Foreshadowing gives the reader a sense of participation in the story, through anticipation.
One of the best tips for writing a story, whether short or book length, is to introduce certain plot action early in the composition. That early action, or the action sequences, should subliminally suggest what’s to come later. This applies across the board to multi-genre writing.
Great foreshadowing hints all the way through to the ending, through the writing and grammar, and into the climax and denouement.
Avid readers, especially, are wise to plot action. They can spot foreshadowing without having to go back and read the sequence again. They can sense it in the set up. They want it!
Subconsciously, a few readers may not realize foreshadowing has prepped them. However, on a subconscious level, tight pre-planning keeps them wrapped up in the plot.
Whether on a subconscious level or consciously, you want your readers to carry a feeling of anticipation as they read through the stages of story development that you have so adeptly woven. The reader won’t be aware of writing rules and writing procedures. Foreshadowing is what keeps them turning pages.
One way I write is to finish a chapter, that one scene, with all that I can allow myself to put into it, for the moment. As I write the next succeeding chapters, I may think of something necessary to include in the story that needs to be foreshadowed earlier. So I go back and add a tease in a preceding chapter or other chapters before that one. I continue this process throughout the book. No chapter is really finished till the book is finally polished.
In writing my first thriller, I thought my story was finished, but realized one bit of action that should have been foreshadowed earlier. Then, it was a matter of choosing which chapter to go back to, the most likely place, to insert the hint of what was to come.
Those hints must be so innocent that they do not tell exactly what’s to come. Yet, when you read what happens later in the story, you remember the hint of it mentioned earlier.
For instance, in River Bones, when I planned my notes for Chapter 4, I wanted to give a credible reason for the protagonist, Sara, to accept two pit bull puppies. Yet, I have her so busy she doesn’t have time for dogs. It’s unlikely she would take on responsibility like that. Yet, the plot required that she take these dogs.
The perfect place I found was all the way back in Chapter 2, where Sara is talking to her little sister’s headstone at her grave site, sort of updating the sister about her life. My character hasn’t been to her sister’s grave in decades, so she’s real emotional, with jumbled thoughts, and she’s just tossing out important events. In the dialogue, I added that she said, “By the way, Mandy died. But you know that, don’t you?” As if her sister in heaven watches over her and already knew.
The reader will know that because this is a fiction novel, soon enough, they will learn who Mandy was that died. Since this is a suspenseful mystery, the mention of a death early in the story is just another foreshadowing incident to tweak a mystery lover’s interest and keep them reading. When they get to the part where the protagonist tells a friend she once had a Yorkshire terrier named Mandy that she loved dearly, the reader then understands the emotions and motivation that cause Sara to readily accept the two pit bull puppies.
I say readily accept because her doing so out of love for the dogs is a pivotal point in the story that should not feel contrived, especially when the plot action requires the dogs be with her and no one else. To make the story credible, I had to foreshadow a reason why a busy character would so readily accept the pups that require constant attention and training. Without having inserted that one line of dialogue into the scene at the grave site, the fact that the protagonist later readily accepts the pit bull pups that she comes to love becomes nothing more than a crutch to help solve a crime.
Foreshadowing gives the reader a sense of participation in the story, through anticipation, and is necessary to make the plot action of any story cohesive.
NOTE: This article appears in my award-winning writing reference, Write It Right – Tips for Authors. Get articles like this to learn how to add zing to your prose.
