Wattpad 101: Your guide to the world of Wattpad

Foreshadowing 101

So you find yourself stuck in a hard place. You don't want people accusing you of using deus ex machina to solve all of your problems. PS. Deus Ex Machina is an event in writing where someone or something saves the protagonist suddenly out of the blue, from an anvil suddenly landing on the bad guy's head moments before he kills the hero, to the hero suddenly discovering a power he previously didn't have, to a random character never mentioned before showing up and saving the day.

That's generally considered bad writing. You don't want readers to be confused when things suddenly get solved or something suddenly happens with no warning. However, at the same time, you don't want your story spoiled. You don't want a predictable story, and you don't want an unpredictable story, you want a predictably unpredictable story. Sounds like a bit of an oxymoron, doesn't it?

If you've read my book so far, you've already touched on the way to achieve this. It's the same way you describe a main character without throwing a mirror scene in your reader's face. It's the same way you describe your story without info-dumping. It's the same way you create a well-rounded character without ending up with a Mary Sue or a FIS (Female Inconsistency Syndrome) character.

The answer to all those things? Subtlety. Don't get me wrong, subtlety isn't easy, and the solution I'm giving you isn't simple. It requires practice. It requires work. It requires going back and editing, because you probably won't get it the first time. It require beta testers. It requires asking people if they caught the points you were trying to make.

In every story, you need to ask yourself how to be subtle. However, subtle isn't a static state either. Based on your reader base, you need to ask yourself how subtle you need to be. If you're not subtle enough in a mystery, your audience will figure it out half way through and be bored. Too subtle, and they'll get agitated that you threw an unbeatable mystery at them. Subtlety is nice in an adult novel, but you don't want to make your audience feel like they're stupid either. If you're writing it for kids, chances are you need to be a lot less subtle.

One way of achieving subtlety is through the use of foreshadowing. Those are hints about the future. They can come by the raising of a flag ("It's my last day until retirement."), or it can come from having the character possess a name, article of clothing, or phrase that suggests something in the future. A person named Rose ends up getting poisoned by a flower. Something like that.

So here is another list on ways to add subtlety to your writing.

The Speech

In the speech, you have someone basically predict the future. Ever see a disaster movie, only for the story to focus on a crazy guy wearing a sign and screaming about the end of the world? It's a bit like that. Usually someone with little or no credibility will end up making a prediction about future events. The protagonist and other characters will either ignore him completely, or it'll be tossed away.

In some cases, the speaker will be one of the protagonists themselves. In other cases, the narration can be a speech, as in someone talking at the start of a story about what they'll experience next. They'll talk about their future, often in poems or riddles, hinting at the scenes to come.

In still other cases, it shows up in a conversation riddled with imagery. A good example of this comes from Shaun of the Dead. The entire plot of the movie gets summed up in a single conversation in the beginning. Shaun's best bud is trying to cheer him up, so he lists off an order of drinks, describing how they'll spend the night. The remainder of the movie ends up follow the drink prediction perfectly. At World's End did the same thing with bar names, each bar representing the experiences they have leading up to "World's end".