Young Writers Society

First of all, a little background--I'm working on a romance/historical novella that involves two narrators and lots of flashbacks, identified by changes in date, which come with the chapter heading. I have the flashbacks spaced out evenly among the rest of the story, in a rhythm that hasn't changed in the twenty-four chapters I've written. The flashbacks show either significant moments in the narrators' relationship, or details that become important later on. This has been working fine so far, but I'll end up running into a problem in just a few chapters. The climax is a huge disaster that I don't want to interrupt with flashbacks (the reader will have all the necessary information by then, anyway). I was thinking of using the beginning of that as a cut-off point for the flashbacks. Is it okay to just stop writing them like that, or would that be too confusing?

Thanks in advance!

Short answer: it's probably okay.

Longer answer: you should be able to get away with it, seeing as how everything before that point, flashbacks and all, were (ideally) building up to the climax. With all the build-up, your readers would probably be eager to read the climax in all its climactic, uninterrupted glory, not to mention that the flashbacks' purposes would have been fulfilled, so your readers probably wouldn't be looking for any more flashbacks. The climax is a major point of change in the story, so it wouldn't be so surprising that the rhythm of flashbacks also changes.

But really, it depends on the execution, and without actually seeing the work, it's hard to say for sure.

*What she said.*

I would agree, if the flashbacks are no longer adding any information to the story, feel free to leave them out.
However, if you want to keep them in for flow/effect, try perhaps a very short anecdotal opener to your chapters (maybe a few sentences to a short paragraph) In this opener you can show perhaps highlights or detials that were skimmed over in previous flashbacks, or highten emotions via repititions. Also, you could tie in something that is significant to the chapter your currently in (i.e., if say, the heroine had a little pet bluebird as a child who died, and her hero is dying in the current chapter, you could revisit that scene with the bird in the flashback/anecdotal opening)
Of course, the most important part is to keep the reader reading, so whatever you choose to do has to work with your story.
(In short, I agree with Kell. It's probably fine to omit, but then, I haven't read your story so I can't say for sure. )
Hope that helps.