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Q&A How can we have foreshadowing in a story that takes place in a universe where the future can't be known beforehand?

Foreshadowing is used in all kinds of stories. There is foreshadowing in most mystery stories for example (often as both red herrings and 'proper' foreshadowing), and that doesn't fit anything on y...

posted 10y ago by user8674‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T03:34:56Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/12189
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar user8674‭ · 2019-12-08T03:34:56Z (over 4 years ago)
Foreshadowing is used in all kinds of stories. There is foreshadowing in most mystery stories for example (often as both red herrings and 'proper' foreshadowing), and that doesn't fit anything on your list. Foreshadowing is something the author does, not the characters. It may be through a character giving a prophecy etc. but that is not the only way or even the normal way, even in fantasy.

This is a clumsy example but you could foreshadow an event like the death of the protagonist's mother at the climax by mentioning other people's dead mothers, by mentioning the death of the grandmother, by hinting that the mother is ill, etc. These are all fairly explicit means of foreshadowing the death. Less obvious would be making a theme of the cycle of life, death, growing up, independence, great loss, change or whatever the deeper meaning of the death is supposed to be.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2014-06-15T00:44:21Z (almost 10 years ago)
Original score: 6