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Old 10-23-2012, 07:09 PM   #13
gmw
cacoethes scribendi
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Quote:
Originally Posted by teh603 View Post
I'm just quoting what every single litfic professor I've talked to has said. Flashbacks by definition can't convey action.
How many litfic processors can a person have? More seriously: Some people think of writing as an art, and in art there are no hard rules, merely guidelines that you can bend or break once you understand why the rules exist. Some people think of writing as a science, believing that you must write your story in three acts and have an upward inflection at the end of every chapter before your novel could possibly be successful.

The only "by definition" limitation of a flashback is that the narrator did not cease to exist - that's pretty much it. There can be as much action as you like, some stories are told entirely in flashback. To say otherwise rather flies in the face of the evidence.
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