NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES
How to Use Flashforward Narrative Technique
Flashforward is a surprising element that can make your readers fall in love with your story.
Exactly one year later, they will throw John in a damp cell, among three other dirty and grim-eyed men. His face will be bruised. His clothes will all be ripped. He will feel extreme pain in his left arm; probably they will have broken it with a truncheon.
At that moment, however, everything seemed to be going great for John. He had just been promoted at work and was about to go out for dinner with the woman he loved, Lucy.
What will happen in a year that causes John, now so happy, to go to jail? Will it be something related to promotion to work or Lucy? Will it be a question of corruption or jealousy? Is John innocent or guilty?
This is the power of the Flashforward narrative technique to stimulate the reader’s curiosity.
What is the Narrative Technique of Flashforward?
Flashforward, just like Flashback, is a narrative technique that concerns the timing of the narrative.
In particular, Flashforward allows us to jump into the future during the narration of a story. On the other hand, Flashback is the opposite.
This Narrative Technique of Flashforward, also called prolepsis, shows a scene that temporarily jumps the narrative forward in time.
Flashforwards often represent events expected, projected, or imagined to occur in the future. They may also reveal significant parts of the story that have not yet happened but soon will.
In a narrative text, it is a scene that interrupts the chronological sequence of facts. The main purpose is to anticipate events that belong to the continuation of the story. This technique allows a leap in time and gives more rhythm to the story, creating suspense and high expectations.
It is essential to think that this narrative technique should always help in the construction of the plot of the narrative. If you use this technique taken out of the story and out of context, you risk confusing the reader or the viewer.
Flashforward: some examples of use in literature and cinema
In both literature and film, this technique is used very often. This technique occurs in A Christmas Carol when Mr. Scrooge visits the ghost of the future.
In the Back to the Future saga, the director Robert Zemeckis plays a lot with this narrative technique, especially in the second chapter of the trilogy, where Marty McFly finds himself projected into the then distant 2015.
It is also frequent in the later seasons of the television series Lost. Or in the series This is us where we already know that something has happened to the dad of the three main characters in the first episodes.
Conclusions
Specific narrative techniques, such as Flashforward, allow the writers to anticipate facts, events, and situations that capture readers’ attention and encourage them to continue reading.
It is that surprising element that often makes many viewers fall in love with a film, or readers of a book.
However, to avoid confusing the readers or detaching them too much from the story, you have to use Flashforward carefully, following a logical thread.
If you want to know more about the management of time in the novel, take a look at the previous stories of the Narratives Techniques about Flashback and Backstory.
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