18.34: 17 Years of Foreshadowing

What can Normal Gossip teach us about foreshadowing and artful storytelling? 

Thinking about the 20 books that make up Howard Tayler’s Schlock Mercenary, our hosts discuss foreshadowing—our favorite examples, and our go-to tricks for structuring our own work. What does foreshadowing actually do for our work? Do we even need it? Well, yeah… it’s like invisible narrative scaffolding. But it’s also like a red herring. It’s so many things! Listen to us discuss the best ways to use it in your own work, in a way that sounds true to your own writerly voice and vision. 

Homework: 

Take a throwaway gag from one of your favorite things and outline a story or scene in which the throwaway turns out to have been foreshadowing. 

Thing of the Week: 

Babel by R. F. Kuang 

Liner Notes: 

Game of Thrones, Fonda Lee, Fermi paradox, Normal Gossip

Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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