Writing popular fiction

However, as I reach the middle of a recollection, I often interrupt the
real
story while I explain the background of a side issue.
    "Get on with it!" my wife shouts. "You wouldn't
write
the story with all these interruptions in it!"
    She's correct.
    But many writers
do
write it that way, halting the narrative flow to drop in huge chunks of previous history which are intended to help explain the developments prior to the beginning of the story, so the reader can see how these characters got into the mess they're now trying to get out of. Called
flashbacks
, these explanations are so often used improperly that many editors and writers shun them altogether. If a story is begun at its real beginning, the writer should not have to use many flashbacks.
    At times, though, a flashback can add vital character information or help clear up a plot point. When such an occasion arises, the best and only rule for flashback use is to keep it short, never more than a small paragraph, and to the point.
    Here's an example of an overextended flashback in the opening pages of a Western novel:
John Masters stood on the front porch of the post office, the newspaper held tight as a drum skin between his hands, and read how Kaplo, in the company of three other convicted murderers, had escaped from Yuma Prison. When he was finished, he knew he would have to make preparations for Kaplo. The young killer would show up here, soon, anxious for revenge. Masters remembered how it had been in court, four years ago, when he had testified against Kaplo. As county sheriff, Masters had seen each of the kid's victims shortly after the bodies were found—always young women, always molested first and brutally slain immediately after. Masters had headed the investigation, had found the traces Kaplo left behind, had set the kid running, had lost two of ten good deputies in the chase, and had captured Kaplo himself after four days of hard riding. In court, when he said that Kaplo was insane and recommended the death penalty, the kid had stood up, screaming incoherently and had, when finally put forcefully back in his seat, threatened revenge should he ever escape Yuma where he was sentenced to life at hard labor and denied visiting privileges for the entire length of his imprisonment. Now, Kaplo was coming to fulfill his promise.
    Properly written, containing all the vital facts, that same flashback would read like this:
John Masters stood on the front porch of the post office, the newspaper held tight as a drum skin between his hands, and read how Kaplo, in the company of three other convicted murderers, had escaped from Yuma Prison. When he finished, he knew he must prepare to face Kaplo. The young killer would show up here soon, anxious for revenge. Four years ago, Masters had tracked him down, losing two good deputies in the process, and arrested him for the brutal sex slayings of three county women. In court, when he had called Kaplo a madman and recommended incarceration in an asylum rather than the death penalty, the kid had flared, angry, and promised revenge. Now he was coming to fulfill his promise.
    Almost a hundred words shorter, the paragraph still contains all the important data, with less of an interruption in the narrative.
    When writing a flashback, avoid the use of the word "had" except to clearly set the scene as past event. For example, the following flashback contains too many "had" reminders:
Bill had gone to the garage where he had started the car and had driven away from the house. He had had enough money in his wallet to buy a good dinner, and he had drunk what remained, had become, quite honestly, soused to the gills.
    Properly written, this flashback should be:
Bill had gone to the garage, started the car and driven away from the house. He had enough money in his wallet to buy a good dinner, and he had drunk what remained until he was, quite honestly, soused to the gills.
    Finally, avoid using the observer frame for your story, in which the first person narrator prefaces and ends the story with statements that this was the way he saw it all happen. This technique, made popular by Conan Doyle in his Sherlock Holmes stories, renders the plot all past event, one long flashback, and it robs the story of its immediacy.
    Your style will evolve naturally as you continue to write, and you should not make much of a conscious effort to develop it. Of course, every writer should strive to create clear and dramatic prose, but if you are trying