More on Foreshadowing
Brent, I think you’re absolutely right several places in there. (Though I feel like I should object on principle, so there’s more conflict to our narrative. Good storytelling, and all that.)
Yes, there are things I can get away with now that I couldn’t before—or ones I didn’t try to get away with before. One big one is flashbacks. In my early years as a writer, published and unpublished, I stayed far away from flashbacks. Partially because I’d been told to do so, and partially because I’d seen them done poorly from a large number of other new writers. There are good reasons to stay away from them, and the advice is good. If you do flashbacks the wrong way, you’ll break the flow of your narrative, risk undermining the tension of your story, confuse the reader, and basically make a big old mess.
Then Pat Rothfuss comes along and does a narrative-within-a-narrative where the entire book is basically flashback, and it works really well. I do know, however, that Pat had a lot of trouble selling that book of his to start. (Though admittedly, I’m not sure if that was the flashbacks or not. I seem to remember he added the frame story later in the process, and that the huge length of the book was what was scaring people away at first.)
I guess this brings us back to the first rule of writing: you can do whatever you want, if you do it well. Regardless, I decided—after some deliberation—that I’d use flashbacks as an extensive device in The Way of Kings and the rest of the series. None of these were in earlier drafts of the novel, however, because I knew that many readers (and editors) have a knee-jerk reaction against flashbacks because of how likely they are to screw things up. Now that I’m established, however, I feel that people will trust me when they see them.
(One thing I’m leaving out is that I think I’m a better writer now than I was before, and if I’d tried these flashbacks during earlier days, I’d likely have flubbed them.)
You talk about foreshadowing, and make some great points. One thing I think that I want to bring up is the idea of nesting reveals. I always try to have a nice spectrum of types of plot twists and revelations in the book. Some are easier to figure out, others more difficult. My experience has been that some readers want to try to guess what is going to happen, and others do not, but both appreciate a legitimate twist in the story. (One that was clearly foreshadowed, but not made obvious.) As so yes, there are going to be different types of readers, and some will see the foreshadowing that others will not. Some won’t care at all if the story just twists unexpectedly (and without explanation) while others will consider it a put-downable offense.
In the spirit of tossing questions back and forth, then, let me ask you this: I just mentioned above that you can do anything in your writing if you do it well. Yet I’ve also talked a lot about the importance of foreshadowing. What do you think? Is it ever justified to have a total Deus Ex Machina ? (For those who don’t know, this refers to a major plot twist—usually involving the heroes/protagonists being rescued from danger unexpectedly—that is not explained or foreshadowed.) How might one do this well? Or is it an exception to my rule? Is my rule even really a good rule?
(Also, all, please forgive typos in this post. Just back from book tour after a long day traveling, and wanted to make sure I got this posted. But I’m kind of drooping here.)
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