Flashforward: Creating Mystery Through Revelation
In a narrative environment that values mystery as the main propeller of the story, Flashforward may seem like an unlikely citizen
The flashforward technique is the reverse of the Flashback. While with the Flashback we go back in time to events that often have happened before the story starts, with the flashfarward we go forward in time. We anticipate events that will occur in the future of the story.
In a narrative environment that values mystery as the main propeller of the story, flashfarward has unsurprisingly lost part of its appeal.
It is, after all, quite a tricky, difficult technique to use efficiently, since it’s very easy to fall into spoiler territory.
In a narrative environment that values mystery as the main propeller of the story, flashfarward has unsurprisingly lost part of its appeal.
Yet, when used skilfully, flashforward may create such a strong expectation in the readers that will pin them to the story. Knowing that a certain event will happen in the future, far from spoiling the surprise, my created a sense of expectation and ‘need to know’ that will fuel the reader’s curiosity just as effectively as mystery does.
Flashback and Flashforward
Flashback and flashfarward are strictly connected. They may even be described as one the opposite of the other, though their purpose is indeed quite similar: creating expectations in the reader by revealing events out of the time of the story, mostly only partially.
Both techniques rely on mystery by actually revealing. Flashback reveals events in the past, flashforward reveals events in the future. But both will only reveal a part of the events and information pertinent to the story, and because the revelation is only partial, it creates mystery.
Both are subject to the danger of spoiling the story, with one notable difference.
Flashback reveals events from the past. The revelation of these events will affect the reader’s perception of the story, but will not alter expectations regarding the ending. Even if the reader learns events from the past of the story and the characters, the unpredictability of the ending still stands. The reader won’t learn anything of how future events might unfold, and so it is less likely that by that revelation, the reader will lose interest in the conclusion of the story.
Again, the flashforward is in many respect the exact contrary. Very often, it happens in a flash, in the matter of a sentence, and will concern a very specific event or information.
Where the flashback may be an entire episode and a good chunk of narrative, flashforward is ordinarily brief.
So we need to choose very carefully what and how much we want to reveal.
In this careful choice rests the success of the anticipation or its fall into spoiler status.
It’s a particularly difficult balance to strike.
The role of the Narrator
For their very nature, not all narrators are equal in the matter of flashforward.
The very fact that the Narrator reveals something about the future means that he is in the position to know about those facts.
This means that today’s most popular Narrator — the Third Limited — is normally ruled out.
Third Limited Narrators are ‘limited’ by the knowledge of the characters. They are embedded in the story and live at the same level as all the other characters. They share the same culture, the same language, the same beliefs and of course, the same knowledge as all the characters in the story. So, typically, the Third Limited Narrator doesn’t have access to future events.
Omni and First-person Narrators, on the other hand, do have the opportunity to know the future of the story.
The Omni Narrator know everything (which is why he is ‘omniscient’). He will know the past, the present and the future of the story. Similarly, he has access to every character’s soul and thoughts, as well as any event happening anywhere in the world of the story. The Omi Narrator has no barrier.
The First-Person Narrator too has access to the future of the story, for the simple reason that most of the time, that Narrator (who’s also the main character) tells the story once it is concluded. Even if this Narrator doesn’t know everything (like the Omni Narrator does), he will know a lot more than his story-embedded-self still entangled in the unfolding of the story. In comparison to the Omni narrator, the First-Person narrator’s knowledge of the future is limited to what he learned once the story was over, but still, in terms of narration, he does have the opportunity to anticipate events.
The emotional response
How can events be anticipated without being spoilery?
For me, the best shot is at character-related events rather than plot-related events.
Plot-related events may still work, mind you. There was a time, around the 1980s, when it was quite popular to start with a prologue that was a piece of the story in the future. The story then started far before that event and worked its way towards it. That prologue may even concern the climax, so it was indeed very risky. I suppose that’s why that kind of flashforward isn’t as popular today.
But the potentiality is there to create enormous suspense and need-to-know feelings about how on earth the characters will end up in that position.
I still think that the best bet at anticipating events doesn’t fall on the plot but on the characters.
Firstly, this kind of anticipation doesn’t necessarily concern the plot or the main arc of the story, so it is in itself less spoilery.
Secondly, readers are always happy to know what happens to a character they are very invested in. Besides, the anticipation may not regard the main arc of the story at all. It may concern a secondary thread or even a minor event that will still be emotionally-laden. Or such a big event that it’s beyond the frame of the story.
I still think that the best bet at anticipating events doesn’t fall on the plot but on the characters.
I’m going to make an example from The Lord of the Rings which will be considered a spoiler by readers who never read it, so be warned.
Besides, I’ve met very few authors who use flashforward better than JRR Tolkien.
In The Fellowship of the Ring, the Fellowship enters Lothlórien, one of the most ancient, most powerful and most beautiful Elven kingdoms still existing on Middle-earth at that time. This is the place where Arwen and Aragorn spent a part of their very troubled love story, and a place very close to Aragorn’s heart. It is also a place the reader immediately falls in love with, just all the members of the Fellowship, immediately perceivable as a jewel on earth, a place that enriches whoever is lucky enough to enter.
At a certain point in the episode, there is this passage, concerning Aragorn, at the end of a chapter:
‘Here is the heart of Elvendome on earth,’ he said, ‘and here my heart dwells ever, unless there be a light beyond the dark roads that we still must tread, you and I. Come with me.’ and taking Frodo’s hand in his, he left the hill of Cerin Amroth and came there never again as living man.
Now the first time we read the book, we might as well think that this flashforward concerns the future of Aragorn. He is one of the leading characters in the book, he’s on a dangerous quest, and we might think that the reason why he won’t go back to Lothlórien is that he may die.
Note that I’m saying, he may die. We don’t know for sure, because that’s not stated (the event is only partially revealed). But as readers, we get a strong sense of loss. Either we will lose a beloved character, or this beloved character will lose something significant to him because even if he survives, he will never go back to this special place.
Our emotional reaction to the flashforward doesn’t concern the plot as much as the character.
The flashforward plays with our uncertainty for Aragorn’s future and the certainty of loss, either our or his.
But the power of this revelation is that it doesn’t extinguish in the knowledge of the ending of the story.
On subsequent reads, we’ll know that Aragorn doesn’t die, we’ll also know that he will indeed never go back to Lothlórien. And we will know that the sense of loss doesn’t concern Aragorn directly, but Lothlórien.
Aragorn will never go back to Lothlórien again because when the story is over, Lothlórien won’t exist anymore.
If possible (and this is certainly my case) the sense of loss on subsequent reads is even stronger than the first time precisely because it is less of a plot revelation and more the elicitor of an emotional response. This anticipation concerns the larger theme of fading beauty that is at the roots of most of Tolkien’s stories. The sense of loss we get isn’t just for a character we love. It’s a sense of loss that belongs to us too. The sense that nothing lasts forever, that sooner or later, we will lose it and we’ll be left with just the memory. Just like Aragorn.
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Sarah Zama wrote her first story when she was nine. Fourteen years ago, when she started her job in a bookshop, she discovered books that address the structure of a story and she became addicted to them. Today, she’s a dieselpunk author who writes fantasy stories historically set in the 1920s. Her life-long interest in Tolkien has turned quite nerdy recently. She writes about all her passions on her blog https://theoldshelter.com/
