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".
If it's done well, you won't even see it coming. The imagery gets buried into banter in a way that a normal person wouldn't realize it. However, just because we don't see the imagery, doesn't mean it doesn't affect our unconscious minds. That's the trick. All this imagery might be something you work out after reading, but before reading the story, it should just seem obvious and normal, not disruptive and telling.
The Prophecy
The speech is naturally very similar to the prophecy. The prophecy usually predicts a piece of the story. In some cases, the prophecy is anonymously given at the beginning of a chapter or book, ascribed to some fantastical manuscript you never will read. In other cases, it gets introduced during the writing. Either way, it's usually cryptic, and it usually comes off like a riddle, never meaning quite what you think it'd mean. In many cases, the protagonists will think it means one thing, only to have the prophecy mean something else in the end.
Way too many fantasy novels use prophecies to add foreshadowing in their story. In some ways, it's nice. It leaves you guessing, it gives fans something to do, and it adds expectation for the future. It can also quite nicely tie a long winded story together, bringing a prophecy from the beginning full circle as it's fulfilled in the end. It makes it feel like you're not writing chapter to chapter with no plan, even if you are.
It can also be very poorly done, especially when you toss prophecies into a world that ought not to have them. There are worlds where prophecy makes no sense. As much as we want everything in our protagonist's lives to be some kind of fated encounter ordained by the gods, I have to say that it really does get overused. So use it cautiously, and seriously think about whether it's worth putting prophecies into your story.
Clever Names
A lot of authors like to play with names. Some go to extremes, picking a name for each character based on aspects of that character. Even I do that. In case you didn't catch this, Averygail in Jane Averygail (the MC of my story Hawtness) is a complex anagram that if you translate to Hebrew means "one who is like every other girl". But not everyone has the immense sophistication and complexity hidden in their writing that I do.
Some clever names are just surface clever. She wears red so I'm going to call her rose! My character is beautiful so let's call her Bell! Others might pull on literary similarities. This character acts like this girl in this famous literary work, so I'll give them the same name. The names themselves might be hints into what the protagonist does. He's going to go to space, so let's call him Skywalker! In that case, what does Hancock do? He signs stuff... jeeze.
These names can get cleverer the more obscure you get. Pulling from different languages, you can pick names that mean certain things. You can also pick names "ironically" ala Little John.
I'd recommend you don't get too carried away with names. If you pick obvious ones, you can end up ruining the plot. Who'd have guessed my romance between a guy named Romeo and a girl named Juliet would end in tragedy? Just about everyone. Plus, clever names can get downright embarrassing if you try too hard. Not every name needs to have a literary meaning. People don't name their kids knowing that in 15 years that kid is going to go on an adventure that makes his name ironically meaningful.
History Repeats
The "history repeats foreshadow event" occurs a lot in large scale world-building fantasies. 1000 years ago, man and elf had to unite to stop the forces of darkness! So let me guess... the forces of darkness are back, and almost certainly the man and elves are going to have to unite again.
The history repeating motif uses a story, historical lesson, or event... and then suggests that event is likely to come again. You don't know that history is going to repeat, and in most cases, the point is that the repeating history is different this particular time. In this case, we have your hero, and in this case, that hero has something different than all the previous people who went through the same trial... which is basically the fact he's the protagonist. Protagonists have it great...
I mean, how often does a legendary sword get described, only for the protagonist to acquire that sword later in the story? We can basically expect that if you're going in depth early on about some person, object, or place... that's because it will come into play later on. It also helps make things not seem random. It's pretty crappy to give the protagonist supersword one chapter after we even knew supersword existed.
Anyway, in subtle cases, a smaller story occurs within the large story. You mind find a subplot between two scullery maids in the background foreshadowing the larger event. The MC's might learn something from this subplot which they end up using when the situation actually affects themselves. For example, a scullery maid (I'm picking on scullery maid right now, we'll name her Rose), is caught stealing. Rose gets her head cut off just when the protagonist arrives in town (we'll name it Rose).
Later on, the protagonist (We'll name him Rose) ends up getting accused of stealing, and the people of Rose end up trying to put Rose to death just like they did to the other Rose in the beginning. You know the consequences of Rose's accusation because Rose saw Rose get Rose's head cut off in the town of Rose for stealing from the noble (we'll call him Rose). I hope I'm making myself clear.
So yes, history repeating can be as subtle a set up in order for the characters to know the consequences of an action one of them will be accused of later, or a recap of exactly how the story will unfold. Either way, it's a key feature to keeping things from feeling random, just don't make them too obvious, or people are just going to roll their eyes and expect it. Oh, you mentioned this secret, unobtainable power. So the protagonist is going to get this power? Yeah... thought so.
Colors, Flowers, and Metaphor
Like names, you can also pick colors (like rose) and flowers (like that red flower, you know the one, carnations), in order to have a greater meaning. Get out your star constellation charts, astrology books, and color biographies, because you can go on for ages finding meanings to things. Red means fierce or aggressive, blue means calm or sad, green is the color of urine. Yours isn't? Okay, just me then. The point is that you can snazzy up your world and wrap the descriptions in metaphor.
Have a woman whose husband is going to die in a few chapters? Dress her in black. Have a man who is targeted to die? Make a red ink stain show up on his shirt. It's those kind of little details that can give a story flair. Many of them, 99% of people will never realize. Half the things they do see, you'll have done completely by accident.
And while we're at it, you don't have to think of all of these foreshadow events while you're writing. Many of these details can be added after the fact. You should have a plan, and as you're writing you may see a pattern you like and want to turn into a habit, but ultimately, don't kill yourself trying to make every action mean something on a grander scale. Sometimes a scarf is just a scarf, and sometimes a scarf is symbolic of the choking feeling the protagonist will feel in the relationship he has with his wife, only coming off after he leaves her and truly feels free from her clutches (Let's call the scarf Rose).
Little did they know...
Little did they know is used to convey the entire concept of narrator foreshadowing. These are situations where a narrator flat out tells you craps going down. In 1st person, you can get away with this by having it as the 1st person explaining what happened in the past to the reader. He can then drop all kinds of hints and ideas of what he didn't know then, or what he will experience later. "Little did I know, my encounter with that merchant, Rose, would shape the rest of my adventure".
Because this kind of foreshadowing is easy, too many people do it. "Little did they know, things were about to get worst." Besides being vague, how many times did you see this in a story? It's there to tug the reader along, especially when the story has been without conflict for a while. However, truly think about why you're using this structure.
If you're using a narrative foreshadow because even YOU think the story is boring right now, but you want to assure the audience that things get more interesting in the next chapter, I'm just going to throw it out there and say, maybe you should rewrite the chapter so it isn't so boring? People don't want to slog through your story to get to things that are interesting. They want your story itself to be interesting. And don't give me that "But this is needed for characterization!" There are plenty of ways to put characterization into a story, either during the action, or in scenes that still make the story sound interesting. Interesting characterization doesn't need foreshadowing to keep people interested.
That said, narrative hints can also help form the atmosphere of a story. A few quips here and there can help build up that feeling that craps about to hit the fan and your protagonist's life is about to go crazy. I think that's the main point to take away from this entire chapter. Ultimately, your foreshadowing should be there to set the mood, the atmosphere, and the expectations of your readers. Foreshadowing is NOT a promise that the story will get more interesting, you swear, any chapter now. No... it's just one more tool in the story designed to enhance it, not inform it.
Oh, and by the way, if you take the first letter of every chapter from this very Wattpad 101 book in order before this one, it spells out Foreshadowing one oh one. Now that foreshadowing. (P.S. It doesn't spell that, I'm lying to you, and I'm sorry.) This is ElementalCobalt, signing out. (from now on, let's call me Rose)