A train announcement mispronounces a town, and a woman hears her father correcting the man at the ticket window.Then: her embarrassment. After: she corrects the conductor, kindly, in her father's voice.
A nurse hears a patient hum while thinking and remembers the lab partner who did the same.Then: the experiment they got wrong together. After: she asks the hummer's opinion.
A piano tuner strikes one flat key and hears the recital where he stopped and started over three times.Then: the one person who clapped first. After: he tunes that person's piano for nothing.
A bus driver smells wet wool at a winter stop and is seven again, in the cloakroom, waiting for a mother who is late.Then: the teacher who waited with him. After: he holds the bus for a boy who is running.
A chef tastes a soup sent back by a customer, and it is her grandfather's, the one she swore she had improved.Then: the kitchen where he told her to stop adding things. After: she takes two things off the menu.
A dentist catches the scent of cloves and is in his grandmother's pantry, caught with the cookie jar.Then: she counted the cookies, then gave him one more. After: he drops the lecture he had ready for a boy.
A father tries the fruit cup at his daughter's school lunch and is back at the table where he ate alone.Then: the boy who sat down across from him. After: he calls that boy, thirty years late.
A fisherman opens a thermos and tastes the coffee his father poured him on his first dawn aboard.Then: too hot, too bitter, and he drank it all. After: he pours a cup for the new deckhand.
A florist unwraps a delivery of lilacs and remembers the hedge she hid in on the day her family moved.Then: the truck waiting, her name called. After: she stops telling her son that moving is easy.
A man opens a tin of shoe polish and is back on the stairs the night before his first day of work.Then: his father shining both pairs in silence. After: he does his daughter's boots before her interview.
A man peeling an orange on a train remembers the one his mother divided into exactly five.Then: the smallest piece, which she took. After: he offers half to the next seat.
A mechanic smells pipe tobacco on a customer's coat and remembers the neighbor who let him take a radio apart.Then: the radio never worked again, and nobody minded. After: he gives the apprentice an engine to ruin.
A woman is offered cinnamon gum at a bus stop and remembers the friend who always had a pack, and then moved.Then: the empty desk on a Monday. After: she writes down her new neighbor's number today.
A woman smells sawdust in a hardware aisle and sees the treehouse her brother built with no way up for her.Then: the ladder he added a week later, unasked. After: she forgives him something recent.
Burnt toast at a roadside inn takes a traveling salesman back to the morning he left home without a goodbye.Then: the smoke, the kitchen, the door. After: he drives two hours off his route.
Campfire smoke on a stranger's jacket takes an accountant to the night she led her troop the wrong way.Then: the leader who let her find the mistake herself. After: she lets a junior present the figures.
Chlorine at a hotel pool puts a woman back on the high board she never jumped from.Then: the line of children behind her, and the climb down. After: she says yes to a thing she had turned down.
Cut grass on a Saturday puts a father back behind the mower he was paid a dollar to push.Then: the stripe he missed and was made to redo. After: he leaves his son's crooked stripe alone.
Fresh paint in a new apartment sends a woman back to the bedroom she and her sister were told to share.Then: the line of tape down the middle. After: she calls to ask which color her sister would pick.
Mothballs in a costume shop put an actor back in the wings of the school play where he forgot every line.Then: the girl who whispered them to him. After: he learns his understudy's name.
One sip of too-sweet lemonade puts a retired judge behind the stand where she once overcharged a thirsty mailman.Then: the dime she kept. After: she tips the child at today's stand a dollar and says why.
Rain on hot pavement stops a runner in the middle of a race: it is the smell of the day she quit the track team.Then: the coach who said come back when you mean it. After: she finishes, walking.
The smell of a new textbook stops a teacher on the first day: it is the one she was too proud to ask about.Then: the chapter she pretended to follow. After: she opens the lesson with what she does not know.
A song or a sound 20
A dial tone in an old film puts a grandfather in the phone booth where he practiced one sentence for an hour.Then: he hung up before she answered. After: he tells his grandson to send the message.
A dog barking twice, then once, sends a mail carrier back to the dog he was not allowed to keep.Then: the week it slept in the shed. After: he fills in the shelter's form at lunch.
A ferry horn sounds and a woman remembers the crossing when she decided, at ten, never to come back to the island.Then: the rail, the gulls, the promise. After: she steps off the boat anyway.
A kettle's whistle stops an architect mid-drawing: it is her aunt's kitchen, and the question of what she will be.Then: she said a pilot. After: she books a flying lesson for her fiftieth birthday.
A music box in a thrift store plays the tune a jeweler's sister used to wind to end every argument.Then: the last argument, left unwound. After: he buys it and mails it with no note.
A piano tuner strikes one flat key and hears the recital where he stopped and started over three times.Then: the one person who clapped first. After: he tunes that person's piano for nothing.
A referee's whistle at his daughter's game takes a father to the penalty kick he missed on purpose.Then: his best friend in the other goal. After: he stops shouting from the sideline.
A school bell rings across the street and a locksmith is back in the hall the day he was blamed for a stuck door.Then: the janitor who showed him the latch. After: he teaches a kid on the stoop the trick.
A screen door slams and a woman is twelve, running out of her grandmother's house in the middle of a sentence.Then: the sentence she never heard the end of. After: she asks her aunt what it was.
A skipping record at a wedding puts the bride's uncle back at his own, where the same song stuck on one word.Then: everyone sang the rest. After: he starts the singing.
A song from a passing car puts a plumber back at the school dance where he stood by the wall all night.Then: the last slow song, and the door. After: he asks his wife to dance in the driveway.
A stranger on the subway hums the lullaby a nurse's father made up, wrong notes and all.Then: the verse he could never remember. After: she sings it wrong, on purpose, at bedtime.
A train announcement mispronounces a town, and a woman hears her father correcting the man at the ticket window.Then: her embarrassment. After: she corrects the conductor, kindly, in her father's voice.
A voicemail beep reminds a man of the message he let play to the end and never returned.Then: a friend's cheerful voice, asking for a ride. After: he calls someone back today.
An ice cream truck's tune reaches a man in a meeting, and he is the boy who gave his coins to his little sister.Then: she dropped the cone, and he laughed. After: he gives away the corner office.
Bells on a weekday send a baker back to the morning she skipped her own graduation to open the shop.Then: the cap left on a flour sack. After: she closes early for her nephew's.
The clack of a typewriter in a museum puts an editor back beside her mother's desk, told to be quiet.Then: the page she was at last allowed to pull out. After: she lets her son press send.
The crack of a bat puts a shopkeeper on the sandlot the afternoon he broke the bakery window and ran.Then: the others stayed, and he did not. After: he tells today's batter to keep the ball.
Rain on a tin roof takes a surveyor back to the night she and her cousins were sure the barn would float away.Then: the plan they drew to save the hens. After: she keeps the silly idea in today's meeting.
Sneakers squeaking on a gym floor take a coach back to the bench she did not leave for a whole season.Then: the last minute of the last game, still seated. After: she plays the whole roster.
An object found 20
A broken wristwatch in a desk stopped at the minute a salesman once missed a train.Then: the platform, and a stranger who shared a cab. After: he does not run for this one.
A carpenter finds his first crooked birdhouse still nailed to a tree at the edge of a job site.Then: his father's only comment, a nod. After: he nods at the apprentice's first joint.
A chess knight turns up in a couch cushion, the one a boy hid so his uncle could not finish beating him.Then: the uncle played on with a bottle cap. After: he takes the board to his uncle's on Sunday.
A girl's diary surfaces in a moving box, its tiny key taped inside the cover.Then: the entry that begins I will never. After: she does the thing, and writes it underneath.
A harmonica in a toolbox belonged to the man who taught a welder to whistle on the high beams.Then: the first beam, and the tune. After: he plays it for the new hire on the scaffold.
A kite folded in an attic still has its tail of knotted neckties.Then: her father cutting up his ties without a word. After: she takes a morning off work.
A library book falls open at a pressed maple seed, and the librarian knows who left it there.Then: the friend who called them helicopters. After: she mails it to her, with no note.
A man clearing a garage finds an old coat, and in its pocket two tickets to a game he never went to.Then: the argument in the parking lot. After: he buys two tickets and makes the call.
A marble at the back of a drawer is the one a banker won unfairly and never gave back.Then: the rule he made up on the spot. After: he reads a contract's small print aloud to a client.
A pair of tap shoes in a donation bag fits a postal clerk as if she had never stopped.Then: the recital she left at the interval. After: she stays to the end of her niece's.
A postcard used as a bookmark is addressed and stamped and was never sent.Then: the trip where she wrote it and changed her mind. After: she mails it, nineteen years late.
A recipe card in his mother's hand lists an ingredient a cook has left out for thirty years.Then: the evening he announced that he hated it. After: he makes it her way and clears the plate.
A report card behind a drawer shows a C in the subject a professor now teaches.Then: the tutor who would not give her the answers. After: she rewrites tomorrow's exam.
A school photo falls from a yearbook: the row is laughing, and one boy is looking past the camera.Then: what was happening just out of frame. After: he tells the story at the reunion.
A secondhand paperback has a man's own name inside, in his own ten-year-old handwriting.Then: the day he traded it for a comic. After: he reads it to the end this time.
A snow globe with no snow left sits in a box marked keep, and a woman remembers who used to shake it for her.Then: the sister who shook it whenever she cried. After: she drives over with it.
A woman finds the key to her childhood house on a ring she still carries and cannot say why she kept it.Then: the day she was first trusted to lock up. After: she has a key cut for her daughter.
A woman finds, in a jar of buttons, the friendship bracelet she untied in anger and never retied.Then: the lunch table and one sharp word. After: she looks up a name.
An old baseball glove still holds the ball a man caught the one time he was put in the outfield.Then: the catch, and nobody watching. After: he goes to watch the neighbor's kid play.
One red mitten at the bottom of a trunk puts a grandfather back on the pond with the brother who could skate.Then: the hand that pulled him round. After: he laces up beside his granddaughter.
A place returned to 20
A baker takes a stall at the market where she once sold her first, flat loaves.Then: the one customer who came back. After: she is the new stallholder's first sale.
A delivery driver's new route passes the hill she was once too scared to ride down.Then: the bike, walked to the bottom. After: she parks the van and borrows a kid's bike.
A doctor on vacation walks past the summer camp where she wrote home begging to be collected.Then: day three, when she stopped writing. After: she lets her daughter stay the second week.
A grown son parks outside the house that used to be his and sees someone else's bike on the porch.Then: the day he left his own out in the rain. After: he knocks, with the bolts of the old swing.
A hiker reaches the lookout where his family took a photo each summer until they stopped.Then: the last summer, everyone squinting. After: he sends the view to all of them.
A lawyer comes back to her hometown diner and is shown to her old booth without asking.Then: the night she told her friends she was leaving. After: she stays for a second coffee.
A man returns a rental car to a lot that was once the drive-in where he worked the snack bar.Then: the night he gave free popcorn to a family counting coins. After: he pays the next driver's fee.
A man stands on the bridge where he once dropped his brother's toy boat on purpose.Then: the boat going under the arch. After: he builds one, badly, and mails it.
A man takes his son to the barber he went to as a boy, and the same chair still squeaks.Then: the haircut he cried through. After: he lets his son say how short.
A man visits the library of his boyhood, and the reading chair by the radiator is still there.Then: the afternoon he finished his first whole book. After: he gets a card in his son's name.
A man waits at the bus shelter where he once waited for a friend he had given the wrong time.Then: the hour, and his own mistake. After: he checks the invitation he sent this morning.
A mother at her son's soccer game knows the field: she once scored here, into her own goal.Then: the silence, then one teammate laughing. After: she laughs first when her son does the same.
A retired teacher visits her first classroom and finds a desk with initials she remembers.Then: the boy she sent out for carving them. After: she writes him a letter that starts with sorry.
A swimmer comes back to the lake of her childhood and finds the raft closer than she remembered.Then: the summer she could not reach it. After: she swims past it.
A violinist plays a concert in the town hall where she failed her first audition.Then: the note that cracked. After: she plays that piece first.
A wedding guest finds that the reception is in the gym where she was always picked last.Then: the wall, the line, the last two names. After: she chooses a dance partner first.
A woman changes trains at the station where she chose, at eighteen, between two platforms.Then: the coin she flipped and ignored. After: she buys a day ticket for the other line.
A woman moving her mother's furniture stands in the pantry where she used to hide from thunder.Then: the flashlight handed in without a word. After: she leaves the pantry light on for a grandchild.
A woman rides the same roller coaster forty years on, in the same seat, on purpose.Then: her father's hand over hers on the bar. After: she lifts both arms.
A woman walks into her old elementary school to vote and finds the coat hooks at the height of her hip.Then: the day she would not move her coat off the wrong hook. After: she lets a small thing go.
A face or a phrase 20
A boy at the door asks if her son can come out, and a mother hears the friend her own mother sent away.Then: the friend did not ask twice. After: she says yes, and stay for supper.
A bride's father begins his toast with well now, as his own father began every apology.Then: the one apology that mattered. After: he makes his, in front of everyone.
A cashier counts back change the slow way, coin by coin, as a banker's first boss did.Then: the drawer that was a dime short. After: he waits while a nervous teller recounts.
A child on a playground shouts wait for me, and a surgeon is the older sister who did not.Then: the gate, and a small figure running. After: she holds the elevator for the intern.
A coach hears herself say shake it off, and it is her own coach's voice, the day she could not.Then: the bench, and saying she was fine. After: she asks the player a question instead.
A customer asks, is this your best work, as a tailor's master once did over a crooked hem.Then: he unpicked it all night. After: he takes the jacket back to the bench.
A dog walker's whistle is the two notes a woman's father used to call her in for supper.Then: the evening she pretended not to hear. After: she goes home early.
A girl selling raffle tickets has the stare of the girl a mayor once refused to buy from.Then: a door closed on a rainy step. After: he buys the whole book.
A little girl corrects a magician from the front row, and he sees himself correcting his first teacher.Then: the teacher handed him the wand. After: he calls her up on stage.
A man sees his father's walk in a shop window and realizes it is his own.Then: following that walk across a fairground. After: he slows down for his son.
A new coworker laughs exactly like the cousin a man stopped speaking to over a borrowed tent.Then: the tent, returned wet. After: he sends the cousin a photo of a dry one.
A nurse hears a patient hum while thinking and remembers the lab partner who did the same.Then: the experiment they got wrong together. After: she asks the hummer's opinion.
A passenger's thank you, said twice, is how a bus driver's brother always said it.Then: the last ride he gave him, to a train. After: he drives out to the brother's town on Sunday.
A stranger on a bus says be good and be quick, and a courier hears her grandmother at the door.Then: every errand began that way. After: she says it to the new rider.
A stranger thanks a man for holding a door in the exact words his teacher used the day he held hers.Then: the armful of maps she carried. After: he holds the next door too.
A substitute teacher has the handwriting of the pen pal a woman stopped answering.Then: the last letter, with three questions in it. After: she answers them.
A toddler at the next table refuses peas with a speech a diplomat recognizes as his own.Then: his mother's counteroffer of three peas. After: he offers the other side three.
A voice on the radio says no rush, and a taxi driver remembers the one fare who meant it.Then: the long way round, by the river. After: he takes the river road with the meter off.
A waiter says the kitchen is closed in the tone a chef once used on a hungry stranger.Then: the stranger left without a word. After: she turns her own stove back on for a late table.
An old classmate, met by chance, still calls a principal by the nickname she hated.Then: the day it was coined. After: she asks her students what they like to be called.
How it works
Each of these 100 ideas for a flashback story starts in the present, at the moment something sets a memory off. Under it are the scene the character goes back to and what they do differently afterward.
Read the full guide
Flashback story ideas, sorted by the trigger
Five things open the memory: a smell or a taste, a song or a sound, an object found, a place returned to, and a face or a phrase. A smell or a sound arrives without warning, so the cut back can come mid-sentence. An object or a place lets the character walk toward the memory, which suits a slower story.
Then and After
The line marked Then is one remembered scene, small enough to write in a page: a ladder added to a treehouse, a dime kept at a lemonade stand. After is the present again. A bus driver holds the bus; a judge tips a dollar and says why.
Come back to the exact moment you left: the same smell, the same hand on the same door.
Write the After line first. If nothing changes in the present, the memory can be one sentence of backstory.
Questions and answers
What is a flashback in a story?
A scene dropped in that moves the telling to a time before the point the story has reached. Flashbacks often recount events from before the story's main sequence, to fill in backstory. The formal name is analepsis.
What are some flashback story ideas?
Start with the trigger. On this list a woman finds the key to her childhood house on a ring she still carries, and a father tries the fruit cup at his daughter's school lunch and is back at the table where he ate alone.
What can trigger a flashback in a story?
Anything the character can sense in the present. In the group A song or a sound, an ice cream truck's tune reaches a man in a meeting, and he is the boy who gave his coins to his little sister.
What is the opposite of a flashback?
A flashforward, also called prolepsis, which shows what is still to come. Both are used to build a character or give a narrative its structure. Every idea on this list looks back.