Foreshadowing?

[SimonDoom]

I was going to title a couple of my stories I Am Going To Make You Love These Characters And Then I Will Kill Them, but then I thought, nah

Sounds like the Game of Thrones writing playbook.

 

[Britva415]

Sounds like the Game of Thrones writing playbook.

Nah, none of those characters were lovable. Not after the first season, anyway

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Nah, none of those characters were lovable. Not after the first season, anyway

I loved almost all of them. I can count the ones I liked on one hand and still hold my wine.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I think it depends on if you have already planned your twist?

No, it doesn't at all actually.

I use foreshadowing often, particularly in a longer story. Most often I will be writing a scene and come up with some metaphoric idea, then realize that I should foreshadow it and go back earlier in the story and edit something in to do so. This vertical integration is the main reason that one really should never post chapters as they are written. You should always finish your whole story before you publish any chapters for it.

Keep your plot tight. Don't make it meander like some self-indulgent soap opera.

 

[SimonDoom]

Nah, none of those characters were lovable. Not after the first season, anyway

I don't agree at all with that. The show had tons of, if not necessarily lovable, admirable characters that you grew attached to and had to watch die. In the very last season the show killed off some very decent and popular characters. I won't name them to avoid spoiling it for any of the few souls who haven't seen it but still might want to.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Lots of people foreshadow in their titles I find. I'd go gay for you by Bi_Cathy and There were four in the bed by @joy_of_cooking immediately spring to mind. My own The Third Date: Clueless of Cotham I guess also foreshadows what is going to happen with the title (yep, a loose adaptation of "Emma" featuring three dates).

There were four in the bed is by @TheRedChamber (sadly)

 

[Erozetta]

Foreshadowing requires much more effort than I'm normally willing to intentionally put into my erotica.

My non-erotica, however, tends to have a healthy dose of it.

Sometimes accidental foreshadowing happens, and it's awesome when it does, but I'm not writing murder mysteries or thrillers or anything long enough to really benefit from foreshadowing so, for me and my stories at least, adding it just for the sake of adding it feels cheap and forced rather than clever.

If I felt it improved the story or made a murky aspect clearer (and I wanted it clearer, I usually prefer murky) I would put in the effort. But unless the work is over 15k words (or part of a series), it's unlikely to impact the story enough to be worth the effort to me.

 

[THBGato]

There were four in the bed is by @TheRedChamber (sadly)

OFMG! So embarrassed!

Massive apologies to you both, especially @TheRedChamber

It is an awesome story too.

 

[AchtungNight]

Not every story lends itself to foreshadowing. I’ve used it sparingly if at all.

 

[MyBareTorso]

I'm a big fan of "playing the long game"...I make mention of many characters and situations that will come to fruition much, much later. For instance, I did the lead-up to a Xmas story that I knew I had to wait a year to write. I don't know if any readers notice or care (or if there's any payoff), but it's certainly fun for me. You can do pretty much whatever you want here, which is why I find it so entertaining.

 

[RetroFan]

I did it in 'Learning to Love Louise' as a way to foreshadow that one of the three main characters - Jane - is dead all along. Some clues of this was that she only interacts with Paul (the main male character), none of the other characters acknowledge her presence or speak to her, the clothes she is described as wearing are somewhat out of date and she seems to flash in and out of the story.