In my last blog, I looked at the importance of creating tension around the dramatic question of a story. For example, will Luke and Obi Wan get the Death Star plans to the rebels? Will Indie find the Ark of the Covenant? In simple term, tension is created by putting the main character in increasing levels of jeopardy and letting them struggle towards their story goal. The Main Tension is the spine of the story and creates a kind of vicarious anxiety for the character and curiosity about the outcome of a story. It’s what holds the audience’s or reader’s attention.

In this blog I want to look at another dramatic technique to hold the audience/readers attention – that of foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is about creating an audience/reader expectation about what will happen in the future. This is the essence of suspense. There are different ways of doing this.

Chekhov’s gun is one approach. In an 1889 letter to another playwright, Chekhov wrote: “One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.” Chekhov’s view was that every element of a story should be relevant to the plot. So a loaded if shown must go off later in the plot. At which point the audience will connect that moment back to that initial revelation.

Once you know about Chekhov’s gun you will notice it all the time in the movies. It is a technique used over and over again in the movies. Take the opening scene in “Back to the Future”. Marty enters Doc’s place and the camera pans across the room full of clocks. Did you notice the Marty’s skateboard nudge the yellow box under the table with the plutonium symbol or the newsbroadcast in the background about stolen plutonium? Later in the movie Doc and Marty are confronted by the irate terrorist in the Mall park coming for their stollen plutonium.

But I bet you didn’t notice in that first scene one of the clocks had a man handing on the second hand. And what happened to Doc in the climax scene when he connects the wire to the clock for the lightning strike?

That whole opening scene is also about telegraphing Marty’s interest in rock music, which will be relevant later when he plays Johnny B. Goode at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance.

Telegraphing is another technique for creating audience expectation. It can be simple dialogue about a character’s intention – a vow, a threat an expression of what the character is going to do or it can reveal skill that will be vital later. And if the audience already knows more about what is waiting for him/her then it can create what is called dramatic irony.

For example, can you remember Psycho when the detective is walking innocently up the stairs, where we know Psycho is waiting for him. Or what about that music in Jaws that was played every time the shark was about to strike. The audience knew it was there, but not the characters. This is dramatic irony.

Dramatic irony can also be used for comical purposes. For example, the romantic comedy, “You’ve got mail,” the plot relies of the two main characters not knowing each others identity. The audience must therefore wonder what will happen when they discover the truth. Its is this curiosity that holds their attention.

Lastly, there are setup and payoffs a device in which the writer gives a hint of what will come later in the story. The setup is the foreshadowing and the payoff is the later action associated with it. For example in Jurassic Park Ian Malcolm (played by Jeff Goldblum) warns of the dangers complex systems that can break down. Later Alan Grant (played by Sam Neil) finds the dinosaur eggshells and echoes Malcolm’s comments ‘Life will find a way’.

Foreshadowing is all about creating audience/reader expectations about the future story line. Whether it is by telegraphing, set-up/payoff or Chekhov’s gun, it’s all about capturing the expectations of reader/audience and their hopes and fears for the outcome of the story. As such it is a great technique for holding audience’s/reader’s attention.