Ex Post Facto Foreshadowing

I’m trying to find the perfect place to put a little, tiny sliver of foreshadowing. I know the chapter. In fact, editing that chapter was when it occurred to me that now might be a good time to hint that the two cultures in my fine book are more dependent on each other than my main character thinks they are.

I can’t quite seem to get the foreshadowing piece hammered flat in the rest of the chapter.

I printed out another copy of the chapter, and identified the place where I think my foreshadowing goes. (And by the way, have I mentioned that my printer takes high-capacity, ultra-economy sized cartridges? Yeah. There’s a reason for that.)

All I really need is a couple of lines, but smoothing out the parts around those two lines is tricky.

And one of the characters–who is about twelve–always seems to wind up sounding like a 50 year old business man.

So, what about you? Do you like foreshadowing? Will you do my homework for me? Oh, wait. No. I meant… does it come smoothly at the beginning or do you find yourself tetris-ing it in at the end?

2 Comments

  1. Reply

    I love foreshadowing that is so subtle it’s almost mysterious, the kind that makes the reader look back and say, “Now it makes perfect sense.”
    Agents/ editors seem to love slivers (of backstories, too) as opposed to iinfo-dumps

    • Reply

      I’m going for just barely there, but I keep hitting it just a little too hard. I’ll take a break and come back to it with a fresh mind in a few days.

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