by Will Dunne
ABOUT THE EXERCISE
This technical exercise can help you use foreshadowing to strengthen your story's throughline and heighten suspense. The exercise might be most useful during revision as you focus on how story events connect and inform one another.
DIFFERENT TYPES OF POINTERS
When used near the beginning of a story, foreshadowing can hook us into the dramatic journey by enabling us to sense the type of showdown that looms at the end of the line. The most fundamental way to foreshadow conflict is to introduce equally strong forces and set them into motion on a collision course where neither can avoid the other. This typically translates into willful characters with opposing and uncompromising needs.
In Sam Shepard's True West, for example, we meet two very different brothers: Austin, a hack Hollywood scriptwriter with a family and middleclass lifestyle, and Lee, a loner and drifter who makes his living by burglarizing suburban homes. The ever-feuding brothers now find themselves face to face for the first time in five years. Austin has come here to housesit for Mom while she is on vacation, and Lee has shown up unexpectedly. As they clash over the rules of Mom's house and the keys to Austin's car, we begin to witness the competition that keeps these brothers at odds. We also sense a major and possibly violent showdown between them by the time the story ends.
Foreshadowing can be useful not only at the beginning of a story, but also throughout as a way to build suspense. Besides putting two equally matched characters on a collision course, you can use pointers like these to stimulate suspense:
i. Provoking trait, quality, or condition. In David Auburn's Proof, while Catherine is having a heart-to-heart talk with her father, a famous mathematician who went mad, she suddenly realizes that her father died a week ago and that she really has been talking to herself. As a result of this discovery, we will now wait to find out how much of her father's madness she has inherited.
2. Provoking action. In Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart, Babe shoots and nearly kills her husband Zachary. When the police her ask why, she explains that she "didn't like his looks." As a result of her action and unusual rationale, we begin to wonder why Babe really shot her husband and what legal fate awaits her.
3. Statement of willful intent. In August Wilson's The Piano Lesson, Boy Willie announces his intention to sell the family piano, which his sister wants to keep. He warns that if she resists his plan, he will cut the piano in two and sell his half of it. His words create suspense as we wait to see whether he will actually carry out the threat.
4. Announcement, warning, or prediction that something will occur. In Ed ward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? though it is now the middle of the night after just getting home from a party, Martha informs her husband George that guests are coming. As we watch Martha spar with George over this news, we wait for the doorbell to ring and worry about what will happen when the guests arrive. In William Shakespeare's Macbeth, the three witches make psychic predictions throughout the play that foreshadow future events, such as the brewing mix of victory and evil that will put Macbeth on the throne as the "King hereafter." Because these prophecies are fueled by supernatural powers, we wait to see how and when they will be fulfilled.
5. Revelation or discovery about the past. In Edward Albee's The Goat, or, Who is Sylvia? (Notes Toward a Definition of Tragedy), Martin, a famous architect, decides to tell his best friend a secret of many months: Martin has been having a love affair with a goat. The startling revelation leads us to wonder how Martin's marriage, career, and life will be affected.
6. Unanswered question. In John Pielmeier's Agnes of God, an innocent young nun gives birth to a child found dead in her arms. She claims to have had a virgin birth, but cannot remember it or the infant's death. Martha, a court-appointed psychiatrist, wants to find out what really happened. The mystery generates suspense as we wait to find out who impregnated Agnes, and how and why the child died.
7. A "loaded" object or other physical element. In Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, Nora is being blackmailed over a forgery that she committed years ago and that her banker husband Torvald knows nothing about. Now a blackmail letter incriminating Nora sits visibly in a locked glass letterbox that only her husband can open. We wait to see when he will notice the letter and how he will react to its news.
Each of these pointers leads eventually to a payoff in which a question is answered or an expectation is fulfilled-often in a way we didn't expect. The delay between the setup and payoff varies from story to story, but is generally long enough to give us time to think about the significance of the pointer and to anticipate-and often worry about-the different outcomes that could result further down the road.
DIFFERENT TYPES OF PLANTS
Placed strategically throughout the script, plants are often key to making the events of the dramatic journey-particularly extreme, unusual, or surprising events-believable and understandable. Plants do this by establishing important character and story facts as true before they are needed to motivate or explain story action. Plants can also add to the emotional impact of such events by enabling us to witness them with broader vision and deeper insight.
Unlike the pointer, which is meant to draw attention to itself, the plant works best when at first its special significance for the future goes unno ticed. The more seamlessly the plant is inserted into the script, the more satisfying the payoff it can produce later. A clumsy plant defeats its own purpose by making its presence feel contrived and its purpose, predictable.
With skillful preparation, a dramatic writer can make anything believable, whether it's a woman who could force her invalid mother's hand onto a burning hot stovetop in Martin McDonagh's play The Beauty Queen of Leenane, or a man who could fall in love with a life-size inflatable doll in Nancy Oliver's screenplay Lars and the Real Girl. Most of the dramatic elements that can become pointers can also become plants. Instead of arousing anticipation, however, their purpose is to stimulate reflection and acceptance. Plants can be fashioned from such elements as these:
I. A trait, quality, or condition that will become important later. In the film adaptation of L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz, we see the Wicked Witch acting skittish around water. This behavior may not seem significant, but it's a clue to her greatest vulnerability and ultimate fate: if the Wicked Witch gets wet, she melts into a puddle. In Eugene O'Neill's play Long Day's Journey into Night, we learn that mother Mary Tyrone had a restless sleep last night and poor appetite this morning. Such discoveries are preparing us for the news later that Mary has lapsed back into morphine addiction.
2. A belief or attitude that will motivate later action. In Tracy Letts's play Bug, Peter believes that, during his stint as a soldier in the Persian Gulf War, the army subjected him to secret experiments that have left him infested with bugs. This belief lays the groundwork for a claustrophobic nightmare in which he and his lover Agnes find themselves surrounded by bugs and military predators.
3. A statement with hidden significance. In the opening of Clifford Odets's play The Golden Boy, Joe talks about a boxer who died in an automobile accident and later describes his own love of fast cars as "poison in my blood." Throughout the story, he is warned about the dangers of fast cars and speeding. As a result of such plants, we accept Joe's death in an automobile accident as a grim inevitability.
4. A rule or ritual that will be violated later. In John Patrick Shanley's Doubt, when Father Flynn arrives for a meeting with Sister Aloysius, he must wait outside her office door until Sister James arrives because it is taboo for a priest and nun to be alone. This plant adds fire to the confrontation between Flynn and Aloysius at the end of the play when he storms into her office without a third party present.
5. A physical element that will gain importance later. In David LindsayAbaire's Rabbit Hole, a mother sorting and folding her child's freshly laundered clothing does not seem to have much significance. Yet this clothing will add an emotional wallop to the discovery later that her child died eight months ago and th
at she finally has reached the point in the healing process where she can take his things to Goodwill.
Planting can help you avoid deus ex machina endings in which the solution to a problem is an improbable coincidence that has little to do with preceding story events. By introducing facts and objects before they matter, you will have the elements in place to fashion a credible ending that grows out of what has happened in the story.
6. An event that is not what it seems. In M. Night Shyamalan's film The Sixth Sense, Malcolm arrives late for an anniversary dinner with his wife at a nice restaurant. She ignores him, gets up in tears, and leaves. Her departure seems like an understandable reaction to having been stood up for an important date. However, it is actually one of several plants throughout the story that prepare Malcolm and the audience for the surprising discovery that he is dead.
7. An event that will be mirrored later on a larger scale. In John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, Lennie doesn't know his own strength and accidentally kills a mouse that he was only trying to pet. Unknown to the characters at the time, this event presages Lennie's accidental killing of Curley's wife. Because of the plant, we understand that the childlike Lennie was only trying to pet her soft pretty hair.
Each of these plants eventually helps explain an unusual, extreme, or surprising development later in the story, or adds emotional impact to it. As with the pointer, there is a delay between the setup and payoff. In this case, the delay gives us time to accept a certain character or story fact as true so that we have an established context for understanding the payoff and accepting it as a credible event in the world of this story.
FORESHADOWING AN IMPORTANT CONFLICT OR EVENT
You can repeat these steps as often as needed to strengthen your story's throughline:
i. Identify a conflict or event that would benefit from foreshadowing. This conflict might be an important event that you want us to wonder or worry about before it happens (Boy Willie threatens to cut the piano in half). Or, it might be an event that is so extreme (Lennie kills Curley's wife), so unusual (the Wicked Witch melts), or so surprising (Malcolm is a ghost who doesn't realize he's dead) that we might find it difficult to understand or accept as credible. Or, it might be an event with an emotional impact that you wish to heighten (Flynn confronts Aloysius in her office without a third party present).
2. Choose a general foreshadowing technique. Think of the event as a payoff. In doing so, you can no longer look at the event in isolation. Rather, you must see it in relationship to at least one earlier event or element in the story. This setup may already be in your script in a form that requires further development. Or, there may be no relevant setup in the script yet. Either way, you need to decide what you want the setup to accomplish. Will it be a pointer that stimulates our anticipation of the payoff? Or, will it be a plant that prepares us to accept the payoff when it occurs later?
3. Choose a specific foreshadowing device. Brainstorm a few "what if' scenarios to explore dramatic possibilities and determine how you might integrate foreshadowing into the unique throughline of your story.
If you wish to develop a pointer to make us anticipate the payoff, ask yourself the following questions:
• What if the pointer were a provoking trait? Which character would you focus on? What trait would you highlight, and how?
• What if the pointer were a provoking action? Who would do what to make us anticipate a payoff of some kind?
• What if the pointer were a statement of willful intent? Who would state this objective to whom, and why? What would the objective be?
• What if the pointer were a statement about the future? Who would make this statement, and why? Would it stem from observation, logic, intuition, or psychic power? What would the forecast be?
• What if the pointer were a fact from the past? What would the fact be? Who would reveal or discover it, and why?
• What if the pointer were an unanswered question? Who would be involved? What would make the mystery interesting?
• What if the pointer were a "loaded" object or other physical element? What would it be? How would it be revealed or discovered?
If you wish to develop a plant to prepare us inconspicuously for the payoff, consider the following:
• What if the plant were a character trait that will gain importance later? What would the trait be? How would you show it to us without indicating its future significance?
• What if the plant were a character belief, value, or attitude? What would it be? How would you show it to us without giving away its future importance?
• What if the plant were a statement with hidden significance? What would the statement be? What significance would it appear to have at the time?
• What if the plant were a rule or ritual that will be violated later? What would the ritual or rule be? How would you establish it?
• What if the plant were an objector other physical element that will gain importance later? What would the physical item be? How would it be introduced at first?
• What if the plant were an event that is not what it seems? What event would occur? What would appear to be happening at the time?
• What if the plant were a smaller conflict that mirrors a larger conflict later? What would the smaller conflict be? How and why would it happen?
4. Decide where in the script this setup should occur. Find the place or places in the script where the setup could most naturally occur and revise the scene accordingly. As you do this, keep in mind what expectation you are trying to trigger or what information you are trying to establish. Make sure of the following:
• The importance of the payoff warrants the size and scope of the setup. Don't devote too much attention to preparing a simple payoff, or too little attention to preparing a complex or unusual one.
• The setup is dramatically strong enough to fulfill its function as either a pointer that triggers our expectations, or a plant that prepares us to understand and believe something that will happen later.
• There is enough delay between the setup and the payoff for the setup to take hold.
WRAP-UP
Foreshadowing is central to dramatic storytelling because it highlights the relationship between past, present, and future. Important and complex events may require multiple foreshadowings throughout the preceding script. Simpler events may need only a single pointer or plant to be effective. As you develop your story, continue to look for opportunities to use foreshadowing to build or reinforce the throughline.
THE QUICK VERSION
Flesh out the decision that your main character faces at the crisis of the story
BEST TIME FOR THIS
After you have a working sense of the characters and the world of your story
THE MOST REVEALING MOMENT OF A DRAMATIC STORY
A dramatic story takes us into the time when the main character has to make the most difficult decision of his or her life. From the moment the story begins, certain forces are set into motion that will push and pull the character to this ultimate turning point: the crisis decision. It is a "crisis" because each alternative poses a loss as well as a gain and because it forces the character to weigh what really matters most. It's the moment on the old television game show Let's Make a Deal where the contestant has to choose between the last set of doors. Will the character choose Door Number i or Door Number 2? It all depends on who the character is and how the story has unfolded so far.
The crisis decision is neither easy nor predictable because, from the character's point of view, it is not a choice between good and evil. If it were that simple, it would not pose a crisis, since characters always choose what they perceive as good-even when they are doing something really terrible that they later regret. One who murders, for example, may at that time see the act as a necessary means to justice. He chooses this "good" over the evil of allowing injustice to prevail by not murdering.
The crisis decision is more complicated because it forces the character
to choose between the better of two goods or the lesser of two evils. If the choice is between goods that are important and if the selection of one automatically eliminates the other, the character faces a true crisis. Suppose she is in love with both Jules and Jim and must decide which one to marry. If she chooses Jules, she loses Jim. If she chooses Jim, she loses Jules. Each alternative is a gain and a loss, and the final decision will reveal a lot about her and what she most values.
The character also faces a crisis if the decision is between two evils and if the choice to eliminate one enables the other. Suppose that the character is a rural drifter during the Depression era when resources are scarce. Suppose also that his best friend is mentally challenged, has killed someone by accident, and is now being sought by an angry mob. If the character turns his friend over to the local law, the friend will be handed over to the mob for a cruel death by lynching. If the character helps the friend escape, the friend might accidentally kill again. Neither situation is good. The decision about which is more tolerable will show what the decision maker is really made of.
Act i usually introduces or at least suggests the alternatives that the character will face during the crisis-for example, she meets Jules and Jim. The rest of the story can then more deeply define these alternatives and make a compelling case for each-for example, this is what she loves about Jules and that is what she loves about Jim. If each case has been well presented through story events, the character will end up at the threshold of the crisis not knowing-at least for a moment-which way to turn. It will be the ultimate moment of truth in an unpredictable story.
The crisis decision is the core moment of the story. It's where all roads lead, step by step. Most importantly, the subject, theme, character, and plot all come together in this ultimate turning point where each option is both a good choice and bad choice for this particular character in this particular situation. If you don't understand your main character's crisis decision, therefore, you don't really know what your story is about.