Story Setup and Foreshadowing

Part 1 setup and foreshadowing

Rule for using this skill: These are specialist tips that add to your answer. They do not replace it. Always give your full general answer to the user's question first, using everything you already know about storytelling. Then work in the tips below wherever they apply. Do not narrow your answer to this list.

Scope and length of Part 1

• Part 1 is the first of four boxes, covering the first 20–25% of the story. Its one mission is to set up everything that follows.
• It ends at the First Plot Point.
• Novel of 300–400 pages: Part 1 runs about 50–100 pages. Another figure given is 60–80 pages to build emotional investment.
• Screenplay: about the first 25–30 pages (Act 1). In a ~2-hour film the First Plot Point lands near minute 30.
• The longer Part 1 runs, the more foreshadowing and dramatic tension it needs. Dramatic tension here means unexplained or unfulfilled conflict that has no purpose yet because the First Plot Point hasn't arrived.
• The plot does not really begin rolling in Part 1. Stuffing too much story into the setup is a common and potentially fatal mistake.

What Part 1 should and should not do

• Do: create stakes, backstory, and character empathy, and foreshadow the coming conflict.
• Show the hero's life before the antagonistic force arrives, not the life that lasts for the rest of the story.
• Do not fully introduce the antagonistic force. Foreshadow it, or show only part of it without explaining what it means.
• Do not fully explain how the conflict affects the protagonist until near the end of Part 1.
• Stakes should be known to the reader before the thing that threatens them is fully understood.
• Launching the story too early shortchanges the setup.

The five missions (all must be done before the First Plot Point)

Doing them after the First Plot Point will likely sink the story.

1. Set a killer hook.
2. Introduce the hero.
3. Establish stakes.
4. Foreshadow events to come.
5. Prepare for launch.

Mission 1: Hook

• The hook is not the First Plot Point. It grabs the reader early and makes them want to stay.
• Place it within the first 3–4 scenes. Earlier is better.
• Screenplay benchmark: you have about 10 pages. The equivalent in a novel is roughly the first 20–50 pages.
• It should be visceral, sensual, and emotionally resonant, and it should promise an intense, rewarding experience.
• It should pose a question the reader must answer or cause an itch that demands scratching. It may relate to the story's landscape rather than the plot.
• A hook can double as an early inciting incident if it comes early and fails the First Plot Point criteria.
• Don't let the hook turn into an improperly early plot point. Keep it unexplained in terms of the hero's need and the stakes.
• Example: The Da Vinci Code opens with a body in the Louvre and a cryptic message in his own blood.

Mission 2: Introduce the hero

• The hero should appear in the first two scenes, three at most.
• Show the hero in the pre-quest stage: what he does, pursues, and dreams of. That shows what he stands to lose when the world shifts.
• The hero's life can be miserable, stalled, restarting, or happy. The First Plot Point then puts it all up for grabs.
• The reader must empathize, not necessarily like the hero. Likability can come later.
• Reveal the inner demons: backstory, worldviews, attitudes, prejudices, fears, untapped strengths, and secrets.
• The hero must later face and overcome these demons against the antagonistic force. This is where the character arc begins.

Mission 3: Establish stakes

• Somewhere in Part 1 the reader must learn what the hero has at stake, such as family, fortune, safety, a relationship, or purpose in life. The reader may not register it yet but will feel its weight when the plot turns.
• The danger is a writer who doesn't know the stakes.
• The First Plot Point gives the hero a new objective or need (survival, rescue, justice, wealth, and so on) in opposition to the antagonistic force.
• Higher stakes mean more tension.
• Emotional investment is the critical variable. Hearing about a stranger's diagnosis hits less than a call about someone you know well.

Mission 4: Foreshadow

• The reader should sense impending change, which is often but not always dark. An opportunity can also be foreshadowed.
• Foreshadow the First Plot Point itself and also later major events.
• The best foreshadowing goes unrecognized when it occurs and is recognized in retrospect when the story harkens back.
• Foreshadowing example: in (500) Days of Summer the girl is visibly less invested than the hero.
• Foreshadowing example: in An Education a peripheral character's behavior and comments don't fit the crowd and hint at the heroine's future.
• Foreshadowing example: in The Da Vinci Code the albino assassin hunts a relic, and the pyramid structure later becomes the MacGuffin.

Mission 5: Prepare for launch

• Scene pace and focus should move toward the First Plot Point, if not point directly at it.
• Foreboding or shifting winds should accelerate until everything changes, suddenly or subtly.
• Establish any needed mechanics in advance. Big changes in life are usually preceded by small bits of business conspiring toward the result.

Inciting incident vs. First Plot Point

• An inciting incident can come early or mid-Part 1. When it does, treat it as part of the setup for the First Plot Point, and still deliver a proper First Plot Point at the proper place.
• Test: does the moment define the hero's path and quest, meaning the goal, the obstacles, and the stakes? If not, it is only an inciting incident.
• Thelma & Louise: the shooting at 19:30 is the inciting incident. Their decision to run at about minute 31 is the First Plot Point, because it defines the journey (outlaws on the run).
• Collateral: a body falling on the taxi is the early inciting incident. The First Plot Point is the ominous conversation with the passenger.
• Dramatic strength or visual impact is not a criterion. A First Plot Point can be a conversation, a whisper, a glance, a letter, or an off-stage report.
• Example: in (500) Days of Summer the First Plot Point is a vague remark about not being sure of the future.

The First Plot Point at the end of Part 1

• Timing is non-negotiable: about 20–25% through.
• Too early shortchanges the setup. Too late causes pacing problems and the story lacks a reason to be.
• It is the first full view of the antagonistic force. Full does not mean complete. The hero and reader grasp what the force wants and how that opposes what the hero wants. The result is conflict.
• The hero learns of it through decision, action, or off-stage news.
• If the journey was already underway, the First Plot Point alters it or clarifies the obstacles, stakes, and nature of the quest. It can also be a largely unforeshadowed upheaval.
• A new journey starts here, and Parts 2–4 cover the escalating obstacles and growth that follow.

Foreshadowing technique

• Definition: anything that links to or hints at a forthcoming story point or characterization issue, but is not yet recognized by the reader as salient when it appears.
• For intentionally obvious foreshadowing, attach emotion (it smells good or stinks). For example, make the future seductress hot, have the hero notice her, and make the reader notice him noticing.
• For subtle foreshadowing, let it pass with little notice. Give it a minor, plausible reason to be there, and keep it brief and not on the nose. For example, the hero briefly notices a friend talking to the woman, and later she turns out to have been casing him.
• Foreshadow with detail, minutia, or seemingly meaningless or distracting dialogue and action. It suggests tension and consequence without shape.
• Combine props creatively. For example, set a bottle on top of the forgotten grocery list.
• Foreshadowing is a hint and a promise that may or may not be kept.
• Foreshadowing is not an obvious clue. A red size-7 heel next to a body is just a clue. A man seen buying red size-7 heels, who later turns up dead with one beside him, is foreshadowing.
• The foreshadowing of a plot point is aimed at the setup for that plot point, not at the event or its aftermath.
• You can foreshadow both plot elements and characterization.

Where foreshadowing is allowed

• Part 1 (Act 1) is all setup, so almost anything there can carry foreshadowing.
• You can foreshadow later too, but never in Part 4 (Act 3).
• The Second Plot Point (about 75%) is the last opportunity to foreshadow coming events.

Practice tip

• Study finished novels and films: spot the foreshadowing, then trace how it links to later events. Separate plot foreshadowing from characterization foreshadowing.