Foreshadowing is a necessary part of any well-executed story. And yet, despite all its prevalence and importance, itâs actually a concept that many authors have a hard time getting their minds around. If we sift foreshadowing down to its simplest form, we could say that it prepares readers for what will happen later in the story.
At first glance, this may seem counter-intuitive. Why would we want readers to know whatâs going to happen later in the story? If they know how the book turns out, theyâll have no reason to read on.
True enough. So let me reiterate. The point of foreshadowing is to prepare readers for what happens later in the story. Not tell them,just prepare them.
Foreshadowingâs great strength lies in its ability to create a cohesive and plausible story. If readers understand that itâs possible that someone in your story may be murdered, they wonât be completely shocked when the sidekick gets axed down the road. If, however, you failed to properly foreshadow this unhappy event,readers would be jarred. They would feel you had cheated them out of the story they thought they were reading. They would think you had, in essence, lied to them so you could trick them with this big shocker.
Readers donât like to be cheated, lied to, or tricked. And thatâs where foreshadowing comes into play.
Foreshadowing, Part 1: The Plant
We can break foreshadowing down into two parts. The first is the plant. This is the part where you hint to readers that something surprising and/or important is going to happen later in the book. If the bad guy is going to kidnap the good guyâs son, your plant might be the moment when your hero notices a creepy dude hanging around the playground. If your heroine is going to be left standing at the altar, your plant might be her fiancĂŠâs ambivalence toward the wedding preparations.
Depending on what youâre foreshadowing, the plant can be blatant or subtle. Subtle is almost always better, since you donât want to giveaway your plot twists. But, at the same time, your hints have to be obvious enough that readers will remember them later on.
Usually, the earlier you can foreshadow an event, the stronger and more cohesive an effect you will create. The bigger the event, the more important it is to foreshadow it early. As editor Jeff Gerke puts it in The First 50 Pages:
Basically, you need to let us in on the rules. If the climax of your book is going to consist of getting into a time machine and jumping away to safety, we had better have known in the first fifty pages that time travel is possible in the world of your story.
Foreshadowing, Part 2: The Payoff
Once youâve got your plant in place, all thatâs left is to bringthe payoff on stage. If you planted hints about kidnapping, jilting, or time travelling, this is the part where you now get to let these important scenes play out.
As long as youâve done your job right with the plant, you probably wonât even need to reference your hints from earlier. In fact, youâre likely to create a more solid effect by letting readers put the pieces together themselves.
But youâll also find moments, usually of smaller events that were given less obvious plants, that will benefit from a quick reference to the original hint (e.g., âGeorge,you big meanie! Now I understand why you wouldnât choose between the scarlet and the crimson for the bridesmaidsâ dresses!â)The most important thing to remember about the payoff is that it always needs to happen. If you plant hints, pay them off. Just as readers will be confused by an unforeshadowed plot twist, theyâll also be frustrated by foreshadowing that excites them and then leads nowhere.
Foreshadowing vs. Telegraphing
The trick to good foreshadowing is preparing your readers on a subconscious level for whatâs coming without allowing them to guess the ins and outs of the plot twist. You donât want your hints to be so obvious that they remove all suspense. In her October 2012 Writerâs Digest article âMaking the Ordinary Menacing: 5 Ways,â Hallie Ephron calls this âtelegraphingâ:
When you insert a hint of whatâs to come, look at it critically and decide whether itâs something the reader will glide right by but remember later with an Aha!Thatâs foreshadowing. If instead the reader groans and guesses whatâs coming, youâv etelegraphed.
Some clever readers will undoubtedly be able to interpret your hints, no matter how cagey you are. But if you can fool most of the readers most of the time, you canât ask for more than that.
Foreshadowing vs. Foreboding
Forebodingâthat skin-prickling feeling that somethinghorrible is going to happenâcan be a useful facet of foreshadowing. By itself, foreboding isnât specific enough tobe foreshadowing. Unlike the plants used for foreshadowing, foreboding is just an ambiguous aura of suspense. Jordan E. Rosenfeld describes it in Make a Scene:
[F]oreshadowing ⌠hints at actual plot events to come, [but]foreboding is purely about mood-setting. It heightens the feeling of tension in a scene but doesnât necessarily indicate that something bad really will happen.
Foreboding is useful in setting readersâ emotions on edge without giving them any blatant hints. But when it comes time to foreshadow important events, always back up your foreboding by planting some specific clues.Most authors have so intrinsic an understanding of foreshadowing that they plant it and pay it off without even fully realizing thatâs what theyâre doing. But the better you understand the technique, the better you can wield it. Using this basic approach to foreshadowing, you can strengthen your story and your readersâ experience of it.
