dragged the pace and were a little over-explainy. And um, spoiler alert--this comes from one of the final scenes, so if you would like to read the entire thing and then compare, do that first!

*  *  *  *  *

"But I've been painting feathers."

Your mother laughs, as if satisfied by this information. "Well, there you are, Dawn. You can't go around painting other people's Muses. No wonder you've been so miserable--you've gotten your signals crossed."

This silences you. Perhaps all of this isn't so crazy. You've long sensed that you've been thrown off by your mother's path, but it never occurred to you that you'd been dragging her behind you, like a trail of toilet paper, into your canvases.

"But still," you say. "How can a tampon--a used tampon--"

"Sweetheart." Your mother hasn't used this term in ages, and her voice is at once patient and firm. "We cannot judge what we're given to work with. It's only for us to follow the path we've been given."

"If it's as simple as that, then how come you never told me about all of this?"

"Because it's not simple. A Muse only comes when you're in your darkest hour and you least want it and then you have no choice."

And with that, she stands up again. The click of her heels, like her voice, is measured and resolved.

*  *  *  *  *  

My spidey senses are tingling

Still from Big Ass Spider

One of my favorite things as a reader is when I start getting vibes from the writer that all is not well, and my spidey senses turn on, waiting for the fly in the ointment to be revealed—if the writer’s good, this happens almost unconsciously. I came across a good example this morning, in this scene from Jennifer Weiner’s novel, The Next Best Thing (I was intrigued by a New Yorker article about Weiner, which I posted here.)

Vibe #1: Trouble in paradise? My spidey senses started tingling as soon as I read these first ~150 words—all you need to know is that the main character, Ruth, has had her TV pilot script picked up for production, and that she’s heading with her boyfriend to a celebration dinner thrown by the network that bought it:

“’So tell me the timeline,’ my boyfriend, Gary, said.... I reached for his hand and was pleased and a little relieved when he let me take it and gave me a reassuring squeeze. When we stopped at the light, I looked at him, marveling, as I often did, that he was actually interested in me, that we were actually a couple. Gary had pale skin, dark hair and dark eyes, and a cleft in his chin... He’d gotten dressed up—or at least his version of dressed up—for the occasion, wearing a belt with his jeans, black leather shoes instead of sneakers, and a sportscoat instead of a fleece. True, there was an ink stain on his cuff, but he was here and he was trying, and I felt lucky, loved and lucky...”

As soon as I read this, I knew (well, subconsciously, anyway) that something's fishy with Gary. Here are some of the reasons why, I think. First, there’s a good use of imbalance (tension)—Ruth feels “lucky” that Gary’s interested in her, while he barely puts any effort into dressing up for her big event. Okay, maybe he’s just a schlub—some boyfriends are—but Ruth also shows surprise at his “reassuring squeeze,” which makes Gary seem less than supportive. 

Vibe #2: Literal (and figurative) out-of-stepness. Reading on:

'The timeline for tonight or the timeline for the show?’ I asked. The light turned green. Gary dropped my hand and started walking, so that I had to half run to catch up.

‘Show,’ he said.

‘Okay. Well, let’s see.... We start pre-production next week, and for the next eight weeks I’ll be working on the pilot. I’ll have to cast it, of course, and hire a director, and a DP—a director of photography—and a line producer...” I paused, waiting for him to ask what a line producer did... but Gary didn’t ask. My voice was high and chirpy, slightly breathless from hurrying, as I kept talking....

‘How long will all that take?’ he asked as we walked across Beverly.

Now the plot thickens. Not only is Gary a schlub, but it’s clear he’s not really with Ruth on her journey—in fact, he’s literally leaving her in the dust (a nice touch of irony, because later Ruth notes that she's already surpassing him in material success). Nor, apparently, is he interested in her party—jerk. Again, there’s great tension in Ruth’s hurried speech and Gary’s selective inattention (he’s not interested in the process of the TV show, only the timeline, indicating impatience and doubt about the outcome).

Vibe #3: Is that all there is? Ruth gives Gary a lengthy explanation of next steps, ending with—if all goes well—the eventual premiere of the show. Gary answers with:

'That’s it?” His voice was flat, his tone uninterested, his expression impossible to read in the darkness as he walked with his hands jammed in his pockets and his head down. He looked like a guy being led to the guillotine instead of to a party.

‘That’s it. Then you have to wait to see if you get good reviews, and if you find an audience, and if you get renewed.’

‘It’s a lot of waiting,’ Gary observed.

‘It’s not so bad,’ I said, trying not to sound disappointed.

My Kindle edition!

Vibe #4: Sweet, sweet vindication! Okay, now I feel totally justified for thinking that something was off—Gary is no longer even pretending to try. And now for the payoff—commiseration with Ruth in real-time as his jerkiness sinks in (“All I wanted was for Gary to be happy for me . . .  [but] all he’d done was ask picky questions, pointing out the problems, prodding at the soft spots. . .”) And there’s nothing like a good boy gone bad for either fiction or pillow talk with your favorite character!

(Sorry, I don't have a page number for quoting here—I usually like to give that, but I've been using my Kindle edition. The excerpt comes from Chapter 4.)