Writing Your Memoir: When and How to Use Flashback
What happy childhood memory does this picture evoke? Depending on where and at what age you begin your memoir, flashback can be a powerful story-telling technique. As it is your memoir, you are the point of view character and the flashback will be yours.
The most important reason for flashback is that the character is having the flashback because something that happens in the "real time" of the story causes the flashback. This means she goes into the flashback for a reason and comes out of the flashback with a different, perhaps deeper, understanding because of the flashback.
For example, in the picture above, what if the death of a childhood friend evokes a poignant memory? What if the point of view character sees a picture of a childhood friend in a newspaper article or the friend finds her on Facebook and want to reconnect? The What Ifs are endless!
In terms of technique, once you are in a flashback, the other four ingredients of the scene all come into play.