Some beginner writers are confused between flashback and recollection. A flashback is a full scene from the past that a character returns to. It often has something to do with an episode in his life. A recollection is a fragment of the past brought back into memory, often triggered by a present situation. The flashback has a time travel effect. The character feels transported into the past and becomes detached from the present. The recollection pulls out something that he remembers, but he is very much in touch with the present. Sometimes written in italics, flashbacks could occupy a page or more. A recollection is too quick and serves to add information or provide a solution to a character’s ongoing situation. A recollection passes through a reader’s memory like a breeze. The flashback passes like an impactful storm.

Story: A convicted criminal who has served time finds a new life working as a bartender in a small, quiet town. He becomes a shrink by listening to bar patrons who drop by to drink and tell him about their woes. He meets a prostitute who frequents the bar. She tells her own life story while under the influence of alcohol. They fall in love, but it is too late for the convict to discover that she has issues that place him in big trouble.

Flashback: The convict is under the sheets with his prostitute girlfriend. The writer flashes him back to the time when his cellmate warns him about not dating streetwalkers. “Those whores are nothing but trouble. You’d be lucky to find one who’s not connected to the mob.” He takes the advice seriously—the writer shifts to the present. The convict now has misgivings that the two of them are on the run.

Recollection: He always looked at prostitutes as the type of women who are in control--they know what they want, and they don’t play hard to get. He recalls his cellmate warning him to stay away from prostitutes. The writer can then skip a few pages and present the prostitute as big trouble for the convict. She stole money from the mob, and he killed a hitman who was trying to take her down.

In this type of conflict, the convict’s recollection about his cellmate warning him against prostitute does not wield enough influence over the convict to leave her. The recollection is too brief to register that the reader may not even remember it. In the real world, many people brush off their recollections. If the convict makes a full flashback of the man-to-man talk he had with his cellmate, the reader will be convinced of the convict’s motivation to leave her and let her die. The reader was an invisible witness to the past and was there when the convict had the talk.

Do you need flashbacks or recollections in your fiction? It depends. A dramatized flashback and a few lines of recollection have different effects. It is in the writer’s best judgment how he would convey his character’s past that will create an optimum impact on the reader.