: Re: How can we have foreshadowing in a story that takes place in a universe where the future can't be known beforehand? In a (non-comedic) story where the philosophical implications of the existence

I think you're confusing "foreshadowing" with "prophesizing." Foreshadow is derived literally from "before" + "shadow" â€” the shadow of an event falls before the event itself. The "shadow" means the reader can see something coming before it happens. (Imagine a very tall tree falling. The shadow of the tree reaches the ground before the tree does. You can see that the tree is going to hit the ground somewhere because you can see where its shadow is.)

The idea is that the reader can predict "Gosh, there's a big red button on that console with a 'Don't Touch' sign on it. Oh look, some nameless sod just touched it and he's being dragged off to be executed. Hmm, the heroine and her plucky comic relief sidekick just entered the room. I bet the sidekick is going to touch the big red button, will be sentenced to death, and will have to be rescued."

The foreshadowing is "the nameless sod just touched it and he's being dragged off to be executed." Usually an event like that is put into a story for a later payoff: someone else touches the button, some other random event occurs and the person is executed (thus showing the depravity of the leader), et cetera.

The characters are not predicting events by supernatural means. Foreshadowing happens between the author and the audience.

Load Full (0)

: If you can't boil down your novel into a logline (or "elevator pitch," which is how I learned it), then you may actually have a problem with your novel. You've provided the structure of

@Debbie451

Load Full 0 Comments

: EvilSoup is right. If you've got English grammar and spelling down--the meat and potatoes of any language--then the next step is to practice it. 'Literary' American English is so wonderfully

@Debbie451

Load Full 0 Comments

: No, you can only do that if you're making some sort of break or shift in narrative style. If the story switches to a dream, for instance, or if the characters enter a Fae realm or another

@Debbie451

Load Full 0 Comments

: "Literary criticism" and "editing feedback" are two entirely different beasts. Litcrit is about looking at an existing text and analyzing it. You look at the author's intent, you look at symbolism,

: Re: How can we have foreshadowing in a story that takes place in a universe where the future can't be known beforehand? In a (non-comedic) story where the philosophical implications of the existence

More posts by @Debbie451

: If you can't boil down your novel into a logline (or "elevator pitch," which is how I learned it), then you may actually have a problem with your novel. You've provided the structure of

: EvilSoup is right. If you've got English grammar and spelling down--the meat and potatoes of any language--then the next step is to practice it. 'Literary' American English is so wonderfully

: No, you can only do that if you're making some sort of break or shift in narrative style. If the story switches to a dream, for instance, or if the characters enter a Fae realm or another

: "Literary criticism" and "editing feedback" are two entirely different beasts. Litcrit is about looking at an existing text and analyzing it. You look at the author's intent, you look at symbolism,

Login to post a comment!

0 Comments

Back to top