on Writers Helping Writers:
For strong storytelling, we need to focus on what’s important and relevant to current story events. That means we shouldn’t info-dump a bunch of irrelevant backstory just because it’s interesting or it’s something we enjoyed developing about our character, as we instead need to keep this story moving forward.
Yet two advanced writing techniques may seem to go against this advice by focusing on showing readers events in the past: flashbacks and dual timeline stories. What are these techniques, when might it make sense to use them, and what’s the difference between flashbacks and dual timelines?
Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog 