3 Advanced Foreshadowing Techniques (Writing Advice)
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- čas přidán 27. 06. 2024
- Juice up your writing with these foreshadowing techniques. Examples from The Godfather, John Wick, Titanic, and more!
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When he said “today we’ll be talking about foreshadowing” i knew something was about to happen 💀
💀
💀
I see what you did there 😂
Dang Sherlock Holmes
Foreshadowing a character arc can work really well. Especially a negative one like in the Godfather: "That's my family, Kay. It's not me."
Yep, love that line to death. "Your still my brother, Fredo!" in Part II applies as well.
I’m not sure if this counts as foreshadowing, but an instance from a movie in my native language comes to mind. In this movie, there is a character who sells coffins for a living. He serves as a source of comic relief and dark humor throughout the film. Whenever someone falls ill, he visits them to wish them well, but his true intention is to ensure he has a fitting coffin for them in stock. The townspeople are aware of this behavior, so even the protagonist mocks him when he claims he's going to visit a sick person. Towards the end of the movie, the coffin maker's young son tragically dies in an accident. As the coffin maker and the protagonist head to the hospital to collect the boy's body, the coffin maker asks for a stop at his workshop. After a frantic search among the finished and unfinished coffins, he finds a small one that fits his son. Overwhelmed with emotion, he expresses gratitude that he had one readily available in his size since he is the only coffin maker in town. Tears stream down his face as he tightly embraces the small coffin, leaving the protagonist helpless in consoling him. Earlier in the movie, it is also shown that the coffin maker's son has an appetite, and the coffin maker regularly scolds his wife for overfeeding him due to their poverty. Now, while hugging the coffin, he remarks that it was a good thing he scolded his wife for overfeeding him, otherwise, he wouldn't have fit inside it. 😢
what is the movie called?
Maybe not foreshadowing... Could be irony? I'm not sure though. Sad story.
The King version of ‘death notice’ is also vague. “That was the last time he saw her alive…” could be resolved with “…because he died”, “…because she died” or “…because she moved to Baltimore the next day and cut contact with him”.
Greatest feat of forshadowing I have seen was in Attack On Titan Manga.
At certain point plot twist happens which NO ONE saw coming in like 110+ chapters in AND IF YOU REREAD THE VERY FIRST CHAPTER which came out back in 2009 YOU WILL IMMEDIATELY RECOGNIZE THE EXACT MOMENT IT WAS FORSHADOWED.
It was mind blowing!
I just mentioned to another commenter that I need to start the manga one of these days... The first omnibus has been sitting on my shelf for nearly a year.
Heard about this last year when Part 2 of the anime dropped. **Circular Storytelling**, my friend. And it's one of the most brilliant techniques in storytelling to twist nested storylines in a loop.
Watch arcane it's foreshadowing is soa amazing I missed 80% of it
Isayama is a genius
Reiner sparring with Eren in Season 1: "You play the bad guy next"
When it comes to a series, I enjoy when they make mention of big and small details that can be easily overlooked as it shows how much they are truly setting up and how far ahead they thought. When you reread/rewatch it, you start to notice how it was done way beforehand.
I totally agree!! That form of foreshadowing in particular is so powerful!! I absolutely love going back and reading/watching the series and finding little details here and there-it makes every point so memorable and exciting~~
Man, I love when that happens.
Yeah like Shingeki no Kyojin.
The master of foreshadowing. IT IS foreshadowing the story😅
My favorite use of foreshadowing, bar none, is Attack on Titan, the undisputed king. It has layers on layers of foreshadowing, from the first episode to the last. To accurately list out the examples would take an entire wiki's worth, and it goes from subtle dialogue with double meanings, to the camera's focus during certain lines, to even the type of land that two characters stare at while pretending to form an alliance. (In that case, one stares at a barren plain, foreshadowing his nihilistic outlook, while the other stares at a forest, showing his desire to see his people succeed.)
What I learned from AoT is that the best kind of foreshadowing isn't foreshadowing at all- it's simply everything being the way it's supposed to be, and the audience extrapolating twists from that.
I have the first omnibus of the manga on my shelf. I really need to start that one of these nights. You're not the first person to rave about AoT in my comment sections
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty
It's really an incredible series in terms of foreshadowing, it may not be the best overall but nothing I've read has topped it in that specific department.
Nice. I gotta get on it.
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty yeah the plot revelations are wild
I came to this video just to comment about Attack on Titan. Also, about the "bad ending" that shockingly lacked foreshadowing: I believe theres a surprise coming from Isayama in the anime for the finale this year that will explain why the manga ended that way.
A short story called "Homecoming" in the kids' horror anthology "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" ended with a twist that was so well-foreshadowed it's always stuck with me: It begins when a boy wakes up alone in a dark forest. As he tries to find his way home, he slowly pieces his memories of what happened back together: He was out with his sister, they got lost, the sun set, they felt watched, they saw red eyes in the darkness. The story does comment on the boy's hunger after being out for so long, but _very_ cleverly (in my opinion) describes the environment as late fall, with a brisk wind, and describes the boy as wearing only a t-shirt, but never comments on the boy feeling cold (or why he was dressed so inappropriately in the first place). This all makes sense at the end when he enters his house, sees a funeral wreath with his picture on the wall, and finds his sister sleeping on the couch. In that moment, we discover he was taken and turned by a vampire the previous summer: The story ends with him drinking his fill from his sister, then returning to the cold night he felt so comfortable in, where his red-eyed sire waited.
'Bastards are not allowed to hurt young princes' This is something Jon says to Arya in A Game of Thrones when she asks him why he doesn't duel Joffrey. But, after you find out Jon and Joffrey's parentage the line takes a new meaning.
Oh hey i never thought of that!!!! Thats such a cool double entendre now that you mention it 😮
My favorite type of foreshadowing is the kind that is SO subtle you don’t even notice it after the payoff, but only if you re-read the book. For example, in A Song of Ice and Fire, there is a throwaway line in the (I believe) first book that Catelyn felt as though “her heart had turned to stone.” Then in book three: Lady Stoneheart. Of course you wouldn’t remember that line, but on your second read of the series, it’s such a fantastic OMG moment of realization. I LOVE those!
My favourite foreshadowing plot twist of all time actually comes from a videogame called Bravely Default Flying Fairy where *major spoilers (obviously)*
Later on in the story you realise the fairy (called Airy) who has been guiding the characters and making them awaken crystals was actually lying the whole time and is an eldritch horror in disguise. But the foreshadowing was infront of you all along. The title screen’s text turns an ominous red and the F’s are removed to reveal the message: (f)LYING (f)AIRY.
I feel like foreshadowing is one of those things like plot-twists, that if handled poorly can have terrible consequences on the story later on, but if done well can enrich the experience. Myself, I have been writing an original English light novel that's meant to subvert a lot of tropes and cliches found in excess in fantasy isekai stories, but I also wanted to deliver a solid piece of storytelling. I decided that the best way to introduce a few bits of foreshadowing was to follow the rule of, "want, need, lie." All characters have a want, they have a need, and they have a lie that they tell themselves/believe. So I used that as a frame for what I could come back to later on in a minor or big way that may also have an impact on the "need" and the "lie."
Now if you want to go one step further into advanced territory try foreshadowing with a twist, or foreshadowing within a foreshadow. It will keep you up at night, and questioning everything. LOL.
Good stuff. And the want/need/lie idea is a great shorthand to have handy
Thanks for sharing that ' want need lie' framework.
I love how foreshadowing works in Hamilton. It’s a known fact already, but throughout the entire musical Burr is hinting at deaths of other characters. In “Aaron Burr, Sir” he says “those who run their mouths off wind up dead” and right after this phrase John Laurens starts singing and later he’s the one who died first out of the presented group(Hamilton, Mulligan, Lafayette and Laurens). In “Schuyler sisters” throughout the whole song the Schuyler sisters themselves sing “Angelica, Eliza, and Peggy”, but when Burr introduces them he says “Peggy, Angelica, Eliza” and guess who died first and who lived longer than everyone else? In “Hurricane” Hamilton is telling about the time when his mother and him were sick and says that she was holding him and he “couldn’t seem to die”. Right after that, Burr starts saying “wait for it” in the background and eventually shoots Hamilton in the end. There’s also a moment where Philip Hamilton learns how to count in French with his mother and seems to struggle at 7. Later when he engages in a duel, his opponent doesn’t wait till 10 and shoots him at 7. When he’s dying, Eliza comes and they count in French again (probably to distract Philip from the pain). Phillip dies at 7.
I love Lin Manuel Miranda.
I think my favourite piece of foreshadowing comes from the manga Berserk. It's first arc is basically a foreshadowing in its entirety, or so I think.
This is incredibly important in fantasy. If you aren't going to resolve action with magic, fairies, and stuff that isn't real, you need to set up the rules and expectations earlier in the book for the big payoffs at the end. The more unreal the setting, the more foreshadowing and preparation matter. Otherwise the reader will feel (and be) cheated by the resolution, which will be an unpredictable deus ex machine.
Tell me about it. It’s extremely annoying when the beginning of a series is really well done and by the end the author/writers are flying by the seat of their pants.
Not sure if this counts as foreshadowing but in Cyberpunk 2077, there's a bar called the Afterlife. When someone makes a name for themselves in Night City and they die a legend, they get a drink named after them in the Afterlife, that's the gimmick of the bar. There's a drink called the David Martinez. The in-game description says it's carbonated and this drink was already in the game long before the show, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, came out, probably before it was even written.
The show follows a dude named David Martinez. He frequently mentions how much he dislikes carbonated beverages.
I'm not 100% sure if that really counts because those plot details are separated within the game and the show, which tell different stories, but they both take place in the same universe so I think it counts.
Great video thank you!
One of my favourite "death notice" types of forshadowing is in (spoiler alert) American Beauty. At the beginning of the movie the narrator says, almost in passing, "I'm already daed," or something of the like, then by the time he gets shot at the end we've basically forgotten he said that, and it's like a punch in the gut.
What's your favorite example of foreshadowing from a story? Let us know!
So I am not sure if it's symmetry or foreshadowing, but BAD PARTS comes to mind. =D Excellent video, you surprised me with the bit about positive twists, and I appreciate the emphasis on "if you're going to reference a character's death omnisciently, you need to mean it."
I think of Lord of the Tings: Teturn of the king "and Rohan will answer"
You're too kind. Thanks!
Ahhh, that's a great one! Just rewatched RotK a couple months ago
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty My resonate favorite comes from a Storm of Swords, one of the books Game of Thrones was based off of. (Spoiler, obviously)
"What did you run into, a child's snow knight?" This was said after Sam managed to somehow kill a White Walker with dragon glass and no one believes him. On the surface this is someone mocking Sam but we do know from the show, that the Children of the Forest created the Walkers, so this was a pretty clever way to subtlety foreshadow something that only a few people would even get. (Spoiler done.)
George's editor calls this the first step in Martin's "Three fold plan" to reveal information. 1: very implicit hint, like the example I used above, often framed in a totally different context, but hints at things to come. 2: a more explicit hint, but not explicit confirmation. 3: explicit confirmation to let everyone else know. Pretty good structure if you ask me.
6:41: SPOLIERS: The favorite foreshadowing is TWD in the last episode of season 6. It's when Simon said to Rick's group 'Be extra nice to one other as this might be The Last day on Earth for one of you.'
There was extra Foreshadowing when Eugene and Abraham hug each other when they spit up with Eugene drives the AV to create a distraction.
What later happens is that Negan kills both Abraham and Glenn.
It's very well written foreshadowing and brilliant stuff!
Another great video from ya Brandon! I’m always learning something new about a familiar topic from your channel. You had pretty good timing with this particular topic since I just started watching Breaking Bad for the first time this week and I love it’s use of foreshadowing and setting up its pay offs. I didn’t really consider the pleasant surprise type of foreshadowing until this video, and there’s a really good example in the show.
[spoilers!]
When Walter and Jesse are kidnapped by Tuco, he mentions that he has cousins coming by later to take them all to Mexico, further conveying the hopeless situation Walter and Jesse are in. Even if they manage to escape Tuco, they have to deal with his cousins who certainly won’t be happy about that.
As they manage to injure Tuco and try to escape, they notice a car arriving in the distance. Assuming, it’s Tuco’s cousins, they hide with the gun preparing for war. But it turns out it’s Walter’s brother in law who ends up killing the injured Tuco. And this was previously set up by the fact that his brother was looking for Jesse’s car. So it was a double pay off in a way.
Tuco’s cousins never show up in the narrative, but Hank’s appearance doesn’t leave us empty handed, creating a satisfying pay off.
As you tell, I already love this show lol and your video helped me look at this type of misdirection differently to use in my stories. Keep up the good work!
Great example! Breaking Bad is loaded with instances of top-notch foreshadowing.
Not sure if you remember but those very same cousins actually appear in a major way later. They're the twins that rarely speak and try killing Hank as revenge for Tuco
I think for example, when someone learns batman's (or other superhero's) identity in a movie, it's almost like saying they're going to die somehow before the end.
The Pleasant Surprise. Probably because it IS a "surprise," like a check in the mail you thought was going to be a bill.
If only my mailbox could hold a few of those haha
This channel has answers for all of my questions. Easily has helped me improve my writing more than any other source.
In the opening scene of Back To The Future we see among the many clocks, a miniatue town clock with a man hanging from the minute hand. We also see a box labled radioactive as we are told about stolen plutonium.
Also in BTF1, 1985's Lorraine scolds Marty by telling him what she would never do as a teenager - and then 1955's Lorraine does exactly everything she said she would never do, right in front of Marty. Brilliant bit of foreshadowing (or should I say, backshadowing?)
My favorite use of foreshadowing EASILY comes from the story on R/nosleep called "Borrasca." The whole damn story is basically 3 hours worth of foreshadowing for the most disturbing reveal ive ever come across.
all these tips have helped me create more engaging D&D campaigns and moments in storytelling.
As others have mentioned,Attack on titan has to be considered one of the best examples of foreshadowing ever.
Brilliant explanation. Thank you.
The best foreshadowing I’ve seen is in the game Planescape Torment, in the dialog with the ghost Deionarra right at the start of the story. She’s giving away the main plot, basically. But it’s too cryptic for the player to decipher at that moment, and the scene is supported by her ethereal voice and the matching music theme.
“This is what my eyes see, my Love, unfettered by the shackles of time… You shall meet enemies three, but none more dangerous than yourself in your full glory. They are shades of evil, of good, and of neutrality given life and twisted by the laws of the planes. You shall come to a prison built of regrets and sorrow, where the shadows themselves have gone mad. There you will be asked to make a terrible sacrifice, my Love. For the matter to be laid to rest, you must destroy that which keeps you alive and be immortal no longer.”
Other great foreshadowing is in Steins;Gate and Attack on Titan.
One of my favorites of your second example of the death notice is from a small anime called Chrono Crusade *warning for heavy spoilers, stop here if you're going to watch it*
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In the beginning of the story it's established the main character fights alongside a demon and can give him a power boost by spending some of her own life force. The way the story commits to that idea at the end is one of the most tragic scenes I've ever seen.
While I’m sure there are many other foreshadowing examples that could come to mind, the one that immediately comes to mind for me is from the iconic movie…JAWS.
As Brody, Hooper, and Quint are embarking on their quest for the great white shark on Quint’s boat, the Orca, Chief Brody accidentally loosens a rope restraining a number of oxygen tanks. As the oxygen tanks begin to tumble forward, they’re caught by Hooper…who thereupon yells at Brody to be careful because the oxygen tanks could BLOW UP!
That little incident is revisited in a major fashion at the end of the film when Quint is dead, Hooper is feared lost, and Brody is inside the cabin of a sinking Orca looking for a weapon. As he searches, the side of the boat is smashed inward as the shark lunges towards Brody…its mouth agape. Brody grabs for the closest thing available…one of the oxygen tanks…and jams the tank into the shark's open mouth. The shark retreats. Brody emerges from the cabin, finds a rifle and climbs the mast of the almost totally sunk Orca. As he perches at the top of the mast, he takes aim with the rifle at the now-advancing shark which still has the oxygen tank in its mouth. He fires once and misses…fires again and misses…fires three more times and misses…with his final round, he says “Smile you son of a…” and fires his final round. It hits the oxygen tank and causes it to….BLOW UP!
The shark is blown to bits, Hooper surfaces from his hiding place, and he and Brody swim their way to shore.
Nice little bit of foreshadowing!
In James Cameron's Aliens. Ripley, in trying to make herself useful to the Colonial Marine squad prior to being sent to the LV 426 colony, demonstrates competency in operating the manual loader. Two outcomes. She demonstrates a willingness to be of service, a team player, even though she's not keen on going there. And secondly, she uses the same manual loader skillfully in a final showdown with the Alien Queen. Sets her up so well as a hero.
When I first saw Aliens, and saw what was supposedly the end of the film (the liftoff ahead of the explosions), I knew the final confrontation hadn't come yet because that load lifter hadn't reappeared, and I knew it wouldn't have been set up that early if it wasn't going to be used.
Great stuff!
Thanks!
In the story I’m writing, I’m trying to figure out how to foreshadow betrayal without it being obvious. Like, once the character betrays the group the audience can be all, “Wait, so THAT’S why that happened!” and think more into detail on something that just seemed so subtle and simple… Basically I have it to where after the group splits off from the later revealed surprise villain and prepares to climb down a tower, the future betrayer suddenly freezes and widens his eyes, but then shakes it off. I feel like this just seems like he’s scared to fall, but later it’s revealed how in that moment the villain telepathically made a threat and so he has to betray his friends to save his family later.
I’m just trying to figure out if that’s enough of a foreshadow and if I actually have to go into detail later. Cause I don’t know if the audience will pick up that the threat was in that moment since it seemed casual for the time.
You got any advice/suggestions!?
D.O.A.is one big 'death notice.'
Favorite use of foreshadowing is the line, "When I'm good and ready, I'm going to walk right through the front door." from Inside Man (2006) .
This guy is the guy.
Haha thanks!
My favorite example for a "pleasant surprise" like in topic #1 is the back-bouncing tennis ball at the beginning of Woody Allen's "Match Point". That negative metaphor is emphazised even more later on when we see the old lady's wedding ring fall to the wrong side of the railing, which obviously hints at Chris Wilton being caught because the Police will find that ring and somehow connect it to him. But then this mistake is what eventually gets him off the hook, but only to comdemn him to a life of guilt. That was really a stroke of genius by Mr Allen.
Spoilers for Death Note:
When Light first meets Ryuk, Ryuk says that he's going to write Light's name in his Death Note in the end, and at the end of the show, he does.
I am an aspiring writer, so I watch your videos for tips and learning. However, as I continue to watch and listen, I've realized that your voice reminds me of Luke from Star Wars: Jedi Academy.
Hahah! I never played Jedi Academy, but I did have Jedi Outcast on GameCube back in the day. I wonder if they had the same voice actor?
I like how heavily foreshadowed, yet still tragic Yondu’s death is in guardians of the galaxy two is.
Your videos are very helpful - hope you start getting more views.
Thank you! Please tell other writers about the channel
One of the best films I've seen (slammed by the critics/viewers) is 'The Counsellor', written by Cormac McCarthy and directed by Ridley Scott. In the beginning of the film, the tragic hero visits a diamond dealer, and the diamond dealer talks about the necessity for a 'flaw' in a diamond, and he talks about a 'cautionary diamond'. That tells us we're about to embark on a tragedy, which classically has the hero whose fall is determined by his 'tragic flaw', and that it is a 'cautionary tale'. The infernal device that tightens a wire inexorably round the victim's neck also serves as an overall metaphor for how the consequences of the various protagonists' actions tighten, in the end to leave them with no escape.
Working my way thru your excellent content, taking tons of notes. I'm looking forward to my copy of 'Entry Wounds' arriving, so thanks.
My favorite foreshadowing?
From "Stranger in a strange land"
During the inciting incident a nurse is
Sneaking the 'man from Mars' out of a hospital where the government has nasty plans for him when they are confronted by "Men in black" types who are quick to violence.
They whallop the nurse good forcing the pathetic 'man from Mars' who is extremely weak from gravity sickness, naive from never having seen other humans, who only understands a tiny fraction of Earth language must take action.
With little more than a gesture he makes the imposing men vanish.
We know now that this innocent, childlike guy has god-like powers.
How will he use them?
Where will such awesome power lead him?
The answer may change how we feel about our own powerful figured...
If you've come this far, I just want to express my gratitude for your channel. Thx
Hey thanks for the kind words and for checking out Entry Wounds! Please leave a brief review when you finish. And it’s been like 12 years since I read Stranger in a Strange Land (the extended version) but you jogged my memory in a few places. Michael, Jubal… they’re coming back to me
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty ;) Yea, good times. 12yrs huh, you might dig this: RAH sat down to write "Stranger" but then about 1/2 thru the US passed the 'test ban treaty' stopping nuclear tests....this soo enraged RAH that he put down 'Stranger' and penned 'Starship Troopers'... Talk about mental gear shifts! Reading them that way(1/2 Stranger than all of ST, then back to Stranger..... woah.....I'm looking to reading 'Entry Wounds' specially since I saw how it came about as you mentioned it was the result of your taking a break from 'Bad Parts'...
Thanks again for the channel, and your comment!
My favourite type of foreshadowing would probably be a character's identity and role in the story. As in for instance 2 main characters in a story are on completely different locations doing things from their own perspective while making the audience wonder who they are, what they want and do they perhaps have a past together or are just likely to meet at some point with small hints slowly implying answers to these questions throughout the story. Another example is a character who first appears as an ally doing things what seem like completely logical reasons only to eventually turn against the protagonists at another book and be remembered as a traitor and major villain who initially appeared as one of the heroes. What do you think of this?
Spoilers for Assassination Classroom:
Nagisa writes down as many of Koro-Sensei's weaknesses as he can, and this foreshadows one major assassination attempt where a large number of weaknesses are used, but in the finale, just one weakness is stated in the most tragic way, where none of them really want to kill him anymore: "He can't move if we all hold him down." And then Nagisa has to kill him, at his own request.
Won't name the book or the characters because spoilers, but going off of tip number 2, the final book in one of my favorite series does this quite well. Basically, two fictional countries are at war, and the enemy country bomb's the protagonists' country's capitol city. While trying to help fight off the attack, the POV character makes a mental note that only the workshops got hit hard, "good thing no one is in there at this hour". It was at this point that I knew a beloved side character was going to die, because he's an inventor, and the last thing he said to his wife before wandering off had to do with his latest invention. My family had the joy of watching me become visibly angry at this scene, and I put down the book for a day to procrastinate the confirmation of his death. Still mad at the author for that one, but I have to admit she executed it well.
There was a story I wrote (in my native language). The heroine goes on a date and tries to impress her date of a martial arts technique she learned that allows her to free up her hands on rope binds. Later on in the story, the heroine finds herself captured. Her captors bind her hands at her back. She uses the martial arts technique to free up her hands. I wonder if I did a good job in foreshadowing this skillset of hers
Yep, you're playing fair with the reader, so that works. By establish that she's capable of freeing up her hands, you can have that payoff later
what you described sounds more like Chekhov's gun to me. IMO ideal foreshadowing should be subtly misleading, similar to how it's done in the Godfather. for example, imagine if the guy she went on a date with happened to be one of her captors who knows about her ability to escape rope binds. they could tie her up in a different manner, rendering her technique useless, forcing her to devise a new plan on the spot to escape.
Well since you asked, I don't know if it's my favorite but one of my favorite instances of foreshadowing was the "I forgot you were left handed" line from EverymanHYBRID. EverymanHYBRID is a webseries with an Alternate Reality Game element to it and is littered with foreshadowing. Foreshadowing about the characters being in one giant iteration cycle and continually reliving their lives over and over again, foreshadowing that Evan is being possessed by HABIT, ect. However the exact instance that I am talking about is in the Self Defense video uploaded in July 2010, Vinny and Evan are talking about what to do if you are in a knife fight and Evan says the line "I forgot you were left handed". 8 years later in the penultimate EverymanHYBRID video uploaded in November 2018, Vinny and Evan are both trying to kill each other and while Evan is holding Vinny down, Vinny stabs Evan using his left hand causing Evan to say "I forgot you were left handed" again as Vinny stabs him with HABIT's God killer knife. This random line turned out to be important later on. I know this isn't any of the techniques you mentioned in the video, but you just wanted me to tell you my favorite instance so I choose one that I like that not many people will know about.
Can’t say I’m familiar with it, but that sounds like a good example of foreshadowing
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty An other example of webseries foreshadowing was the "Am I being real?" line from I Am Sophie. I Am Sophie is an other one of my favorite ARG Webseries and it begins as a CZcams channel run by a rich girl who very much has everything she ever wants and needs in life and asks "Am I being real?", as a parody of rich people who flex all their wealth who are entirely fake trying to seem real so to speak even though they have no idea what they are talking about. However it's also foreshadowing because they confirmed in an interview after the series got canceled that they were going to reveal that "real flesh and blood Sophie" was actually a robot all along, but we will never get to see that reveal because the series got canceled, it was heavily implied to be a very real possibility. But it puts a whole new meaning to the "Am I being real?" line from the first video.
My favorite might be The Dark Knight. The first scene starts from an exterior elevation with clean, neat, buildings and the movie’s resolution is in the bottom of a burnt out and destroyed building.
Batman Begins when Ra's says "You know how to fight 6 men, we can teach you to engage 600." At the end of the film, when the Narrows goes into a panic fueled riot, he manages to evade and escape a crowd of similar size. I just like it because it's the League's own weapon turned against them.
Terminator has one that I love when the picture of Sarah goes through the same time cycle as Sarah, John, and Reece themselves. When Reece says "I always wondered what you were thinking" and it turns out Sarah is also wondering about him. I'm not sure if that counts, but I really like it since it is a set up and payoff that you don't realize until that moment.
And the king for me has to be Empire Strikes Back. The entire arc of Luke's story is foreshadowing. From the moment Dack dies after saying "I feel like I can take on the whole Empire myself" (mirroring Luke's later failure in a similar attempt) to the obvious foreshadowing of the cave, the entire arc of Luke may as well be Vader's story as well, but you don't know that until the final big reveal of the movie. And then you see it so clearly. There are a thousand reasons why this movie is so well regarded, but this one is my favorite reason.
Kill Bill has several good ones. The eye plucking is one (we know Pai Mei removed one of Elle’s eyes. The camera then zooms in more and more on her good eye, until Beatrix plucks it out).
Also the Five Point Palm Heart Exploding Technique. It’s something that Pai Mei is the only one who’s supposed to know. Bill is the one who tells her this. Then at the end, that’s what she uses to kill him, and he’s surprised Pai Mei taught it to her.
Akame ga kill hasa fantastic foreshadowing. At the second episode its said that when two welders of imperial weapons face each other one of them will die. And they mean it, the rule is respected for every battle in anime
4:14 And then you could catch the audience off-guard by having *HIM* die, and he only sees her as a ghost, while she lives her life. All it said was "That was the last time he would ever seen her alive." It didn't specify who was going to be alive.
'Little miss muffet counting down from 7-3-0".... Then 1 season later *be back before dawn"
Thanks for a great video on an important topic, Brandon. At 2:21 you talk about the pleasant surprise. I like this and think I've used it, but I'll be sure to use it now. I also like that I can be mean and write an unpleasant surprise if I want to.
Do you think that foreshadowing and setup (to a payoff) are so similar? Seems many think these terms are interchangeable, but others maintain that they are distinct. I'm in the ladder group. But my volunteer firefighter exploits aside, I'm in the latter of the aforementioned groups.🤣 My take is that foreshadowing is, as I think you suggested, more of a hint while a setup is something less abstract and more certain to occur. Indeed, we might get by with not fulfilling a foreshadowed event, but we'd get hell over not providing a payoff for a setup.
We might describe the weather and torrential rains and weak levees. Later, if a levee breaks and floods a town, we're golden because we foreshadowed it. But if the levee holds, the foreshadowing is forgotten as unnecessary detail, or maybe as suspense, depending on the story. But if a flooded town is a key plot point, we must include the setup.
I dunno. It just seems to me that foreshadowing is more descriptive and less certain than setup, but they often accomplish the same thing. Or maybe I'm looking at this backwards. Maybe whether something we write is foreshadowing or setup depends on what comes later as a payoff.
There's plenty of overlap between foreshadowing and setups/payoffs. If your foreshadow or setup something, eventually there will be a payoff (or else the foreshadowing/setup was wasted).
If I had to distinguish them, I'd say foreshadowing is a more direct hint, whereas setups/payoff involve storytelling elements than are simply shown to the audience without any "hint, hint" vibe to them.
Have you watched Reservoir Dogs? Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) lying unconscious in the hideout would be a setup, and then when he wakes up to shoot Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen)--that would be a payoff. I don't know that I would consider Mr. Orange lying there unconscious as foreshadowing. On the other hand, when the various robbers voice their fears about the cops finding the hide, THAT is foreshadowing.
Is there a difference in foreshadowing that you will never notice upon first reading or watching most likely, and something more overt. For example, in the 1982 version of Poltergeist, there is a scene where after Carol Anne’s Canary dies, they give it a funeral and the. bury it in a shoebox in the garden. Later, it gets exhumed in the course of digging for a new swimming pool. This foreshadows the horrific turn of events in the climactic scene where the Freeling family is trying to escape the house and coffins are rising up out of the ground and opening up to display the corpses inside. In my opinion, there’s no way somebody’s gonna remember that initial scene’s significance except upon re-watching the movie. It is an “easter egg” for a subsequent rereading/rewatching. Thoughts?
About the "Death Notice" and Stephen King. I actually hate how many deaths he spoiled in that way. I get that it's effective for other kinds of readers but more often than not I don't like a death being spoiled like that.
My favourite example of foreshadowing Stephen King has (in the books I read by him so far, which are many, but not all) is in the Green Mile when the narrator casually remarks earlier in the book that "Percy [had]moved on to Briar Ridge". When I found out in what way he had moved on way later, I thought that was so brilliant. And absolutely unexpected.
I'm not convinced the inciting incident has to foreshadow the climax at all. In fact, my favorite stories tend to have climaxes that look so radically different from their inciting incidents that you have to look back to wonder how you reached this point.
I used method 1 and 3 of foreshadowing in my last book to convey something important, but I’m not sure if I should use it in the book I’m writing now.
It all depends on what's best for the book. If you're afraid of overusing a certain type of foreshadowing, try using it at different stages of your story (i.e. instead of for big moments, use it for mid-size or small payoffs.)
I hadn't seen Pulp Fiction for a long while, but I noticed the foreshadowing when Jules (played by Samuel L. Jackson) begins asking certain questions about what his boss looks like when I watched it again recently on 4K.
so, to apply that last type to blue lock, then the final match of the story would be isagi vs noel noa?
What first comes to mind is the Shawshank Redemption: Upon rewatching this recently with someone else, I cracked up at the "pipe dream" comment in particular.
an item or person that grants a specific wish. I.E Dnd movie the amulet that revive someont. or Alladin genie and the lamp.
I'm using foreshadowing in my story by showing the MC reading an email from a sister she thought she would never need to see again and reacting to the fact that her toxic family has tracked her down after she ran away from home as a teenager and started a new life as an independent, successful woman. The opening scene leads to the ending in which her narcissistic mother, sister, and ex-husband show up at her home to demand that she give up everything she has built for herself and return to her old life to repay her mother for keeping her and providing for her, a debt which obviously does not exist because children do not owe their parents for giving them life and meeting their basic needs for survival. But their appearance triggers her own fears of inadequacy and failure. It's also an urban fantasy story where magic is prevalent and a stand-in for real, human desires and shortcuts to getting what we want out of life.
Awesome best of luck with it!
The way A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones foreshadowed Doran Martell's "surprise" plan to side with Daenerys Targaryen when she invaded Westeros: It was foreshadowed brilliantly by the history of the setting --- the Martells were never conquered but married into the Targaryen line voluntarily, and the queen killed during Robert's Rebellion was a Martell. The story allowed everyone to sink into the comfortable assumption that Westeros as a whole would resist another Targaryen ruler after just having successfully rebelled against the last one, so Doran Martell's plot felt like a twist... until you thought about it even just a little, and realized that it not only made perfect sense, it was in fact the _only_ thing that would have made sense --- i.e. the idea the Martells were on board with opposing the Targaryens along with the rest of Westeros, despite being what we'd been cleverly misled into assuming, was always inconsistent with the setting and lore.
***RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 SPOILERS***
Arthur Morgan’s TB diagnosis was game changing and beautiful writing
I love foreshadowing, but I write 1st-P in real-time live scenes, so the narrator (protagonist) can't see the future, and therefore can't hint about it. Frustrating, but I do manage to get some foreshadowing in, yet it has to be super subtle, and it almost has to be something the narrator/protag says that is just randomly coincidental with what might eventually happen, or maybe an 'intuitive guess' from them, or a feeling, or an inkling.
But a savvy reader is always on the lookout for foreshadowing, sniffing it out like a truffle hog, so they will hopefully figure it out before the fact even though the protagonist doesn't, and this really then becomes more the narrative drive of dramatic irony. They might get a glimmer of where things are going that the MC does not have, and hopefully, that helps them stick around to see if they are right. (Oh, I'm so manipulative!)
Of course a 1st-P narrator/protag also has a certain level of unreliability when the temporal position of the narrator is directly in the scene (as opposed to simple past tense where they do know what eventually happens). I try to give my MC an aspect of naivete, which helps make whatever foreshadowing they do, more credible.
I like that connection between inciting incident and resolution. I think that is probably automatically present in almost every genre-a built-in foreshadow. If there is a 'lovers meet' inciting incident in a courtship love story, the 'will they, won't they' inevitable conclusion is somewhat preordained. The same can be said about a murder mystery, thriller, horror story, or performance story.
With 1P Present narrators, you can still foreshadow by having them recognize details that will payoff later. Regardless of your story's POV, strategic use of plot/action/setting details can help with foreshadowing
Neon Genesis Evangelion has some really good moments of foreshadowing. It has multiple scenes that at first just seem weird or bizarre but MAN when you watch those scenes after the show and story is concluded you’re like “NO WAY” and start pointing at the screen like Leo in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
👍🏻
I remember reading The Sound of The Mountain, and the character thought this sound he heard meant he was going to die .... and then ... when he didn't, I kinda wondered what the point of the book had been.
Me, in 1996, reading Game of Thrones for the first time, "Wow. Three blond kids with a black-haired dad. Yet another fantasy writer who doesn't know anything about genetics." Whoops! 😅
4:13, Oh yeah, I remember the first time reading that in a King novel and thinking "OH FUUUU...!!!!"
my favorite is definitely attack on tit -- no nvm, when someone coughs into a tissue and looks at it concerned -- no haha jk. i cant think of any off the top of my head. you nailed it so hard when you mentioned the benefit of a positive resolution after am ominous foreshadowing. too many authors use the readers emotions against them relentlessly by only giving them a reason to need to turn the next page (conflict betrayal sadness incorrectness etc) but we all come for one thing. sweet sweet payoff. better to let the juices constantly drip from their chin than to deprive them of juice and make their thirst the incentive. give us juice i say, much juice! you are the juice king bro. thanks as always!!
Haha I'll gladly accept the title of Juice King
Quest of the Guardians book three; Gust of Wind...the bumbling curator of the library unexpectedly murders a researcher and hides all his work, so you realize his bumbling is an act and he's much more capable than he appears, but you don't know why so he looks like a bad guy. By the end of the book you learn his family has been protecting the secrets of the Guardian family for generations and in the final book he's a key player in the series climax.
New writer, Is foreshadowing like the Chekhov off gun and a movie.
Yes. Setup and payoff
My favourite use of foreshadowing is without a doubt from the MMO Final Fantasy XIV, at the beginning of the base game you are introduced to a character in a side story that has really nothing to do with the main story itself, but it involves a certain place which becomes a very important element later on in the story from the 4th expansion that came out years after that and that one very unimportant character quickly became a pivotal character in the narration, only lowered on importance behind the main antagonist and you, the protagonist, truly brought tears to my eyes by how unexpected and amazing that was
#2: Little did he know that this simple, seemingly innocuous act, would result in his imminent death.
My favorite foreshadowing was not in a written story, but in the plot line of Dream SMP streams.
-Spoiler Alert-
This line came from Wilbur Soot after the TNT had been placed and redstone rigged under L’Manburg by Technoblade, Tommyinnit, Wilbur Soot, and Tubbo. The organization had agreed to not use the TNT and Wilbur was questioned of his values and whether he could leave the destruction behind.
Wilbur aimed to in the future and successfully destroyed the city while the other three were busy at the Red Festival.
He lied at the time and foreshadowed his future goals saying, “oh yeah, yeah no, it’s all in the past now, it’s all in the future” as a Freudian slip and mistake when saying “it’s all in the past now” again.
🤠👍🏿
Thanks!
Well, I like the Lord of the rings foreshadowing that there is going to be a war against orcs and men
I don't know if it counts as foreshadowing, but something that I really appreciated was on Irregular At Magic High School's anime, where, in the first episode, instead of filling the scenes with lots of students with NPC characters that were generic and only served the purpose to fill the room, they filled it with characters that would be relevant later on, usually many episodes later. One of the characters we see in the background in season 1 only had relevance halfway through season 2. It's one of the things that make you point at the screen and cheer when you see it again
That was the last time he would ever see her alive ... And then kill the male character off and have his ghost narrate the rest of the story watching over her.
Fire fist Ace death
I see dead people
I hate mediocre authors telling others how to write.
Aspiring writers...do you. Write what you love. What you know. Believe in you. Ignore channels like this.