Tag Archives: Story Structure

Foreshadowing

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cross blogIt’s the time of the month for some writerly discussion on craft. Today, author and writing mentor Sydney Smith and I discuss the literary technique of foreshadowing.

SYDNEY:
Foreshadowing is the seeding of minor precursors to some greater event in a story. This is how believability is created. If you want the reader to believe an event in your story that might not seem altogether credible, foreshadow it and the reader will believe it. Even if the major event is already believable, foreshadowing will draw the reader in and make it even more convincing.

Snow FlowerFor example, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is set in Old China, where every aspect of life is arranged according to strict rules and customs. The narrator, Lily, has a special friendship with Snow Flower, one that was arranged especially to improve Lily’s marriage prospects. In fact, this friendship is dearer to Lily than the wealthy marriage she enters into as a girl of seventeen. But at the climax of the story, Lily humiliates Snow Flower out of jealous vengeance, and she loses the one relationship in her life that matters more to her than any other. Without foreshadowing, this climax might have been unbelievable, since Lily loves Snow Flower. Why would she do such a thing to the woman who matters most to her? Lisa See foreshadows it in a confrontation between Lily and her mother, one that reveals her vengeful spirit. She acts spitefully in this confrontation, and thus, her greater spitefulness in humiliating Snow Flower in the climax is foreshadowed. We have seen her behave vengefully once before. So at the climax, when the story needs us to believe it without question, we do thanks to foreshadowing.

JENNY:
Foreshadowing 1I see foreshadowing as a two-part affair―first the hint (or hints), then the payoff. If a jewellery store is to be robbed, there might be a suspicious customer in the day before. If a man is to leave his wife, he might be reluctant to make holiday plans. Keeping the hint and payoff firmly linked in my mind, will make the setup more straightforward. Sometimes I write myself notes about it. And the more significant the payoff event, the earlier I like to plant hints.

As a reader, I always love when crucial events are deftly foreshadowed. That Ahh, I get it! moment is immensely satisfying. The classics are full of them. In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice And Men, the killing of Candy’s old dog hints at the later killing of Lennie. In Macbeth, Shakespeare uses the witches and their prophecies to foreshadow events. They warn that ‘fair is foul and foul is fair’. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet complains to her nurse ‘My grave is like to be my wedding-bed.’ And in the wonderful Charlotte’s Web, Charlotte the spider explains to Wilbur that all living things eventually die. This foreshadows the main plot conflict, which is saving Wilbur from the slaughterhouse. Charlotte weaves a web over the barn door with a message that startles the humans into sparing Wilbur’s life. In the process of spinning her web, Charlotte expends all her energy and dies, just as she had hinted to Wilbur at the beginning of the story.

foreshadowing 2I will often read a novel containing clever foreshadowing a second time, in order to fully appreciate the author’s skill. But as a writer, I find it a fine line to tread. Too blatant a hint might give the game away. Too subtle, and readers might not make the connection at all. These days I err on the side of subtle. Readers are clever and sophisticated creatures! Sometimes writers forget this.

Of course the wonderful thing about foreshadowing is that you don’t have to get it right the first time. It’s rare to nail it in a first draft. I’ve often gone back through a manuscript and added clues. That’s when a good chapter summary document – a road map – comes into its own. Sometimes too, my editor suggests I either tone down or ramp up the foreshadowing. It takes a lot of practice.

SYDNEY:
foreshadowing 3The funny thing about foreshadowing is that if done well, it happens all the way through. EVERYTHING is foreshadowed. You realise this if you study closely the favourite novels that you read again and again. I’ve been studying Snow Flower with one of my students and we keep stumbling across instances of foreshadowing. It becomes the cement that glues a narrative together. It makes the story stronger, more solid. It putties in the gaps.

Foreshadowing is not to be confused with predictability, though. Predictability arises out of clichéd characters who act in clichéd ways. Foreshadowing is the trail of breadcrumbs you follow, not realising they’re breadcrumbs. You think the forest is thick with trees, that the way stumbles right and left. But in fact there is a path, and that path is foreshadowing.

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Structuring A Story

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Structuring a story 1I’m at the start of a new book, about ten thousand or so words in. Needless to say, I’m giving a lot of thought to the invisible framework upon which the story will hang. My Penguin editors talk a lot about structure. In fact, the first and most crucial round of editing, the structural edit, is devoted entirely to the architecture of the narrative. Yet oddly enough, many writing workshops rarely seem to discuss this subject. (Apologies to Sydney Smith the story whisperer, for stealing that architecture of the narrative line. It’s from the title of her forthcoming how-to book. Sydney could never be accused of ignoring the importance of structure!)

Save the CatOther aspects of story such as characterisation, plot and pace for example are talked about all the time. But fixing up your characters or adjusting the pace of your plot won’t save a story if it’s structurally flawed. I roughly follow the three-act structure, much beloved of modern screen writers and ancient storytellers. Knowing how to structure a novel won’t stop it evolving organically, but it will save a lot of time later on. There are plenty of books outlining this method. I’ve previously blogged about my two favourites. Save The Cat by Blake Snyder and Alexandra Sokoloff’s fabulous Screenwriting Tips For Authors. However sometimes I forget, and breaking into a writing session to consult a text can really halt your momentum. So even though I’m a pantster at heart, I always keep a few basic elements of story-telling structure in my mind as I write.

1. The first turning point or inciting incident.
This needs to happen quickly, ideally in the first few pages. It’s the event that sets the plot in motion, a departure from our main character’s normal life. But in order for it to have maximum impact, you have to establish what normal actually is i.e. what is the character expecting to happen. If our hero is a teacher, she expects to find a classroom full of students when she goes to work. If our hero is a prisoner, she expects to be locked up. What if the teacher’s class is missing, or the prisoner’s cell is open? A choice is then forced on the protagonist. Beginning writers often open with fast-paced scenes that don’t mean much. Readers can only appreciate the unusual if they understand the normal.

Turning point2. Lots more turning points.
With a rough, three act structure there are generally three big turning points and lots of little ones, to ensure the story gets increasingly complicated. They happen when a character solves one problem, only to find they are faced with another, thus ratcheting up the tension. The big ones come at the end of each act and the final one brings resolution.

3. Character arcs.
Our hero must learn and change, and overcome inner and outer conflict. This is true of other main characters as well. The simplest way to make this happen is to establish their character flaw early on, and ensure they overcome it by the end. In my new novel Turtle Reef, my protagonist’s flaw is naivety – a willingness to trust too much, too soon. This often blinds her to the truth. Once you can name your character’s main flaw, it’s easier to write scenes that exploit it. Characters can learn things about themselves in all sorts of ways. There is the dramatic epiphany, the series of small insights, the recognition of themselves in someone else (not too early on of course!) Stories will resonate more with readers when characters grow and change.

4. Resolve things
Establish a new normal at the end. Or it could be returning to the old normal, but in any case, the mess you’ve created should be cleaned up somehow. Readers will be dissatisfied with a story that isn’t resolved well

So these are the simple guidelines I always keep in mind while writing. Every single scene is interrogated in reference to them, and if it doesn’t further the plot or a character arc, the scene is out, no matter how pretty the prose. It’s a lot easier to keep the elements of structure in mind while writing, than to be confronted with a whopping big structural report from your editor at the end, pointing out all the flaws in your story!

Don’t forget there’s still time to enter the book giveaway. Just leave a comment telling me who is your favourite fictional bad guy! Winners announced 30th March.

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