How do I make "foreshadowing" more relevant in the early going?

It is good that you have identified a problem that seems to permeate your writing.

If I understand the feedback you are getting correctly, the problem is that your beta readers simply don't care for the first third of your novels.

The reason, as you describe it, seems to be that for some reason you feel that, before you can tell someone's story, you must take about a third of a novel to establish who they are and how they became who they are. I believe that is not necessary.

Readers today are familiar with military bootcamps, and they have seen enough movies about nerds that they have a clear image of what the personal history of a nerd might look like. You don't have to go into all that and can get right to the point.

In most novels today, the exposition does not take longer than half a chapter, and it is done parallel to the inciting incident. Bella in Twilight moves to a new town on the first page, we learn a few sentences about her family background, and on page 20 or so she has already bumped into her vampire classmate. There is no third of the novel that explains how her childhood made her into the reclusive loner she is at the novel's beginning.

The Bildungsroman, as it was written in the 17th and 18th centuries, with its sprawling narrative of the protagonist's whole life, is no longer a bestselling formula for fiction today. You can write it, and I'm sure there are still readers who love to read a few hundred pages of the protagonist going through their military education before the actual plot starts, but most readers today want to begin in medias res.

So either kill your darlings or weave in the backstory in a more natural manner, but begin your narrative where the plot begins.

posted over 6 years ago

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System‭

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I've had a similar problem and here's an orthogonal answer to what you probably expect ... :

"I don't know what your main character wants."

^^ Has anyone said this to you? ^^

Some thoughts that may relate to the question:

I believe readers are willing to be told who to root for and why, but it has to be clear from the get go. If the MC is likable (or relatable) and wants X, then the readers buy in to see if they get X.

And then, if this requirement is met, the foreshadowing events can be added as things that the main character is involved in, in some fashion, in pursuit of their goal.

Here's an example from my project:

The reader needs to know about a medical device used late in the book - it is part of the key to outwitting the villain. Originally I had a few throwaway lines about the device in chapter 6 so that the reader would 'know it.' But it didn't register with anyone, and the beginning of my book was a lot of that sort of 'bootcamp' information (great analogy!).

When I figured out my main character's moral struggle, and reworked the arc around it, I was able to introduce an accident ending chapter 4 that keeps him from the thing he wants. Now he needs medical treatment, and this medical device is crucial to his survival. Since I am writing in his PoV, I make the experience of the medical treatment visceral. It's a much stronger scene, the reader is buying in because this accident is the thing keeping him from his goal, (which is what they are hanging their experience of the story on), but my ulterior motive is to get them to remember this medical device.

This new scene/treatment solves three problems - increases tension (visceral, life and death hospital scene), reinforces what he wants and what stands in his way, and allows foreshadowing of the device in a way that is remembered by the reader. It doesn't feel like boot camp, it feels like story. (But this version hasn't been beta tested yet.)

Answer: Examine whether its clear from the beginning that your main character is working toward a goal. Examine whether 'every' incident (used loosely; there are multiple purposes of scenes) serves that goal in one way or another. Hammer the necessary foreshadowing events into those scenes in a well-crafted way.

Mark's advice that every story is at its heart a moral struggle ... That's my answer. :)

posted over 6 years ago

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DPT‭

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You are not foreshadowing correctly; they cannot be unrelated to the story currently happening.

For example, you can foreshadow the more experienced Bill getting killed before the novice Charlie with a war video game in which the more experienced Bill is surprised and beaten by the novice Charlie; but this game is in good fun, remembered fondly by both, and fits into the early narrative.

I suspect you are being too heavy-handed, foreshadowing should not be noticeable, it is intended to resonate later, not leave readers wondering. Quitting a job heralds quitting a marriage, cheating on a time sheet heralds cheating on a spouse, losing track of a kid in a mall (but finding them) heralds the kidnapping of the same kid later. Witnessing a fatal heart attack in a restaurant heralds her father's heart attack later.

But if your reader notices "unrelated events" you are not foreshadowing correctly (and it sounds like far too often), your foreshadows should be very limited, to just very important future incidents because you want readers to remember them: And (as studies show) few can remember more than five or six such incidents. Three is more likely. And they must fit and flow with the narrative as told, the reader should not wonder why they are there.

posted over 6 years ago

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Amadeus‭

3156 reputation 2 1399 613 37

Bootcamp is a harrowing experience. (Been there, done that.) You can make it interesting simply by having your character struggle through it, mentally and physically. It's usually more interesting to read about some sort of struggle, than about smooth going.

Then, any foreshadowing you need to do, you can incorporate into the bootcamp struggle. Enemy's movement can be discussed, a particular drill that would come up later in battle might be the thing your character can't master straight away, etc.

Issues shouldn't feel unrelated. If something happens, it should mean something to one of your characters. If it's not relevant, you can introduce it later, when it is. You can even flashback later to something that happened during bootcamp, but only really became relevant halfway through the next part.

posted over 6 years ago

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Galastel‭

1885 reputation 81 551 319 3

You can do almost anything if you make it a story. Want to foreshadow something that will happen in chapter 5. That's fine, as long as you do it in the context of a story in chapter 1. A novel is a long story made up of many smaller stories. Each turn, each event, each incident, is a story in its own right.

People will follow what they perceive to be a story. Once you start dumping facts on them that they will need to know for the story you are going to start telling later, you will lose them. That does not mean you can't give them all this information, it just means that you have to do it in the form of a story. If you make it a story, they will follow that story for its own sake. Later they will realize that that earlier story was part of a much larger story, which is want you want. But it has to be a story in its own right at they time they are reading it.

Reader's patience is zero. Reader's appetite for story is endless.

posted over 6 years ago

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Mark Baker‭

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