So if you remember my post about cultivating inspiration, you’ll know that I’ve been re-reading all my favorite books and using them to launch myself whole-heartedly into my own WIP. I’m now reading my favorite book on the planet, A Prayer for Owen Meany, which I’ve read at least twenty times. You’d think by now I’d have the entire book memorized, yet every time I read it, I see something I never saw before. This time, I’ve been acutely aware of foreshadowing.
If you’re not familiar, foreshadowing is a literary device authors can use to hint at some action or meaning to come later in the book. It can be handled in many ways, from a subtle allusion to a 2×4 upside the head. Earlier this year, our own Laurie Boris wrote a post about the most ham-handed way to foreshadow, aka telegraphing. As I’ve been reading Owen Meany, however, I’ve been struck by the more ingenious ways to foreshadow, ways that — had I not already read the book twenty times — I would probably completely miss.
It got me to thinking: why do we foreshadow? Why is it attractive for the author? Why, when it’s well done, is it gratifying for the reader? Continue reading “Foreshadowing: Layers of Writing, Layers of Consciousness”
It’s really nice to have support when I write. My entire body supports me. My spine keeps me upright in my chair. My butt anchors me there (sometimes too long), and of course my hands and eyes connect me to my computer via the keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Obviously, I could not write without the aid of my body, but sometimes it takes that support too far and ends up causing me trouble with typos. How so?
First it’s my fingers. They’re very helpful. I should provide a little backstory and say that I learned to touch type in high school — home row, QWERTY, and all that. I never have to look at the keyboard to type, just keep my eyes trained on the screen and go. Because of that, I type fast, and my fingers know whole words after so much repetition. I rarely have to think about typing H-E-A-D, I just think about head and my fingers do the rest. 
Most of us here, I think, have commiserated from time to time about plugging along slowly on a book, getting down a few hundred words a day instead of a few thousand like we’d prefer. We’d like nothing better than to turn that tap on wide open, getting the full-blown flow of words that come so fast we can barely keep up. If only we could control that tap… but how?
For the past nine months or so, I’ve been working on a book that almost refuses to flow. I love the story, get excited about the ideas floating around in my head, but every time I sit down to work on it, it’s like pulling teeth. I don’t know what it is that makes it difficult. I have much of the story line mapped out, I know the arc of the characters, I know how it all ends, but I feel like I have to almost literally drag the details out of my keyboard. Nine months and five chapters. Not a good pace.