What, because of Wesley?

Nonsense. I'll just tie Fred up and give her to Wes to play with for awhile.

Either he'll be too busy/distracted to be much help, or else we'll be too distracted watching him and Fred to worry about the damned bucket.

Huh.

Body Shots got rec'd.

(*blinks*)

It seems I pulled off something unusual in having Fred sound Texan.

Hmm.

In-laws: more uses than expected.

I'm posting here rather than in Great Write Way, as this question applies to a fanfic in process rather than my original fiction.

I'm working on a long story that has several characters dealing with their pasts. In some cases this past reaches into a quite distant, nearly mythic time. In every case, something from the past is having a tremendous impact on each character's present life. The problem I'm having is how to present the past material to the reader in a way that heightens tension rather than stopping the narrative dead in its tracks. I also need to get across the point that much of what the characters know or remember about this past has been somewhat corrupted over time.

I have several options in mind for how to get this information across to the reader:

• Straightforward flashbacks in the third-person limited p.o.v. I've been using throughout.

• First person narration of the past incident by one of the characters, without interruption.

• First person narration as above, but with interjections from other characters.

• Folktale style narration that presents the "official" view of the past, but with written annotations by the different characters pointing out errors and inconsistencies.

• Folktale style narration followed by spoken debate about how the official version doesn't match up with reality.

Suggestions? Caveats? Advice?

Folktale style narration followed by spoken debate about how the official version doesn't match up with reality.

I would go for this, because there's more dialogue, which I enjoy writing.

Straightforward flashbacks make it hard to convey the differences between the facts and the way a character sees them; I tend to favour 'with interuptions' because of my writing preferences; I'm not sure how 'written annotations' would work as a device (there are several ways it could go, I guess), but it's a fascinating idea. Hum.

I think I'd go towards

• Straightforward flashbacks in the third-person limited p.o.v. I've been using throughout.

But amore than one of them for each character, each one slightly different.

Do the characters know their version of history has been corrupted?

I love dialogue, as well - but I think, in his instance, I'd go for a character POV flashback perspective, in a way that's minimal dialogue and visually slightly disorienting to the character. You know that first moment when you get hit with deja vu and you think, holy crap, what was that, and then immediately you question the reality/validity of it - "did that actually happen?"

Would this work? The sort of acid flashback feeling you get when a memory bleeds through and makes you question it?

Do the characters know their version of history has been corrupted?

Not yet, but they're starting to figure it out.

The sort of acid flashback feeling you get when a memory bleeds through and makes you question it?

That's the effect I'm hoping to go for--that sort of uncertainty that makes you wonder if things really happened that way. There are several things I think I "remember" from my childhood only because I've heard the story so many times from an older relative.

Anne, a question, then - is there another character present for this, in any or all of the scenes? A touchstone off of whom the character undergoing the memory-bleed can bounce the reaction?

Because I'd personally go for the almost saturated visual, with some very sharp, fast "holy shit" dialogue, to punch up the effect and power of the experience. But that's me. YMM very definitely V.

Anne, a question, then - is there another character present for this, in any or all of the scenes? A touchstone off of whom the character undergoing the memory-bleed can bounce the reaction?

Yes, but not every single time. In some instances, the character has to mull over things on his or her own.