I loathe foreshadowing in novels

[kz_blogorambling]

I'm probably revealing myself to be even more of an unimaginative literalist than you already knew. But I have to say it: I hate hate HATE foreshadowing.

As in, there you are, reading along, approaching the end of the chapter, where the protagonist is saying "see you later" to a friend. Then the author ends it with "Later Jane would reflect back on that simple parting and feel grief that the goodbye had not been warmer--for that would be the last time Jane ever saw Joan."

Or the character goes to bed looking forward to all the great stuff planned for the next day, and then says "If I'd known what tomorrow would have really held for me, I'd never have gotten out of bed again."

It makes me want to throw the book across the room.

Oddly enough, though, I'm fine with omniscient narrators. And I don't seem to mind novels that start in reverse--you know, the main character is lying dead at the bottom of the lake with a boat anchor around the neck, and then the author shoots you back a few months or years or decades and you have to read the whole book to figure out exactly why the poor chick is turning into algae at the end. That seems to be a popular structure these days and I don't mind it.

It's the stupid hints I loathe.

Comments

[montfort.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I think it's dependent on the style of the writer. Have you read "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt? Not only does she give away pretty much the whole story in the prologue, there's a bit towards the end where the main character says "That was the last time I ever saw so-and-so." Considering the circumstances, and past events, it makes you wonder why he never saw that person again. Great writing.

[crankyasanoldma.livejournal.com]

It's been years since I reread that, but if I recall correctly, that line comes near the end of the book, after all the main action of the story has happened. I mean, it doesn't refer to Bunny, does it? Tartt doesn't go on, in the next chapter, into a plot line that tells you why he never saw that person again. Saying they never saw him again was simply ending that part of the story.

If the person was Bunny, though, then forget my musings above. She was being suspenseful, and I can't remember being annoyed by it.

Re:

[montfort.livejournal.com]

No, it wasn't about Bunny; it was about Julian. Richard and Francis have lunch with Julian (after the letter is discovered) and then leave him with Henry at the Lyceum. As they walk away, Richard notes that that was the last time he ever saw Julian, which leaves several options open for why he never saw Julian again.

I need not mention them, if you remember how they came to never see Bunny again...

In any case, the Julian/letter plot was still a very active thread in the story at that point.

[thinksnow.livejournal.com]

If I'd known what you were going to post, I'd have open LJ hours ago. Well, minutes ago, anyway.

[silly-narziss.livejournal.com]

haha, couldn't agree more... my blessing, keep throwing books! :-) aad

[thirdreel.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't exactly call that foreshadowing. "Shadow" suggests something a little more mysterious, something that implies a future event while leaving the reader to speculate what it really means. I think in an ideal case, foreshadowing is barely seen when it's happening, but when the event comes to fruition, the reader feels a little dumb--"I should have known!" But that's the kind of foreshadowing that won't risk making the reader feel dumb, and that's why it annoys me too. I want my readers to feel dumb every once in a while. And I can handle feeling dumb myself.

[crankyasanoldma.livejournal.com]

Did I use the wrong term? Blame my mediocre small-town education--and I didn't take very many lit classes in college. To my great shame.

So what *is* the literary term for what I am talking about?

[thirdreel.livejournal.com]

Heh. Hooray for mediocre small-town education. Though I have learned more about writing from actually teaching it than I ever did at Kearney High.

I think the best literary term for that is "flash forward." It works the same way a flashback does--it takes you out of the moment in the story to give you another moment that clarifies it.

It's still kind of cheap.

[sadillac.livejournal.com]

Had I known that Cranks was going to get all literary in this post, I never would have opened the comments.

::d&r::

[magdalene1.livejournal.com]

Yes.

And I also hate Anita Shreve, I think. Just read The Last Time They Met. Threw it across the room.

[crankyasanoldma.livejournal.com]

Jesus, I didn't warn you? I LOATHED that book. It's been sitting on my bookshelf for over a year because I refused to pass it on to anyone I considered a friend. I finally unloaded it at my garage sale.

I don't mind some Anita Shreve books, but that one is unforgivable. Especially by me, the girl who hates ambiguous endings.

I blame myself. I should have warned you.