Foreshadowing and the "Two-Shoe Contract"
"In your article on foreshadowing, you talked about misleading the readers -- getting them to expect one thing but then delivering another. Isn't there a danger with this kind of foreshadowing of giving them broken promises instead?"
- Ken, Darwin
I know exactly what you mean, Ken.
If I foreshadowed the death of a character at the beginning of the novel but in the end they escaped death, the readers might believe that I had raised their hopes (if that is the right way of putting it) but then failed to deliver.
There is a famous device in storytelling called the "two-shoe contract". If you hear a shoe hit the floor in the room above, the implication is that a second one will drop soon. The first shoe is the event being foreshadowed and the second is the event itself.
What that means in plain English is that every promise made in a novel (or in any kind of fiction) must be delivered upon.
It also means that every big event should be promised in advanced - i.e. foreshadowed - to get the most dramatic mileage out of it.
And so, to answer your question, you should never promise that a gun will be fired if it never actually is. However, it is perfectly acceptable to:
- Foreshadow the fact that the gun will be fired.
- Imply that Character A will use it to kill Character B.
- But actually, in the end, have Character A use it on himself.
Remember that foreshadowing does not have to be about surprising the reader. Very often, it isn't. But it can be fun when it is.
Harvey
