: Re: How does one implement effective foreshadowing? I am a "reread reader" - that is, I like to read the same book more than once. The books I have the most fun reading again are the ones that

@Rivera824

Vote Up Vote Down

Another form of foreshadowing is to link a single event to a greater one by making it a metaphor for what's about to happen. For example,

"This little rock," my guide said, "has had a remarkable journey--one that mirrors our own. It started out as a small piece of a larger form, perhaps even another island, far away from the one we're standing on. Over time, the erosive force of the wind and waves conspired to separate it from its home, breaking it off and casting it out to sea. Thousands of years went by, and all that time the tides were breaking it down further, softening it, rounding it down until today, when it so conveniently washed up at our feet. Here, feel it for yourself..."
He handed me the pebble, and continued, his body pitched forward like a pigeon, hands folded behind his back, eyes downcast, his head nodding a bit with every step.
"You know, our past is not much different. Before we evolved into the cells, organs, and bodies we have now, we were all united in the primordial soup, just like pebbles locked away in a mountain. We tend to think of evolution as linear, but everything works in cycles. That rock you hold is on its way back to where it came from. Eventually it will become sand, then sediment, then bedrock, and finally melt back into the molten lava it once was, only to erupt from the depths of the earth and become part of a mountain once again."
I pondered this, staring at the rock, not looking where I was going. When would we humans become sand? Will we be reborn as mountains?
"Ah, here we are. My favorite lava flow on the island!"
Looking up, I saw that the beach had stopped abruptly, and we were just a couple yards away from the face of a cliff, a stack of hardened rock which tilted into the waves to our right. I was totally overwhelmed. When I dropped the rock, it broke in two at my feet, and I was rooted to the earth by more than just the harmless quicksand of the surf.

In the example above, the reader doesn't know where the main character is going, or what the guide is taking him to. But the theme of their destination (the lava flow) has already been planted in the reader's mind, foreshadowed by the metaphorical implications of the pebble in the narrator's hand. When he drops it, causing it to break, he is like the ocean (relatively close to the primordial soup) against the mountainside, further linking the metaphor to the event.

(0)

Login to post a comment!