Free Advanced Brilliant Writing: Make Your Plots Wider and Your Characters Deeper (Go! Write Something Brilliant) by Susan May Warren

their journey to Oregon and the Little House on the Prairie. And should they happen to run into any renegade outlaws, she knew just how to handle them—with her six gun cap shooter tied to her leg.
    PJ traced her first escape route as she drove toward her mother’s home, remembering how big the hill had seemed, how cold and ominous the pond, dotted with shiny oak leaves. She’d reached the railroad tracks crossing Chapel Hills when her father pulled up in his ’85 Jaguar, a sleek green lizard, rolled down the window, and stuck his elbow out. He looked regal with his thick black hair, those rich green eyes, a grey worsted wool suit against a black tie. “It’s gonna get cold, PJ,” he said. “And your mother has stew on.”
    PJ still made a face, even in her memories.
    He had laughed. “All good cowgirls eat stew.”
    PJ remembered the way she crawled into the car, sliding on the sleek leather seats, smelling his cologne. He wouldn’t be home long—probably had a meeting to attend, somewhere—yet for that moment, he’d been her champion.
    She still missed him most in the fall. “Your cowgirl finally left town, Daddy.”
    Why didn’t I create a Flashback for this? Because although it gave resonance to PJ’s feelings about her father and her innate wanderlust, it isn’t necessary to build the current plot, or even PJ’s emotional journey. It’s simply a piece of Backstory.
    How do we decide when to use a Flashback or just insert Backstory?
    A Flashback should only be used when the scene or event that happened in the past is both complex in nature—meaning, it has many facets to it that relate to the character’s emotional journey—as well and relevant to the storytime plot or emotional journey of the character.
    Let’s create a two-part Flashback litmus test to help us understand when to use a Flashback and when to use Backstory.
    It is Complex?
    A Backstory layer is usually rather simple—one event that influenced the character and moved them forward or taught them a lesson. It can usually be explained with one or two sentences, and the reader legitimately understands the impact of the event.
    A Flashback, however, is a significant event that so influenced or changed the character that it affects the storytime’s current plot and the character’s emotional journey. Because of this, a Flashback has many facets.
    For example, in PJ’s Flashback, we understand Boone’s significance, we understand her feelings about the country club, fire, the teachers who found her, and we are there, feeling her shame as the entire town watches her get arrested. There are so many facets to this horrible event that affect her life, she’d have a difficult time summing it up.
    And we use this difficulty as the Complexity Litmus Test to determine when to use Backstory or Flashback. We simply ask our character: Describe the pivotal event in your past.
    Scene 1: PJ says: I was kissing my boyfriend on the golf course, in my prom dress, and well, we’d been going out for a long time, so I thought this would be the night, but he wrecked it by telling all his buddies, but of course, I forgave him anyway, and while we were in the middle of . . . you know, his father of all people drove up and found us, along with two other teachers from the school—one who happens to be the dead guy I’m trying to solve the murder of—and while they were unhappy to see Boone and I in a love pretzel, they were really after me, because they’d heard that I’d set fire to the country club because I’d been smoking . . . which I hadn’t been . . . and that’s another long story . . .
    Okay, I think you know the answer to that one.
    Scene 2: PJ says: When I was ten, I tried to run away from home. I didn’t get very far before my father found me, pulled up in his fancy car, and persuaded me to go home. He understood my wandering heart better than anyone else.
    Easy.
    See, Scene One, the country club fire is complicated and affects the plot of