I’m almost finished this round of edits for “Mik Murdoch, Boy Superhero” and I am about to do a major new scene/rewrite of an existing one.
One of the comments I received was, make sure you foreshadow this scene so it doesn’t seem like you’re just pulling stuff out of the air.
Foreshadow a new scene? How the heck do I do that?
Well, I am surprised to say it is easier than I expected. I won’t go into the exact scene (cause that would be spoiling it for later) but let me give you an example of how it can be done.
Say you need to add a scene where the character solves a problem by overhearing some people conversing in French. Perhaps they are discussing how they are going to rob the bank, not expecting anyone to understand.
That would be a BIG break, but your character has never indicated at any point in the story that he or she can understand a single word of French. Just dropping that in unexpectedly would be a stretch for anyone.
But what if you made mention that the character goes to a French Immersion school earlier in the story? It could be pretty subtle. Maybe he or she walks past “L’ecole Francais” with a friend and says, “Hey look, there is my teacher’s car in the parking lot.”
Now you have a good start in the foreshadowing.
If you do a couple minor things like that earlier in the story, suddenly it doesn’t seem improbably that the character could understand the baddies.
I was lucky enough to be able to drop a couple hints like that into my story. It didn’t even take that long and now my new scene isn’t the huge surprise it would otherwise be.
