“Well,” said Pooh, “what I like best,” and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn’t know what it was called.”
–A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
Of course, Pooh is referring to anticipation — moments where your imagination fills your mind with emotions about an event that has yet to happen. In this case, Pooh anticipates the pleasure of a mouthful of honey. We can anticipate negative feelings in our readings as well, when authors use foreshadowing to alert us to potentially calamitous events to come — unbeknownst to the character in question.
Foreshadowing in different flavors
Foreshadowing can be overt, almost in-your-face:
If I’d seen it in a crystal ball, I never would have believed what happened next.
The creature crawled out from its slimy lair and slithered behind the door to wait. It knew she’d be home, soon. Soon.
What Charlie couldn’t possibly know was that death would be joining them for lunch.
Or, foreshadowing can be much more subtle:
The ice formed early, that November. (Perhaps foreshadowing a tragic event, such as a death.)
Her lima bean plants eventually withered and died; the brown pods now husks, empty and dry. (Foreshadowing infertility or a miscarriage.)
Rain water trickled unnoticed, into a minuscule fissure in the foundation. (Foreshadowing the breakup of a long marriage.)
And now, over to you
There are a few ways you can participate in this challenge. Feel welcome to modify, change, or otherwise adapt this challenge to meet your needs as a writer. No judgement.
- Write a new poem, story, post, or piece of flash fiction that contains an element of foreshadowing.
- Choose any of my examples of foreshadowing above, imagine what happens, and write a new piece that reveals the event the foreshadowing alludes to.
- For a twist, combine one overt and one subtle example of foreshadowing from the lists above and reveal what happens in a new post, poem, story, or bit of flash fiction. For example, what sort of story might you imagine when you combine, “What Charlie couldn’t possibly know was that death would be joining them for lunch.” and “Her lima bean plants eventually withered and died; the brown pods now husks, empty and dry.“
- Write a piece in which you foreshadow a happy or joyous event.
- Write a new piece based on the foreshadowy opening line of The Long Fall of One Eleven Heavy, a longform article by Michael Paterniti: It was summer; it was winter.
Above all, always have fun with your writing. Looking forward to reading your work — you could say, we’ve got a bit of…anticipation.
