How a Best-Selling Author Writes Flashbacks

To learn to write, dissect the best fiction writers. That’s a lesson from James Altucher, one of my favorite writers. I’ve been doing it with opening lines. This time, I read Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons through writer’s eyes. Here’s how he writes flashbacks: #1. A situation, character, or object triggers a memory that takes you to the past. “Langdon wanted to say something to her, offer his sympathy. He too had once felt the abrupt hollowness of unexpectedly losing a parent. He remembered the funeral mostly, rainy and gray…“ #2. A sound, character, or external element takes you to the present. After describing Langdon’s father funeral,…“The ping of an elevator pulled Langdon back to the present.” That’s exactly how we daydream or time travel: a snap or tap on the shoulder takes us back.