Thread: Blast from the past- memories of main character..

How do you/could one go about adding memories of characters that are relevant? I find this hard to do, and it really makes it easier to add length to chapters and help you to connect with the main character more.

"Length" isn't really a reasonable goal in and of itself. :p

Rather, I find that memories are a refreshing source of brevity. A good way to condense the last seven or eight years of a character's life into a few paragraphs. And there's no need to go into detail in memory; we recall images, or scents, or sensations, but not entire sequences of events, and the best part is that the text will raise more questions in the mind of the reader if you avoid giving the whole story up to this point.

The last character I did this with is in exile. While rifling through his trunk for some unnamed object, a set of old newspaper clippings caught his eye. The photographs then guide his thoughts for the next paragraph or three, giving glimpses of his life to that point.

He's not a main character. Not sure how much difference that makes.