othermanymore
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How To Foreshadow
Foreshadowing is a necessary part of any well-executed story. And yet, despite all its prevalence and importance, it’s 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 what’s going to happen later in the story? If they know how the book turns out, they’ll 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.
Foreshadowing’s great strength lies in its ability to create a cohesive and plausible story. If readers understand that it’s possible that someone in your story may be murdered, they won’t 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 don’t like to be cheated, lied to, or tricked. And that’s 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 guy’s 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 fiancé’s ambivalence toward the wedding preparations.
Depending on what you’re foreshadowing, the plant can be blatant or subtle. Subtle is almost always better, since you don’t 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 you’ve got your plant in place, all that’s 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 you’ve done your job right with the plant, you probably won’t even need to reference your hints from earlier. In fact, you’re likely to create a more solid effect by letting readers put the pieces together themselves.
But you’ll 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., “George,you big meanie! Now I understand why you wouldn’t choose between the scarlet and the crimson for the bridesmaids’ dresses!”)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, they’ll 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 what’s coming without allowing them to guess the ins and outs of the plot twist. You don’t want your hints to be so obvious that they remove all suspense. In her October 2012 Writer’s Digest article “Making the Ordinary Menacing: 5 Ways,” Hallie Ephron calls this “telegraphing”:
When you insert a hint of what’s to come, look at it critically and decide whether it’s something the reader will glide right by but remember later with an Aha!That’s foreshadowing. If instead the reader groans and guesses what’s coming, you’v 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 can’t ask for more than that.
Foreshadowing vs. Foreboding
Foreboding—that skin-prickling feeling that somethinghorrible is going to happen—can be a useful facet of foreshadowing. By itself, foreboding isn’t 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 doesn’t necessarily indicate that something bad really will happen.
Foreboding is useful in setting readers’ 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 that’s what they’re 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 readers’ experience of it.
Source x
Author Scott Lynch responds to a critic of the character Zamira Drakasha, a black woman pirate in his fantasy book Red Seas Under Red Skies, the second novel of the Gentleman Bastard series.
The bolded sections represent quotes from the criticism he received. All the z-snaps are in order.
Your characters are unrealistic stereotpyes of political correctness. Is it really necessary for the sake of popular sensibilities to have in a fantasy what we have in the real world? I read fantasy to get away from politically correct cliches.
God, yes! If there’s one thing fantasy is just crawling with these days it’s widowed black middle-aged pirate moms. Real sea pirates could not be controlled by women, they were vicous rapits and murderers and I am sorry to say it was a man’s world. It is unrealistic wish fulfilment for you and your readers to have so many female pirates, especially if you want to be politically correct about it! First, I will pretend that your last sentence makes sense because it will save us all time. Second, now you’re pissing me off. You know what? Yeah, Zamira Drakasha, middle-aged pirate mother of two, is a wish-fulfillment fantasy. I realized this as she was evolving on the page, and you know what? I fucking embrace it. Why shouldn’t middle-aged mothers get a wish-fulfillment character, you sad little bigot? Everyone else does. H.L. Mencken once wrote that “Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” I can’t think of anyone to whom that applies more than my own mom, and the mothers on my friends list, with the incredible demands on time and spirit they face in their efforts to raise their kids, preserve their families, and save their own identity/sanity into the bargain. Shit yes, Zamira Drakasha, leaping across the gap between burning ships with twin sabers in hand to kick in some fucking heads and sail off into the sunset with her toddlers in her arms and a hold full of plundered goods, is a wish-fulfillment fantasy from hell. I offer her up on a silver platter with a fucking bow on top; I hope she amuses and delights. In my fictional world, opportunities for butt-kicking do not cease merely because one isn’t a beautiful teenager or a muscle-wrapped font of testosterone. In my fictional universe, the main characters are a fat ugly guy and a skinny forgettable guy, with a supporting cast that includes “SBF, 41, nonsmoker, 2 children, buccaneer of no fixed abode, seeks unescorted merchant for light boarding, heavy plunder.” You don’t like it? Don’t buy my books. Get your own fictional universe. Your cabbage-water vision of worldbuilding bores me to tears. As for the “man’s world” thing, religious sentiments and gender prejudices flow differently in this fictional world. Women are regarded as luckier, better sailors than men. It’s regarded as folly for a ship to put to sea without at least one female officer; there are several all-female naval military traditions dating back centuries, and Drakasha comes from one of them. As for claims to “realism,” your complaint is of a kind with those from bigoted hand-wringers who whine that women can’t possibly fly combat aircraft, command naval vessels, serve in infantry actions, work as firefighters, police officers, etc. despite the fact that they do all of those things– and are, for a certainty, doing them all somewhere at this very minute. Tell me that a fit fortyish woman with 25+ years of experience at sea and several decades of live bladefighting practice under her belt isn’t a threat when she runs across the deck toward you, and I’ll tell you something in return– you’re gonna die of stab wounds. What you’re really complaining about isn’t the fact that my fiction violates some objective “reality,” but rather that it impinges upon your sad, dull little conception of how the world works. I’m not beholden to the confirmation of your prejudices; to be perfectly frank, the prospect of confining the female characters in my story to placid, helpless secondary places in the narrative is so goddamn boring that I would rather not write at all. I’m not writing history, I’m writing speculative fiction. Nobody’s going to force you to buy it. Conversely, you’re cracked if you think you can persuade me not to write about what amuses and excites me in deference to your vision, because your vision fucking sucks. I do not expect to change your mind but i hope that you will at least consider that I and others will not be buying your work because of these issues. I have been reading science fiction and fantasy for years and i know that I speak for a great many people. I hope you might stop to think about the sales you will lose because you want to bring your political corectness and foul language into fantasy. if we wanted those things we could go to the movies. Think about this! Thank you for your sentiments. I offer you in exchange this engraved invitation to go piss up a hill, suitable for framing.
Creating plots with the zigzag method
I’ve learned this method years ago and I’ve been using it ever since. The zigzag plot creator starts like this:
An crescent zigzag.
You can have as many up and downs as you want. I’ve drawn six to keep it simple. Alright, this zigzag is your storyline and every corner is an important event that will change everything:
Every down represents a bad thing happening to your main characters, taking them further away from their goal. Every up is a good event, taking them closer to their goal:
So, when the zigzag goes down, something bad must happen. When the zigzag goes up, something good must happen. The reason why we drew a crescent zigzag is because every down must be worse than the previous, and every up must be better than the previous. As the zigzag advances, events become more serious and relevant.
Let’s apply the zigzag method. My storyline is a detective trying to catch a serial killer in a futuristic city. Minutes later, this is what I’ve got:
Start: Detective, our protagonist, is just promoted
Down #1: Mass suicide happens in town, detective gets the case, the whole town thinks it might have been a religious suicide act, but detective suspects that someone single-handed killed all those people
Up #1: Detective finds clue about a possible killer
Down #2: A bigger mass murder happens, a true massacre, it’s a definitely a murder
Up #2: Detective finds the killer’s trail
Down #3: Thinking he is ahead of time, close to catching the killer, detective ends up dead in another mass murder
Up #3: Because of his notes and discoveries, the police is able to find the killer before they leave town
From this point on you can play with zigzag as much as you want. For example, changing the orientation of the zigzag for a bad ending:
Lots of ups and downs:
Or just a few:
It’s up to you (see what I did there?).
You can plot any type of story with the zigzag method. It’s a visual and easy process for a very complex task.
I wish I knew how to outline stories. I’ve tried so many times but I never get it.
I need an outlining coach or tutor or some shit. Someone who will sit me down, talk over what’s supposed to happen with me, and walk me through the process of outlining.
Because this fic is plot heavy and I’m a total pantser and I’m gonna screw it up or hit a writers’ block of the “uh…what’s supposed to happen now?” variety if I don’t get my shit together.
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Dream Daddy Steam Key Giveaway!
To celebrate the launch of DDADDS, I’m going to be giving away two copies of the game to some fellow lovelies! My hope is that even if someone can’t currently afford the game, I can still help them get their hands on the best dad dating sim around.
Guidelines:
To enter, all you have to do is reblog this post! If you’re only reblogging for boosting and/or don’t want to be entered for any reason, just say so in the tags of your post
You must have an unlimited Steam account to enter as I’ll be gifting the games to the winners
Not necessary to be following me, but I’d appreciate it!
I’ll only be counting reblogs as entries- please only reblog once!
Likes don’t count as entries but you can like the post if you want :)
Please don’t message me asking to pick you as a winner!
A lil disclaimer: I’m not affiliated with the grumps or the Dream Daddy team at all, I decided to do this out of my own pocket
And that’s it! I’ll randomly select 2 winners using a random generator in a week’s time on July 16th. It’s a few days after the game comes out, but I want the post to float around for a decent amount of time. Thanks to anyone who participates and good luck!
Agents of Virtue. Each agent is paired with an angel representing a virtue that helps them fulfill a specific role within their squad. Noble in their purpose and swift in their dealing of justice they maintain the balance between worlds.
1:Kindness, Powerful but frail magic user.
2: Humility. Stealth infiltrator/flanker
3: Charity. Support healer.
4: Chastity. CQC specialist.
5:Temperance. Strategists able to fill multiple roles.
6: Patience. DMR trapper/zone controller.
7: Diligence. Heavy support tank.
Fluorite and Rhodochrosite
Locality: American Tunnel Mine, Silverton, Colorado, United States of America
The Outsider’s Mark (x)
Another one that has been a long time coming! I LOVE the Dishonored games, so it had to be done at some point ;)
Manhattan Project Glass from Hanford, Washington
This glass was used at the Hanford Washington Manhattan Project location, one of the biggest and most undercover operations the United States military has ever done. It started during WWII in the late 30’s and went on through the cold war era. There were three main facilities around the nation that took part in the making of the first atomic bombs. At Hanford, they created the first plutonium ever to exist, which went into the Trinity bomb in New Mexico, the first man-made nuclear blast, and the plutonium for the Fat Man Bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
This piece is 70% lead with a deep yellow color. It comes on basalt pillar base, cut flat, polished top, core drilled with a LED light set into the stone to illuminate the specimen. The base is 8" in diameter and 34" tall. Approximate weight of display is 200lbs.
A villager collects seeds from Giant Water Lilies in the Deepor Beel Bird Sanctuary in Guwahati city, northeast India.
