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@literatureforthelight

I agree with @eden-anderson. You should decide what genera you want to do.

I don’t agree with her about her not being helpful. Just putting that out there. 🙂

As for the conflict and emotional heart of the story…

We could do a story about two friends who haven’t talked to each other in years. Or about a rocky parent – child relationship. Or about a sibling relationship.

Have them finally confront the thing that has been keeping them apart. With flashbacks that show the last conversation they tried to have about it. Perhaps it could be an misunderstanding, or maybe either one or both of them had been inconsiderate and too proud to apologize.

As far as formatting goes, I would do paragraph, ~, paragraph. Like this:

“End of the last paragraph.

~

Flashback begins here. Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Flashback ends.

~

Back to the present.”

Then to make a further distinction, you could have the present in present tense, and the past in past tense. All together it would look something like this:

“Ryan stares out across the lawn at the approaching sunset.

Sergei sits down next to him. ‘We need to talk.’

~

Sergei slammed the can of pizza sauce on the counter. ‘No, Ryan. We need to talk about this now!’

~

Ryan shifts in his seat, willing the memory to go away.”

Or if you’re like my dad, and don’t like present tense, you could do italics for the flashbacks. Like so:

“‘About what?’ Ryan asked. But he was afraid he knew the answer already.

Sergei stared into the sunset. ‘I think you know what.’

~

Sergei waved a sauce covered spatula in Ryan’s face. ‘Yeah! ‘Cause you know everything, don’t you?’

~

Ryan stood and leaned on the porch railing. ‘Yeah.'”

What do you think? I like the italics better, but that’s a personal preference.