I'm in the process of editing a piece I wrote that takes place in the present but includes flashbacks. I originally wrote everything in past tense, but I am afraid that it will be too confusing for readers to figure out what is in the present and what is in the past. Do you think this is a valid concern? If so, how would you recommend remedying it?
"Those awful things are survivable because we are as indestructible as we believe ourselves to be" - John Green, Looking for Alaska
You can separate flashbacks with italics. If they're short, the whole thing can be in italics. If long, you can bookend the flashbacks with an italic opening and closing, then the rest is in normal prose.
Italics are a pretty normal way of separating out flashbacks, so it's a good visual clue that readers will pick up on.
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo
Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.
This was asked some time ago, but on the topic of flashbacks there are all kinds of ways you can separate them from the present time of the story. Italics, like Rosey suggested, though I find those to be hard on the eyes in lengthy segments and I tend to write lengthy flashbacks so it doesn't quite work for me!
You can also use white space (i.e. a blank line between one paragraph and the next), or just textual clues that tell the reader we are going back in time. You can do textual clues by having a character directly remember what is going to be flashed back to, or by having the narrator state "when so and so was x years old" or "x years ago...", etc.
Pull a couple books off your shelf and see how other authors transition to flashback, and I'm sure you'll see all of these examples in practice somewhere!
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