Foreshadowing can add a lot of depth and fun to your story, but how do you do it?
Let’s take a look at some examples, then write a grimdark/steampunk version of Animorphs to practice!
During the last stream, a subscriber requested that we go over how to do subtle foreshadowing.
You can watch the video here to or scroll down for notes/highlights.
How to Do Subtle Foreshadowing
What is SUBTLE Foreshadowing?
- Subtle foreshadowing are hints dropped in a story that aren’t obvious they’re even hints until the payoff happens
- This is different from direct foreshadowing, obvious hints that the reader expects to be paid off (like Harry Potter learning “wingardium leviosa,” or Katniss hunting with a bow/arrow)
- Both types are important for good storytelling, but subtle foreshadowing can be a bit more tricky
Why Use Subtle Foreshadowing?
- Makes world/characters feel more real: subtle foreshadowing is a great way to flesh out your story
- Ex: Your character’s mother dies at the end of the story, so you foreshadow it with the flowers she planted wilting — suddenly we know more about her, she was a gardener
- Makes payoffs feel set up: proper twists/revelations require foreshadowing or else they feel cheap
- Makes story feel cohesive: certain types of foreshadowing can add depth to your work
- Makes story re-readable: readers will enjoy finding hints that they missed the first time
How to Subtly Foreshadow
- You shouldn’t worry too much about subtle foreshadowing in your first draft.
- Subtle foreshadowing is best done during the 2nd draft or later during editing, because by then you’ll know the shape of the story and you can add hints as necessary
- Worrying about subtle foreshadowing in the first draft will likely just slow you down, or make you feel committed to certain events if your story changes as you write it
There are many different types of subtle foreshadowing you can use, let’s go over four:
#1. Foreshadowing in Actions
– Game of Thrones: In chapter one, Lord of the North Ned executes someone wrongfully. At the time of reading, it makes sense as a natural part of the story, but then at the end of the book, Ned ends up being executed wrongfully himself.
– Name of the Wind: In chapter one, some men at an inn are telling tales about the “Chandrian,” a myth-like group of seven people/spirits who kill people who talk about them. At the time, it seems like normal tavern talk, but then in chapter 16 the Chandrian end up killing the main character’s family when his mother/father sing a song about them.
- This type of foreshadowing can vary from irony to Easter Eggs, and like real Easter Eggs, it’s best to spread them out and not put all in one place
- Spreading it out makes the story feel balanced, with the foreshadowing on one side of the “story seesaw” and the event it foreshadowed on the other end
- It’s best when the symbolism feels natural in the moment and not forced/out of place
#2. Foreshadowing in Setting
– A Farewell to Arms: “The leaves fell early that year.” This first sentence of the book alludes to the early death of the nurse and love interest of the main character.
– 12 Angry Men: The jury convenes on the “hottest day of the year,” foreshadowing the passion and tempers that are about to take place inside the jury chambers
- This type of foreshadowing is tricky, since it can feel melodramatic if done too much, such as having a “storm brewing” before a battle
- In general, avoid any type of “setting foreshadowing” that you’ve seen before
#3. Foreshadowing in Character Quirks
– Harry Potter: “It happened very suddenly. The hook-nosed teacher looked past Quirrell’s turban straight into Harry’s eyes — and a sharp, hot pain shot across the scar on Harry’s forehead.” There are two foreshadowing quirks here: Harry’s scar and Quirrel’s turban, both of which get paid off.
– Game of Thrones: “His mother was terrified that one day Bran would slip off a wall and kill himself. He told her that he wouldn’t, but she never believed him.” Bran loves climbing walls, and the warning from his mother makes sense in the moment so the reader doesn’t really notice, but it foreshadows when he is pushed from high up on a wall and crippled.
- This type of foreshadowing can be dangerous, because if the quirks are too obvious then the payoff will be boring because the reader saw it coming, and if the quirks aren’t paid off then it will be disappointing
- For example, in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Tonks’s shapeshifting never paid off, which disappointed readers
- The best kind of foreshadowing quirks are the ones that don’t stick out too much
#4. Foreshadowing in Dialogue
– To Kill A Mockingbird: “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” This speech by Atticus to his son foreshadows the courageous case that he will take on later in the story.
– Lord of the Rings: Frodo: “It’s a pity Bilbo didn’t kill Gollum when he had the chance.” Gandalf: “Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo’s hand. Many that die deserve life, and some that live deserve death. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends.” This speech by Gandalf foreshadows how Gollum will be key in destroying the Ring.
- Similar to quirks, dialogue foreshadowing can be dangerous, because if it’s too obvious then it can be cringe-y in the moment of reading
- Keep the foreshadowing dialogue short, light, and relevant so that it feels natural, which brings us to…
The Golden Rule of Foreshadowing
- “The best kind of foreshadowing is text that, in the moment of reading, doesn’t feel like foreshadowing at all.”
- The best way to check if it’s too obvious or not is to get a second opinion: have someone read your section and ask them what they think, if they can pick up on the clues then you may want to tone it down
- Foreshadowing is the spice of story-telling: too much and it’s distracting, too little and it’s bland, but just right and it’s absolutely delicious
After that, chat voted that we practice foreshadowing by writing this story: a grimdark steampunk dark-fantasy body-horror story with “grimdark animorphs,” where transforming is painful and super messed up. Their adversaries are steampunk robots who want to convert all life into machinery.
Well that’s one heck of a prompt! Here’s what we wrote. See if you can identify the foreshadowing that we put in:
The four skinstitchers stood across from their adversaries, ready for the battle to end all battles.
Each of them had the hide of a different animal sewn onto their body. Moose fur on Malcolm’s bare back, expanding and contracting with his heavy breaths. Elephant hide running down Evelyn’s legs, twitching and itching to fight. Colt with his crocodile scales up and down his arms all the way to his fists, balled and ready. And Fiona with her fox pelt stitched to her stomach, hidden underneath her shirt.
She was the only one who hid away her skinstitching patches, embarrassed to show it off in public. The other three had perfect patches, fused as part of their body. Hers was a mangled mess of scars and scabs. Something had gone wrong during her stitching process, though she’d expected no less. Ever since she first came into the world with a giant red birthmark covering half her face, she was used to things not going as easily for her as others.
Hopefully today, the others’ luck would make up for hers. The machinites’ three leaders stood before them, blasphemous amalgamations of man and machine. No sounds came from their mouths, only the whirring of brass gears and steam pouring out from their vents. They were a race of abominations, bent on converting all natural beings into their horrific machines. But all that stopped now.
Malcolm was the first to unravel. His body hunched over in rage, the moose fur already devouring him up to the shoulders. He cried out in pain, as all of us did whenever we unraveled. The transformation process broke all your bones and snapped all of your muscles at once, requiring every ounce of willpower not to pass out. And it always left its mark on the user, never leaving them quite the same again.
The moose burst forth from Malcolm, antlers sprouting from his head and hooves erupting out of his palms, splattering blood all over the metallic floor. He brayed in brimstone, and leaped at the machinites, prepared to end this with one single blow.
One of the machinites reached out lazily with its brass claw and gripped hard onto Malcolm’s back fur, stopping him mid-air. With a searing rip, the robot horror peeled away a meaty section of Malcolm’s back, dripping with sinew and veins. He collapsed to the metal ground with a clang, his moose form already molting away, reverting back to soft, unmoving human. The machinite had severed his patch, his connection to the animal, and taken his life with it.
“Malcolm!” Evelyn screamed. She and Colt were already shaking and unraveling. Evelyn’s cheeks snapped open with a howl of agony as tusks ruptured out of her face, and her arms and legs, now the size of tree trunks, crashed to the ground and shook the room. Colt’s head spasmed as he roared and tore away his flesh with his scaly claws, erupting out a yellow-eyed, hundred-toothed head from between his shoulders, spilling molten-hot puddles of blood.
Both of them tore toward the machinites, Malcolm’s corpse the only obstacle between them. Scales ripped through the rest of Colt’s human flesh, and the last remaining pieces of Evelyn exploded into massive gray ears and a trunk ready to lash out like a hungry whip.
“Wait!” Fiona called out to them, knowing it was futile. The four of them had fought so hard to get to this point. Now that they had a chance to end it all, they were running full force straight at it. They needed to come up with a plan. These three machinite leaders weren’t like the little cogs they’d defeated to get here!
One of the machinites braced against Evelyn’s charge. The elephant crashed into it straight on, but the robotic terror didn’t budge an inch. Its heavy tank-like form anchored itself to the ground with steel hooks, and its hulking arms lashed out at Evelyn’s legs, biting into her thick hide with buzzing spikes.
Evelyn’s trunk rose to the ceiling, screeching as the spikes ripped away the flesh from her legs, dragging it along the floor with oozing blood in its wake. The elephant collapsed on its side, withering away into Evelyn herself, now legless and dead.
Colt was locked in a pushing match with the other machinite, his scaly hands wrapped around its cold brass ones. Steam released from the machinite’s valves with the sound of a distant scream. Its unfeeling face fell still with a grin of black, and the silent glow of machine embers in its eyes burned bright.
It ripped Colt’s crocodile arms off his body. With a wet snap, the arms fell limp in the machinite’s hands, dripping purple oil and pink entrails, plopping on the floor.
As Colt’s body fell along with his arms, Fiona cried out for her fallen comrades. Desperation and terror writhed within her. Without her even summoning it, her unraveling began.
Orange fur razed across Fiona’s body like a wildfire. Her bones grated and repositioned with painful pops and cracks. Her own screams mixed with the sopping sound of motile muscle, her marrow disintegrating into a powdery pulp that came spewing out from her mouth in a particle cloud with every yell. A twisted symphony of pain.
Unlike the others, she didn’t even get a chance to attack.
The same machinite that had ripped off Malcolm’s moose patch in one flick of its claws gripped tight into Fiona’s stomach. With even less effort than it had taken to tear away Malcolm’s patch, the machinite wordlessly pulled away Fiona’s fox patch, wild tendrils of blood and intestines snapping between herself and the flesh that had been part of her.
The unfeeling claws released her, and she fell to her back on the frigid steel flooring. Every agonizing breath she took pumped more fluids out of her than in. Any one of them could be her last. Darkness crept in at the edges of her vision, mercifully erasing the vision of her fallen friends.
But as the life drained from her, she felt something else stirring. In her limited consciousness, she wasn’t sure if it was a dream or reality, but the same kind of unraveling tingling pumped through her. Not in the stomach, where her fox patch summoned its power, but somewhere else. Her face.
The birthmark that covered her from eye to nose to ear flared like sweet fire across her body. The same sensation of unraveling tore through her, its white-hotness so intense that she only felt it for a second, as if burning away her entire human form. And all of its weakness along with it.
Fiona’s darkening vision flashed clear again. She stood now tall above the machinites, each of the three staring up at her. If their robotic eyes could show emotion, they would be terrified.
Fiona looked down at herself, seeing neither human nor fox. She was a scaled beast, as tall as the metallic room itself, with fangs and wings and claws, each of which yearned to tear the metal beings asunder.
Her birthmark had been the skinstitching of a dragon.
The machinites prepped their metal weapons, but Fiona was prepared. Before she sunk her sharp talons into these unnatural creatures, she should render them slightly more malleable.
Heat built to a flashpoint inside Fiona’s throat. She loosed it onto the machinites in a powerful jet of flames. A glorious inferno of metallic screeching died down to a faint hissing as solid brass melted into puddles. Fiona’s flames petered out, leaving only charred steel in their wake. She looked down upon their adversaries, now little more than scorched, disfigured toys.
Fiona stomped toward the window that overlooked the metallic town, crushing the broken bodies of the former machinitie leaders beneath her massive toes. Her lizard eyes gazed over her domain, metal and shimmering and ready to burn, and she grinned.
Did you catch the foreshadowing? It was in Fiona’s quirk, her birthmark. When the story originally mentions it, it feels fairly normal, but then it has a huge payoff later!
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you join us on Twitch.
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Hope to see you next time, friend!