Yes, foreshadowing is tricky, because too much can give away the ending in advance, and not enough means the ending can feel unearned; not properly connected to the rest of the story. And of course there isn't even a set level of foreshadowing that works for all readers at all times, because a reader in a quiet room who is fully immersed…
Yes, foreshadowing is tricky, because too much can give away the ending in advance, and not enough means the ending can feel unearned; not properly connected to the rest of the story. And of course there isn't even a set level of foreshadowing that works for all readers at all times, because a reader in a quiet room who is fully immersed in the story is more likely to pick up on foreshadowing than is someone reading more casually in a distracting environment...
So, the foreshadowing is pretty minimal in the story, but there is some. I start the story with his mother (as his coworkers share rumours about her), and I end with his mother. (I like symmetry.) I mention that she collects Beanie Babies at the start, and we see a Beanie Baby pop out of the iHole just before the end (so if Thierry threw her Beanie Babies into the iHole, then maybe he did something worse). Around the midpoint of the story, we can see that Thierry is having some kind of breakdown, he is smashing up all the furniture in the house and feeding it into the iHole. (And we have heard the rumours that he lives with his mother, so the reader should be getting a little concerned for her at that point.) When the police stop him the second time, he wonders is it about his mother, and when it isn't, he is so relieved he lets them find drugs on him. The scene is deliberately ambiguous; is he concerned that the police are going to tell him something bad has happened to his mother, or is he worried because he did something bad, involving his mother, which he is glad the police don't know about? And in the early discussion with Sharif they discuss how someone could dispose of a body. (Not in one piece.) So he has thought about this. And towards the end he cuts up his futon, the last piece of furniture in the house, so we know he has a knife. Plus, he already threw a jury down the iHole. My hope was all these oblique points come together in the reader's head at the end. (Er, yeah, it's dark. But it's a story about darkness, among other things, and how people hide from the darkness, including their own darkness; how people can want all the unloved and difficult stuff in their lives to just go away forever.)
Yes, foreshadowing is tricky, because too much can give away the ending in advance, and not enough means the ending can feel unearned; not properly connected to the rest of the story. And of course there isn't even a set level of foreshadowing that works for all readers at all times, because a reader in a quiet room who is fully immersed in the story is more likely to pick up on foreshadowing than is someone reading more casually in a distracting environment...
So, the foreshadowing is pretty minimal in the story, but there is some. I start the story with his mother (as his coworkers share rumours about her), and I end with his mother. (I like symmetry.) I mention that she collects Beanie Babies at the start, and we see a Beanie Baby pop out of the iHole just before the end (so if Thierry threw her Beanie Babies into the iHole, then maybe he did something worse). Around the midpoint of the story, we can see that Thierry is having some kind of breakdown, he is smashing up all the furniture in the house and feeding it into the iHole. (And we have heard the rumours that he lives with his mother, so the reader should be getting a little concerned for her at that point.) When the police stop him the second time, he wonders is it about his mother, and when it isn't, he is so relieved he lets them find drugs on him. The scene is deliberately ambiguous; is he concerned that the police are going to tell him something bad has happened to his mother, or is he worried because he did something bad, involving his mother, which he is glad the police don't know about? And in the early discussion with Sharif they discuss how someone could dispose of a body. (Not in one piece.) So he has thought about this. And towards the end he cuts up his futon, the last piece of furniture in the house, so we know he has a knife. Plus, he already threw a jury down the iHole. My hope was all these oblique points come together in the reader's head at the end. (Er, yeah, it's dark. But it's a story about darkness, among other things, and how people hide from the darkness, including their own darkness; how people can want all the unloved and difficult stuff in their lives to just go away forever.)
Hope that answers your question...
It does, thank you very much! Definitely there on a second reading, now that I know what to look for :)