Foreshadowing is common enough in storytelling: the burning scar of Harry Potter, Peeta Mellark's ability to frost cakes, all the hand motifs in Arrested Development, everything in LOST. A well-placed note of foreshadowing can come back to the reader as a smack on the head or a revelatory twist ending. One of the most well-known foreshadowing techniques gets its name from the playwright Anton Chekhov. He famously said that if there is a rifle onstage in the first act, then it absolutely must go off in the second or third act. If it's not going to go off, it's got no business being present.
This object, skill, or other source of foreshadowing is referred to as Chekhov's gun.
Photo by Vince Alongi
Often, Chekhov's gun is present enough in the story that its later importance isn't coming completely out of nowhere, but it is innocuous enough that the reader won't notice it until a second or even third reading. J.K. Rowling has a history with Chekhov's guns in the Harry Potter series, as well as in her first book for adults, The Casual Vacancy. Viewing The Usual Suspects repeatedly after having your mind blown by it the first time can reveal some interesting firearms from Chekhov's arsenal as well.
The key of a successful Chekhov's gun utilization is that the metaphorical gun actually goes off in the second or third act of the story. If an element of foreshadowing does not come to fruition later in the story, it's known as a red herring, a popular device in mystery novels.
Can you think of any other examples of Chekhov's gun from novels or films?
PRACTICE
Practice foreshadowing by writing a scene, early in the first act of a story, and slip in Chekhov's gun. Don't fire it yet (or if you do, don't let it hurt anyone). Just make it present somehow.
Write for fifteen minutes. When you're time is up, share your practice in the comments section. And if you share, be sure to give feedback to a few practices by other writers.
Happy writing!
Not sure if this is what’s intended, but here goes.
He was late. He rushed up the stairs, tripping on the tread as he was about to enter the lecture hall. As he did so he knocked a bronze vase onto the floor. Cursing his clumsiness he hastily replaced it and placed the fallen flowers back into it as best he could. He stumbled down the aisle and found a seat near the front of the auditorium. He felt that all eyes were on him and he shrank into his seat. The lecture continued without further interruption. As he left he surreptitiously checked the vase. All seemed well except for a small dent in its rim. It was hardly noticeable and he thought nothing of it and went home. He was fascinated to hear on the evening news an account of an altercation between the lecturer and a number of his students early in the very lecture he had attended. He was tired and soon retired to bed. It had been a long day and he felt he needed rest rather than his customary recreation on the computer.
I can very clearly see that the vase is significant but I can’t for the life of me work out the connexion between the altercation and the dent, try as I might! Frustrating!
The altercation is significant later, I envisioned a deadly attack on the professor after the lecture, with the vase as a weapon. The dent is there to suggest that it might have been used. I was tired when I wrote this so it’s not as clear as it might have been. The altercation should have been after the lecture, not before. The crux of the story is that the protagonist will be wrongly accused of the crime based on his fingerprints on the vase.
Ooo, that sounds like a good plot.
“Bill, this is exactly why I wanted to get you maid for this place. Look at it!”
Bill tried not to roll his eyes at his sister’s scolding. His “place” was no messier than your typical engineer bachelor pad, but he decided against informing her of this.
“I don’t think it’s that bad, Christina,” he said as he scratched the back of his head, looking around at his apartment. Sure, the trash needed to be taken out and his schematics were spread all over the tables like he was trying to reenact A Beautiful Mind, but at least you could see the floor.
“Trust me, it is. This is what happens when you don’t date, you know.”
Ah, of course, the inevitable, though obscure, link to his love life. Or lack thereof.
“Ouch.”
“I’m serious. If you had a girl over, you’d take better care of this place.”
“So you’re saying a few one-night stands is just what I need?”
He watched as his sister, coming in at a whopping 5′ 1″, continued her exploration of the apartment. She made clucking sounds as she surveyed the number of Ramen Noodles packages in his small kitchen and shook her head at the amount of mail collecting on the granite counter.
“Are your bills paid?” she asked, indicating the envelopes addressed to a “Bill Liu.”
“Uh, yes…”
“Good, then I’m gonna start by getting rid of all these recyclables,” she said, unceremoniously grabbing the whole stack of letters and tossing them into a plastic bag.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“Oh please, Bill, these have more dust on them than your Playboys.”She said that like it was a bad thing.
Christina took hold of the trash bag and her “recyclables” and marched out of the apartment, ostensibly to throw them all the way. Though Bill secretly hoped she meant to just drive them all, including herself, all the way back to her Boston home.
Christina was back in two minutes, though, brushing off her hands as if to say “job well done.”
“You know, I could have needed those,” he said petulantly, though he knew they had been composed mainly of Anthropologie magazines (for the previous tenant) and Sweepstakes letters.
Christina made a scoffing noise. “Let’s be real, Bill. You’re not even on the same planet as the rest of us, let alone writing letters to people. Now, come on, help me move all your little drawing out of the way.”
“They’re aeronautical engineering schematics, Christina!”
“Whatevs.”
I assume that there was a letter of significance in the ‘recyclables’.
Ellis wasn’t an unattractive kid, he was just awkward and quiet. Like so many teenagers, he spent too much time thinking, his black thoughts turning inwards, constantly tormenting himself over trivial inadequacies. As a consequence, he was sullen and avoided the other students at school as much as possible. All apart from one. She was a golden girl, popular and beautiful but gentle and
open, completely the opposite of himself: Jessica. It was as if she existed for him in a permanent halo. When she walked past, along the buzzing corridor, his gaze, although covert, devoured every single fragment of her. He had been watching her like this for years and he was exhausted by the hollowness of his adoration. He needed recognition. He felt compelled to make some sort of connexion, he didn’t care how small, he just wanted her to notice him, to witness in his eyes the awe in which he held her. Ultimately, he wanted her to love him like he did her.
He hadn’t planned it exactly but he took his chance. As she walked past on her pilgrimage to class, he allowed his books to tumble from his hand. They slid like a wave breaking at her feet. She looked at him and down at the floor, looked back, cocked her eyebrow at him, without the the hint of the gentle smile she used so readily for others, nearly everyone, he thought, and walked on.
I love your descriptions! I feel as if I know Ellis already. I hope you give these characters their own book someday 🙂
Thanks for the compliment. I doubt it, though. My tiny mind, only manages ten minutes at a time before it…. Oops, there is go again…
Darcy Peters closed the door behind her, and faced a typical Colorado morning. Slender pine trees speckled mountains in the distance, the crisp air cooling her curly crop. Slipping into the driver’s seat of her dad’s faded blue pickup truck, she navigated out the driveway, taking all the familiar beauties for granted. Blue birds and robins tweeted merrily from their cozy nests, and the remains of yesterday’s snow glistened on the mountain tops.
Darcy noticed none of it.
She was sick of this place, sick of having a college degree on her desk that could not provide the jobs promised to her, and she was sick of living at home. Mother and father were growing tired of her, she could tell. Not because she was such a cumbersome twenty three year old, is was simply because she was a twenty-three year old. Yet without a job she could not move out, and the absence of money and new sights was wearing on her and her family. As the truck bumbled down the gravel road she saw her least favorite neighbor waving at her to roll the window down. Darcy sighed and rubbed her big brown eyes that did not sparkle any more. “Good morning Mrs. Hubert.”
Mrs. Hubert tightened her faded pink robe around her and looked down her nose as though she were Cleopatra and not the most ill-tempered woman in town.
“Darcy Peters, how late did you stay up last night?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know of what I speak; your bedroom light was on until the ungodly hours of the morning. I couldn’t sleep a wink.”
Darcy bit her tongue and lightly tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “I did not know I was bothering anybody. Your house is five down from mine.”
“And does that change the fact that in my old age my eyes are very sensitive to light and I could scarcely sleep? I declare you young people can never find enough ways of exasperating your elders.”
Darcy rolled up the window, and drove away. “It’s a wonder you’re still alive.” she mumbled to herself, half-convinced that the nosy old lady could probably hear her through the glass.
Nothing had changed, not even her tiring neighbors.
Does the old lady save the girl’s life by being nosy?
Haha not quite. But I have a mystery series in mind for these characters so I cannot reveal! Yet it will be a long time before I a tackle task like that.
A movie with great foreshadowing for me was The Sixth Sense.
Very true. No gun, but brilliant nonetheless.
I think this is a little heavy-handed, but my timer beeped so here it is:
In the darkness under the quilt, Janie’s gray eyes opened. What had been different in the attic? A nagging voice insisted she had seen something in the space that should only contain cobwebs and echoes. Seeing the images in her mind’s eye, Janie retraced her steps.
The attic stairs had crashed down when she pulled the cord in the hallway. No surprise there.
She had climbed the thirteen wooden steps, staying in the middle of the rungs to avoid having to use the frail banister. So many things could lead to disaster. The rickety railing could, at the least, leave her with splinters in her hands; or it could collapse under her weight, dropping her to the floor below if she dared rely on it for support.
Janie turned her head as she remembered looking around the room. The arch window that filled the south wall was still cloudy with age and dust. Studs roughed in walls where the house’s previous owners had considered dividing the cavernous space into bedrooms for their ever-multiplying brood.
No boxes or trunks obscured any part of the attic; so standing at the top of the stairs, she had been able to see there was no one hiding among the spiders.
Breathe in. Relax. Breathe out. Remember.
She was standing at the top of the stairs. Feeling relieved. No one was there.
As she turned to go back down the stairs, a sunbeam broke through the morning clouds and lit up the west corner of the attic. There, sitting on a stud that marked the top of an empty door frame, was a small pink jewelry box. If she opened the lid, the ballerina would twirl and Swan Lake would play.
Wow. I would love to read more!
I thought of one. Fight Club. The gun is in the first scene and it goes off in the second to last.
She was hot, no doubt.
She felt the lingering eyes of guys, scanning every inch of her body. She saw the lust in their eyes as they did unspeakable things to her in their minds. But she had learned to avoid such things as a rule. You would too if every, EVERY, man you came across gave you the same look. In the beginning, she really enjoyed all the attention, but as years wore on that very same attention started to annoy her.
‘For once, just for once, I would like a guy to not check me out, not lust over me the minute he sees me, but just look at me.’ she thought dejectedly. Walking from the girl’s dorm to the classroom in the main building was always the most excruciating thing as she had to walk past the dorm for guys.
‘I wish I had wings to fly like a bird……
‘Lucky bastards, birds, even though they’re so beautiful to look at, people love them for their talent of singing,’ she thought.
Hugging her books closer to her body, she hurried towards the main building which was now just a few paces away, when suddenly someone came rushing towards her and banged into her. The two fell on the ground but the other person quickly sprang up and offered to help her up, and collected her books off the ground.
“I’m so so sorry. I was running away from….” he was saying when he stopped abruptly. He looked at her, his eyes not wavering from her’s, never moving to see her brilliant form, as he said in awe
“Wow. Forgive me for saying this but you have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen in my whole life!”
She was startled to find herself blushing for the first time in her life.
I think “Rosemary’s Baby” is full of them. There’s the Time Magazine cover that says, “Is God Dead?” and there’s the book about Witchcraft that her friend leaves for her, and she overhears her neighbors arguing (“She just has to be young, healthy, and not a virgin!”) when, looking back or reading (or viewing a second time) you kind of go, “Oh! THAT’S why!”
I’m glad you brought this up. I read that foreshadowing is easier in the revision stage, when you already know what happens. You can take a completed story and go back to the beginning and slip in some hints here or there.
Cool prompt, Liz! Not sure where this story came from or is headed, but it was fun practice anyway:
Victor knocked on the door several times, rapid-fire. He was out of breath from the brisk walk over. He glanced up and down the street several times, then knocked again.
Now he heard a voice inside. “I’m coming!”
The door opened, and Robert stepped aside as Victor pushed in. “What’s this all about?”
Victor walked down the hall into the den. A fire was burning low in the fireplace, and the sofa was lined with blankets and a pillow.
Victor turned to face Robert as he followed in. “I just found out about the letter. How could you do that to me again?”
“Calm down. It’s not what you think.” Robert eyed the fireplace, then walked over and picked up a poker. Prodding the embers and adding a new log, he continued.
“Julia was just thanking me for help I gave her on a project last week, that’s all.”
“It sounded like more than that to me!”
“Have you actually read the letter, or talked to Julia?”
“Well, no. Not yet.”
Placing the poker back on its stand, Robert stood up and held up his hands, palms out. “Why don’t you get the whole story, get some sleep, then we’ll talk about it?”
Victor scrunched his eyes shut while running a hand through his hair. Looking back at Robert he said, “I’ll do that. Then I’ll be back.”
Victor wheeled around and strode toward the front door. “This won’t go away easily like last time”, he called over a shoulder.
Robert peered out the still-open door and watched Victor disappear down the street.
Felix, my brothers messenger hawk, was sitting on a post, bunched up in his wings. Why the bird was so ever loyal to him I didn’t know, but it had always followed him wherever he went. It was a bright night, the clouds were sparsely placed in the sky with moonlight solemnly flowing through. I went and sat on the stool next to the post, laid down my sword and cape coat, and gazed.
We would have to go to battle soon. My brother and I. we’d been through so many. Every time I had his back, every time I knew what move he would make and I’d be there to follow through. Sometimes we would get a few cuts here and there, but the scars healed and we would be off again. But why did this time feel different. The mission didn’t at all seem to be any more dangerous. The reports gave out favored odds. So why, can’t I sleep?
We’d both been able to handle ourselves well, even without dad. When the house got burned down and mom died too, we survived. We were survivors, against this war stricken world. This hell-hole.
Of course, that didn’t mean the road was all peachy and sweet. We had our rough times, our pains, but we got through them, both of us. Us . . .
Might I really be worried about that!? Bro was a good man. He was strong, and his heart was steadfast. That’s right! Sometimes he would pick me up, or dare me to when I was stubborn. He’d be strong enough to carry on if anything were to happen to me. I knew that, but even so . . . there might still be things to be said.
Felix let out a faint holler, stretched out his wings, and flew next to me. His clear eyes looked into mine. Then, after a moment or two. I ran to get a paper, wrote out a note, and attached it to his leg. I smiled, sent Felix off, and then finally went to sleep. It was the best I’d had in a long time. Perhaps my last.