Keeping on task with our talk about flashbacks, let me be the first to admit that in my first novel--the deer hunting horror story I wrote back in college--I used a lot of flashbacks. And I mean a lot. In the first three chapters!
The bulk of the book was relatively flashback-free, but I used up my store of flashbacks in the first three chapters, with three alone in the first chapter.
A huge no-no!
Okay, I know this now, but I didn't then.
In the editing process, I've eliminated most of them from these chapters and have sprinkled a few to later chapters. When I plan on going through this book again--when, I have no idea, but it's fair to say that it'll be years before that book will ever see publication--I'll chop it up even more and strike . . . well, all of them. Looking at it now, all of the flashbacks I used were amateurish and completely useless to the telling of the story.
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