The Truth about Foreshadowing

In a novel, foreshadowing are those little hints the writer includes early on, previous to plot twists or big events. It's the foreshadowing that makes the reader say, "Oh yes, this makes perfect sense!"

Or let's say your child's favorite toys are cars, and when he is 12 and goes to get fitted for glasses and notices a sharp sports car parked in the optometrist's parking space he says, "I'd like to be an eye doctor and afford a car like that." You aren't surprised when this child decides in college to use his biology degree to go on to optometry school. Foreshadowing is how parents get to be so smart.

I used to tell my kids I had eyes in back of my head, and when they were little they believed it. I remember one little boy lifting my hair up just to check. When really it was me the English major paying attention to the compressed foreshadowing in daily life. And it's easy with kids since they leave their clues all over the place.

 Remember the South African giraffe on my blog header several years ago?

A giraffe, coming down the mountain like I was, the writer leaving her solitude and isolation to enter the community of bloggers. I thought it was why I felt the giraffe represented me and my blog.

Until I realized it was more than that. The giraffe was foreshadowing my hidden desire to go exploring in the great big wide world.

Another bit of foreshadowing:

My husband and I would seek out different kinds of restaurants in the Salt Lake area, ones that made us feel outside our usual circle. We'd sit by the window, look outside and I'd say, "This doesn't even look like Salt Lake. Let's pretend we're someplace else." And we'd talk about where else we'd like to be. Italy, or the South of France, or England. Although to be truthful, Utah in its greenest seasons never looks like any of those places.




When we announced our plans to sell everything and move to Guatemala, anyone paying attention to foreshadowing had to know it made perfect sense.