Friday, April 6, 2012

A to Z - Foreshadowing

I lurves foreshadowing, especially when it's cleverly done. I think Jo Rowling is probably one of the best out there. It made her books like little treasure hunts every time I'd read them, especially when a new book would come out.

Her books are so full of them that this could be quite a long post. To spare you I'm only going to touch on one that I thought was particularly well done--if you knew what you were looking for.

Scabbers aka Peter Pettigrew aka Wormtail. 

How many of you imagined, even after you'd read the first couple of books--or, to be honest, 3/4s of the way through Prisoner of Azkaban--that Ron's pet rat was really the animagus form of the supposedly dead Peter Pettigrew?

Here's a bit of foreshadowing from the first book--in fact, it's from the very first time that Ron and Harry ride together to Hogwarts. Remember that spell Fred gave Ron?

Sunshine daisies,
Butter mellow,
Turn this stupid,
fat rat yellow!

We assumed the spell either wasn't a real spell and just a practical joke or that Ron didn't cast   it right. Well, the spell wouldn't have worked because Scabbers wasn't a rat. 

See what I mean? That tricksy Jo.

What are some of your favorite pieces of foreshadowing?

21 comments:

  1. As it's four am and I meant to be asleep, my brain is not able to pull up foreshadowing examples - but this is an excellent one!

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  2. A word I am not used to but you put it over excellently.

    Yvonne.

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  3. Oh! I never caught that! J. K. Rowling is a genius!
    I think for my writing the hardest part of foreshadowing is how much is too much and how much is not enough. I tend to beat the reader over the head with it. "See that rock? It will be important later! See it? See it? Your not looking at it! Look at the rock!" Overkill never works . . .

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  4. Good example. Foreshadowing is pretty tricky to get right. Always feels too vague or too heavy handed.

    mood

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  5. Foreshadowing can be quite difficult. I don't do a lot of it intentionally. (something I should probably work on) but sometimes during edits I see something and think "hey, that's great foreshadowing for later. Wish I had done that intentionally."

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  6. I didn't catch that until you pointed it out. That, as Ron himself would say, is brilliant. Very subtle.

    And then there's the Stephen King method. He foreshadows with the touch of a speeding Mack truck. I don't have a quote, but it's along the lines of "If I had known it was the last time I would see her alive, I would have done things differently." And that's horrible (particularly if you like the character in question), because he'll usually include at least one more scene or conversation with said doomed character before killing them off.

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  7. That is brilliant Darth Vader picture!!! I agree with you...Jo is a master. I think the horcruxes where amazing. I should have figured it out, but I didn't want to believe it.

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  8. Excellent choice.
    Of course I can't come up with any examples at the moment but I do like them when I read them.
    Heather

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  9. I love subtle foreshadowing, something that the reader senses might be important but not sure why.

    Great post!

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  10. That was one of my favorite parts of the HP series too. Sadly, sometimes I think I'm reading foreshadowing and then I realize it's just a red herring and I can't figure out why the author has put it in at all...and it bothers me!

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  11. It's difficult to do. Too much and it just becomes obvious.

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  12. Yes, I love me some good foreshadowing. Great example.

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  13. I agree with you completely. Jo Rowling was awesome at this. I had no idea the Rat wasn't a Rat.

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  14. Oh yeah foreshadowing is the best when there is just enough there to make you realize it exactly when it happens.

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  15. Donna, I've actually not heard of that word before but it's very interesting. Now I'll have to look back on books I've read to see if I can find examples...thanks for the inforamtion!

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  16. I love this blog post! It reminds me of a Podcast I listened to for the Open University Creative Writing lessons, with Alan Ayckbourn speaking about foreshadowing (http://itunes.apple.com/gb/itunes-u/creative-writing-audio/id380223202). Thank you for providing such an informative post :)

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  17. Oh, she's the master all right. I love reading her books, and her structure astounds me. Great highlight!

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  18. Hmm, foreshadowing. As an author I always feel it's so obvious when I write it, but not always so obvious to the reader:)

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  19. Of course, it works the other way. I read a fantasy trilogy which was full of foreshadowing. I was a bit annoyed with the cat that kept appearing. It was obvious it was going to be important and I felt like I was getting beaten with it.

    Nope. Sometimes, a cat is just a cat :-)

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  20. you know the HP references are my favorite!

    We'll have to talk HP foreshadowing in some length sometime.

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  21. I absolutely love the foreshadowing in the Potterverse, me and Donna have had many discussions on it!
    The "Peter Pettigrew as Scabbers" is brilliant, but my personal favourite bit of foreshadowing/trickery is in HBP. We see Mundungus Fletcher talking the the barman of the Hog's Head (in book 7 we learn that he's Aberforth, Albus's brother) and see the barman take something from him. I think 99.9 % of the Potter fans immediately said "The locket from Grimmauld Place's drawing room". But Jo has another trick up her sleeve - really it was the other two way mirror belonging to Sirius! That clever Jo! :-D

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