Time Manipulation
Examples of time manipulation in stories include dreams, memories, flashbacks, foreshadowing, and parts of a story that come out of normal sequence. Time manipulation creates three effects depending on how it's used: suspense, tension, and mystery.
When a story happens over several years or happens because of a past event, flashback can be used to help us connect the dots. Flashback is a scene in a movie or novel that is set in a time earlier than the main story.
Flashback isn't just a character telling us about a past event. Real flashbacks transport us back to the event, so we see it as it happens and hear the real conversation, not just a character’s memory of what was said, just as we do when describing present-day action.
Flashback does several things:
Sometimes it's hard to keep time straight when flashbacks are involved. Movies often have an easier time than books in this way.
Flashback isn't just a character telling us about a past event. Real flashbacks transport us back to the event, so we see it as it happens and hear the real conversation, not just a character’s memory of what was said, just as we do when describing present-day action.
Flashback does several things:
- Shows us characters' past, and reveals information about the characters ("How I Met Your Mother" tells the entire story about how Ted meets his wife; The Bourne Ultimatum shows us Bourne's induction into the Treadstone program once he regains his memory)
- Shows us why the current story is happening (motivation from the past [Iron Man 3's villain is shown trying to get Tony to go into business with him back in 1999])
Sometimes it's hard to keep time straight when flashbacks are involved. Movies often have an easier time than books in this way.
Foreshadowing is the use of clues or hints to suggest events that will happen later in the story.
Foreshadowing can be subtle, like storm clouds on the horizon suggesting that danger is coming, or more direct, such as Romeo and Juliet talking about wanting to die rather than live without each other. Sometimes authors use false clues to mislead a reader. These are called "red herrings," and they often appear in mystery writing. Authors will even just use particular words for foreshadowing. If I use the words "destroy" and "failure" when talking about your upcoming test, you might get a bad feeling about the test.
Why use foreshadowing?
1. Soul Surfer: The family is attending a church service, smiling and singing the praise song, “Blessed Be the Name.” Here are the words being sung in the chorus – “You give and take away. You give and take away. My heart will choose to say, Lord blessed be your name.”
2. First sentence of Charlotte's Web: "Where's Pa going with that axe?"
3. First sentence of Live By Night: Some years later, on a tugboat in the Gulf of Mexico, Joe Coughlin's feet were placed in a tub of cement as twelve gunman stood waiting until they got far enough out to sea to throw him overboard."
Foreshadowing can be subtle, like storm clouds on the horizon suggesting that danger is coming, or more direct, such as Romeo and Juliet talking about wanting to die rather than live without each other. Sometimes authors use false clues to mislead a reader. These are called "red herrings," and they often appear in mystery writing. Authors will even just use particular words for foreshadowing. If I use the words "destroy" and "failure" when talking about your upcoming test, you might get a bad feeling about the test.
Why use foreshadowing?
- builds suspense
- builds anxiety
- prepares the reader for big events
- makes unbelievable events believable
1. Soul Surfer: The family is attending a church service, smiling and singing the praise song, “Blessed Be the Name.” Here are the words being sung in the chorus – “You give and take away. You give and take away. My heart will choose to say, Lord blessed be your name.”
2. First sentence of Charlotte's Web: "Where's Pa going with that axe?"
3. First sentence of Live By Night: Some years later, on a tugboat in the Gulf of Mexico, Joe Coughlin's feet were placed in a tub of cement as twelve gunman stood waiting until they got far enough out to sea to throw him overboard."
Foreshadowing Activities
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Stormy and wet, stormy and wet; and mud, mud, mud, deep in all the streets. Day after day, a vast heavy veil had been driving over London from the East, and it drove still, as if in the East there were an Eternity of cloud and wind. So furious had been the gusts, that high buildings in town had had the lead stripped off their roofs; and in the country, trees had been torn up, and sails of windmills carried away; and gloomy accounts had come in from the coast, of shipwreck and death. Violent blasts of rain had accompanied these rages of wind, and the day just closed as I sat down to read had been the worst of all.
1. What in this paragraph is a good example of foreshadowing?
2. Based on the foreshadowing, in general, what's probably going to happen to the main character?
Daedalus and Icarus by Ovid
"Let me warn you, Icarus, to take the middle way, in case the water weighs down your wings, if you fly too low, or if you go too high, the sun will burn your wings. Travel between the extremes of high and low. And I order you not to aim towards any of the constellations: take the course I show you!"
1. What in this paragraph is a good example of foreshadowing?
2. What's going to happen to Icarus?
"A Poison Tree" by William Blake
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,
And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
1. What is going to happen to the "foe outstretched beneath the tree"?
2. What's your big clue (foreshadowing) that led you to your answer for #1?
Poem excerpt, author unknown
We were walking,
We were talking,
I tried to take your hand
You pulled away,
Hands in your pockets,
Shaking your head, no.
1. What do the six lines of this poem foreshadow?
Stormy and wet, stormy and wet; and mud, mud, mud, deep in all the streets. Day after day, a vast heavy veil had been driving over London from the East, and it drove still, as if in the East there were an Eternity of cloud and wind. So furious had been the gusts, that high buildings in town had had the lead stripped off their roofs; and in the country, trees had been torn up, and sails of windmills carried away; and gloomy accounts had come in from the coast, of shipwreck and death. Violent blasts of rain had accompanied these rages of wind, and the day just closed as I sat down to read had been the worst of all.
1. What in this paragraph is a good example of foreshadowing?
2. Based on the foreshadowing, in general, what's probably going to happen to the main character?
Daedalus and Icarus by Ovid
"Let me warn you, Icarus, to take the middle way, in case the water weighs down your wings, if you fly too low, or if you go too high, the sun will burn your wings. Travel between the extremes of high and low. And I order you not to aim towards any of the constellations: take the course I show you!"
1. What in this paragraph is a good example of foreshadowing?
2. What's going to happen to Icarus?
"A Poison Tree" by William Blake
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,
And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
1. What is going to happen to the "foe outstretched beneath the tree"?
2. What's your big clue (foreshadowing) that led you to your answer for #1?
Poem excerpt, author unknown
We were walking,
We were talking,
I tried to take your hand
You pulled away,
Hands in your pockets,
Shaking your head, no.
1. What do the six lines of this poem foreshadow?