On Writing: how to foreshadow [Stranger Things l LotR l Harry Potter l Game of Thrones]

IF YOU WANT TO SEND THINGS TO ME (address):

Tim Hickson
PO Box 69062
Lincoln, 7608
Canterbury, New Zealand

The artist who design my cover photo:

The artist who did my Avatar/lots of other art:

I am so excited to see what you guys have made :D

[vicenteortegarubilar]

I hope nothing happens to Anakin's leg and arm.

[youtubeuniversity]

Imagine a story where it's made clear early that A Wizard Did It... but the plot is figuring out which one and why.

[VoidicHerald]

Tim, you cause me great anguish. I have many a time intended to cry "a wizard did it!" or "hail Mishka!" only to be interrupted by visions of my friends perplexed reactions. Please become mainstream so I don't feel alone

[sarasamaletdin]

A lot of people misunderstand Chekov’s guns as if you have a gun introduced you must fire it, when it is about if you are planning using a gun you should introduce it first. It is theatre prop advice. So people often criticize works based on speculations not happening when some introduced elements are not used. But that is a different issue.

[ggcalyx]

Have to smile every time "A WIZARD DID IT!" appears :'D

[youtubeuniversity]

"Putin arriving with an army of bears" sounds like it has repetition potential.

[fakjbf]

Tolkien also had a problem with how Shakespeare handled the prophecy of that MacBeth wouldn't be vanquished until Birnham wood would come to Dunsidane castle. In MacBeth a bunch of soldiers tied tree banches to themselves as camouflage. So when Tolkien was writing The Two Towers he had the Ents conquer Isengard as a way to one up the Bard. And when GRRM was writing A Feast for Crows he had one of the characters talk about mythological talking trees, right before a bunch of Northmen wearing tree branches for camouflage ambushed them.

[williamreturner]

I can't get enough of Gandalf Jazz.

[DarkMaguini]

I swear your "A WIZARD DID IT" joke gets me every time, even when I'm expecting it it makes me laugh XD
Love watching these sorts of videos, you're very interesting and entertaining to listen to!

[terragthegreat]

Fuck, dude, I never realized the 'peace in our time' quote was a WW2 thing. Steve must've known the reference, having grown up in the '30s and fought in the war, so that totally adds to why he's distrustful of Tony's actions. He's seen what the 'peace in our time' mentality has led to.

[antonartemenko]

Chekhov's name is Anton. Pavlovitch is patronymic, meaning his father's name is Pavel.

[lukeskywalkerthend]

Foreshadowing is honestly one of my most favorite things in Storytelling! Thanks for this amazing video explaining it, Tim! :)

[KuriMaster]

Let me just say, those have a second tangent screens are brilliant.... they force me to pause and go back in hopes of reading them out of curiosity.... when people do that you KNOW they are interested in what you say.

[Pedro.Soares]

The dead direwolf at the beginning of GoT can be seen as the "death" of the old generation and the direwolf pups represent the young generations potential.

[Asram]

*LIFE IS STRANGE SPOILERS AHEAD* A really interesting foreshadowing I like in Life is Strange is during Mr Jefferson's class at the start. He says "I could frame any one of you in a dark corner, and capture you in a moment of desperation, " which perfectly sets up what is revealed about him later on. Plus small details like his vulnerable model photos hung around the school, and then later on with his mysterious relationship with Kate.

[justafaniv]

I was really hoping for a Russian themed twist at the end! You set it up so well with the offhand prophecy of dying watching Russian propaganda and the theme returning with Putin riding his bear army.

[assassintwinat]

Probably my favorite instance of foreshadowing I've ever read was in _Fever 1793._ It's extremely subtle, since not only does it happen in the first two pages of the book, it's never explained in the story itself. The story begins right away with the main character-- Mattie, a teenage girl living in Washington-era Philadelphia-- being rudely woken up by a mosquito buzzing around her and hitting her head when she jumps from it biting her. Special attention is given to this in the line: "I sat back down, wide awake now, my noggin sporting two lumps-- one from the ceiling, one from the mosquito." The bite is significant, of course, because yellow fever is/was spread by mosquitoes, and Mattie contracted yellow fever and nearly died. It's brilliantly subtle, however, because at no point in the story is it _explained_ that yellow fever was spread through mosquitoes. Everyone thought it was spread through the air or from drinking bad water. At no point in the story is there a breakthrough discovery of how or why someone gets yellow fever; the breakthrough is simply that fevers broke and the epidemic ended when the frost arrived. Nowhere is the cause of yellow fever given until the very last pages of the book, and in the appendix rather than the book itself. Without outside knowledge of how yellow fever is contracted before reading the book, the reader gets a good sense of the same mystery and panic as many characters in the book, since no one knew where this epidemic was coming from, how people were catching it, why it was happening, and especially not how to treat it. Anyone could get sick-- parents, doctors, even small children-- and die from it at any time. And if you _do_ know how yellow fever spreads before reading the book and _do_ notice and remember Mattie's mosquito bite in the very beginning, it still gives you an immense amount of tension because, despite caring for sick family members throughout the entire book, Mattie is one of the last people to get sick. You'll spend the whole book waiting for Mattie to get sick, and in that time, you watch countless others around her get sick and die, not only increasing the impact but upping the stakes.


Though maybe I just have good memories of this particular piece of foreshadowing, since I was the only one to ever notice or point it out to my 8th grade English teacher after she'd been doing lessons on this book for years and got a whole lotta praise for it.

[Poisonedblade]

"You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

This line is more about...
(Spoiler Alert!)

Batman. At the end of the movie he is framed for crimes he didn't commit, so he willingly becomes the common enemy of Gotham in order to unite its people.

[jellybeanzilla]

Dude I just found your channel and I cannot even begin to tell you how helpful this is for me to flesh out my ideas. I have many ideas and putting them together in words rather than visuals is a struggle, but you are informative and well spoken. I very much appreciate everything you have put out so far and cannot wait for more. Also, "A wizard did it" is my new life motto
Thank you

[omegagilgamesh]

"And lo and behold, the next episode: *Fish Giant Karate-Chop!!!*"

That was hilarious, maybe more for me than many others, because I studied traditional Chinese Kung Fu for many years, and we had several inside jokes about us secretly being a Ninja school and others involving Karate-chops.