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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48150
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48150
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

## Foreshadowing is your friend.

Your example of Harry Potter isn't quite right. Chapter One is titled _The Boy Who Lived_. Now that's a bit ominous. Magic is hinted at on page 1\* and is outright on page 2. "You-Know-Who" is first mentioned on page 5. By page 11, when the name Voldemort is first mentioned, we already know he was a danger and now believed to be gone (but it's not certain). The chapter goes on to describe Harry's parents' deaths, that he survived, and that he was being handed over to his abusive aunt and uncle. By the end of that first chapter, we know there will be a story about good vs evil that involves the little infant who somehow survived the villain who murdered his parents.

Your book doesn't even have to be as direct as this middle-grade/young-adult series begins. Just have some strange stuff in the background. Newspaper headlines, whispers on the street, TV news reports. Make it clear that this is a world where XYZ _can_ happen, even if it hasn't happened yet in your story.

Show us this world where magic, darkness, and death lurk around the corner. People live their lives normally in the meantime, but they know these things are possibilities. Or maybe they don't know...but they hear of strange happenings (things that happen to other people). What's important is that your reader knows they're possible. Then it won't come as a surprise.

\* _My pages are from the American trade paperback edition._

Original score: 29