If you forgot what the basic foreshadowing forms were, or are just reading these posts from newest-oldest, take a quick hyper-jump over to “The Art of Foreshadowing” and report back in 0008 minutes. May the odds be ever in your favor.
You’re back! Fabulous, darling. It’s like you never left.
Now into the more complicated stuff…
There are 4 Grand Categories of Foreshadowing (To be paired with another form).
- Opposing
- Repetitive
- Preview
- Instinctive
For a quick refresher, in my incredibly technical jargon:
Big Thing – The thing the foreshadowing foreshadows
Small Thing – The thing that foreshadows the Big Thing
Hold onto your butts, ’cause here we go…
OPPOSING is when the Small Thing is contrary to or opposite of the Big Thing. Cool things using this include Environmental things, like one morning it’s all sunny, then at the end of the story, it’s raining (such as in every rom-com ever). Other cool Opposing things include Verbal foreshadowing, where maybe one character calls another by a mean nickname every time they meet, then at the end, they call them by their real name. *aww, I got all tingly! How cute!
REPETITIVE is when something happens or shows up over and over again. This is already part of the Teddy Bearforeshadowing form, but this category can be applied to just about literally everything. (*wow sentence). This is when the Small Thing happens or shows up over and over again. In order for this to be a foreshadowing, it must all lead to the Big Thing. Thematic stuff is also repetitive, but it is not this. Wrong number. Check back later. NOW… One (me) could say that Katniss’s Mockingjay pin is an example of Repetitive Symbolic. It is a symbol for rebellion (little things Katniss does) and turns up more and more and more, especially with Katniss’s Mockingjay dress in Catching Fire, finally climaxing to the symbol, not just of rebellion, but of The Rebellion.
Next up, we have PREVIEW. This is when something happens that is a lesser version of the big thing. This also covers things like Environmental or Scenic, but can, in general, be applied to many things. Something like an argument can climax in the Big Thing as a full-blown fight.
Lastly… oh, boy… I’ve got a bad feeling about this…
INSTINCTIVE! Yep, I spoiled it already. This is when someone has a good or bad feeling about something, then that something, or something similar, is the Big Thing. This is basically every Jedi in Star Wars. This can branch into Instinctive Warnings (both serious and jokingly), What If?‘s, and probably something else I can’t think of right now because I’m writing this off a sugar crash from literally pouring sugar over a bowl of strawberries.
Ta da! You made it through. Now you’re an expert in foreshadowing vocabulary. Wow. Yippee. *winces in pain at SO MUCH VOCABULARY.*
Stay tuned next time for how to incorporate foreshadowing into your story.
Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.
Maggie K. West 