Thinking about the all-too-common use of flashbacks in fiction, especially fiction in manuscript, I came up with exactly no reason why flashbacks should be used. At all. I tell my beginning students, "You're just starting out writing fiction. So no flashbacks or fancy stuff. Just be direct and tell the story chronologically, as it unfolds. Life is chronological. Events always move forward. There's no flashing back."

They come to fiction writing imprinted with "flashback" although "flashback" is supposedly an advanced fiction-writing technique. Flashback in beginning fiction is the equivalent of the downcased "i" in beginning poetry. It is a borrowed form of originality, and its reasoning is that "Other people do it."

I always give students this lecture hoping they won't waste their efforts on what I call the Barstool or Bathtub story. That's when you tack your character on a barstool and have him do nothing but think back on sordid past events. Don't show him thinking about sordid events. At least show him living the sordid events. Don't put your main character in the bathtub and keep her there while you describe her reveries or resentments. The reader, who reads a story wanting to enter a world where people do things, realizes early on that your character isn't going to do anything but sit, and is disappointed.