A postman walks his route backward on Fridays to keep from getting bored.Planted: the Friday route. Pays off: he is at the wrong end of town at the right minute.
A lake freezes from its north shore first, as every child there knows.Planted: the rule, recited. Pays off: the skating race goes to the girl who starts on the north side.
A girl collects keys that open nothing.Planted: the jar of keys. Pays off: the school's oldest cupboard, and key number sixty.
A best man promises the groom that nothing can go wrong with the rings.Planted: the promise, and a pocket with a hole. Pays off: the ring bearer's dog finds them.
A boy bets his sister a week of dishes that it never snows in April.Planted: the bet at breakfast. Pays off: a snow day that saves him from a test and costs him the sink.
A boy tells the new kid that the old oak in the yard is home base and always will be.Planted: always will be. Pays off: the day the oak is marked for cutting, and who stands at it.
A coach tells her slowest runner that somebody has to come last.Planted: the remark. Pays off: the relay where the last leg carries the baton that counts.
A cook tells the newest deckhand that the ship's cat has never once left the galley.Planted: never once. Pays off: the cat on the chart table, sitting on the one reef that matters.
A family buys a house whose seller jokes that the third stair has a mind of its own.Planted: the joke at the door. Pays off: the loose tread, and what the seller left under it.
A father teaching his daughter to drive says the handbrake on this car is only a suggestion.Planted: the warning, laughed off. Pays off: the hill outside the test center, and how she parks.
A ferryman tells every passenger that the river has never frozen in his lifetime.Planted: the boast. Pays off: the January he walks his route.
A girl tells her little brother, to scare him, that the harbor light blinks twice when someone is lost.Planted: the made-up rule. Pays off: the night she is late home, he gets it blinked twice.
A grandfather says he will fix the porch light tomorrow, and has said so for years.Planted: tomorrow. Pays off: the night a visitor has to find the house in the dark.
A grandmother says every year that the old pear tree will outlast the farm.Planted: the yearly saying. Pays off: the farm is sold, and the buyer keeps one thing.
A hiking guide says at the trailhead that this mountain makes its own weather.Planted: a phrase for tourists. Pays off: a clear afternoon, and a group glad of its spare coats.
A librarian warns a boy that the book on the top shelf has not been borrowed in fifty years.Planted: fifty years. Pays off: the name on the card inside is his grandfather's.
A mother says, packing the car, that they have forgotten something and she will know what in an hour.Planted: the feeling. Pays off: the hour mark, when the cat walks out of the picnic basket.
A new mayor says in her first speech that she will eat her hat if the bridge is finished on time.Planted: the boast. Pays off: a baker, a hat-shaped cake, and a bridge opened a day early.
A ship's cook complains on the first morning that the salt is where the sugar should be.Planted: the swapped jars. Pays off: the captain's birthday cake, and what the crew says to be kind.
A teacher says on the first day that one student in every class surprises her.Planted: one in every class. Pays off: the reader guesses wrong until the last week.
A tour guide tells every group that nobody has ever found the castle's second well.Planted: a line in the script. Pays off: the bored child at the back, leaning on the wrong wall.
An aunt says over dinner that this family has never once won anything.Planted: the remark. Pays off: the raffle ticket she used as a bookmark in chapter two.
Two friends swear to meet at the fountain in ten years, whatever happens.Planted: the oath, in chapter one. Pays off: the fountain has been moved, and both go to the wrong square.
In an object seen early 20
A baker keeps one cracked bowl on the top shelf that nobody is allowed to use.Planted: the bowl, noticed by the new hire. Pays off: the contest recipe that fits in nothing else.
A boy keeps a dead flashlight in his coat because it was his uncle's.Planted: the flashlight that does not work. Pays off: what is rolled up where the batteries go.
A boy's backpack has a strap mended with a bootlace.Planted: the bootlace. Pays off: the lost-and-found table, and one bag told from fifty.
A boy's kite has his address written on it, at his mother's insistence.Planted: the address, and his embarrassment. Pays off: a letter from two towns over.
A dog in the first scene buries something by the gate, and nobody looks.Planted: the digging. Pays off: the missing car keys, on the morning that matters.
A family at a lake cabin hangs a spare key on a nail by the woodpile and forgets it.Planted: the key on the nail, in paragraph two. Pays off: the lockout in the rain.
A ferry carries one more life ring than the rule requires, painted a different color.Planted: the odd ring. Pays off: a hat overboard, and a child's perfect throw.
A fisherman's boat carries a second, smaller oar that he says is for nothing.Planted: the small oar. Pays off: the day his granddaughter rows him home.
A girl's raincoat has a whistle on the zipper that she has never once blown.Planted: the whistle. Pays off: fog on the school hike, and who hears it.
A grandmother's sewing box holds one button that matches nothing in the house.Planted: the odd button. Pays off: the coat on the visitor at the door.
A hotel's guest book has a ribbon marking a page the owner never turns to.Planted: the ribbon. Pays off: the guest who signs the same name, forty years on.
A locked drawer in a new teacher's desk rattles whenever the door slams.Planted: the rattle. Pays off: the last day of term, and thirty years of confiscated treasures.
A map on a classroom wall has one pin that keeps falling out.Planted: the loose pin. Pays off: the new student comes from the town under it.
A piano in a hallway has one key that sticks, the same one every time.Planted: the stuck key. Pays off: the recital piece is rewritten around a silence.
A scout's compass points a little west of north, and she has learned to allow for it.Planted: the faulty compass. Pays off: the day she lends it to someone who has not.
A shop window displays a single left boot for a year.Planted: the boot. Pays off: the customer who walks in wearing the right one.
A snowman in the first paragraph wears a scarf nobody in the family owns.Planted: the scarf. Pays off: the neighbor they have never met comes looking for it.
A stage set has one real door among the painted ones.Planted: the stagehand's warning. Pays off: opening night, and an actor's unplanned exit.
A station clock stopped years ago at ten past four, and the stationmaster will not have it mended.Planted: ten past four. Pays off: the one train a day for which it is right, and who steps off.
A wedding cake is carried past an open window on a windy morning.Planted: the curtain lifting. Pays off: not the cake, as the reader fears, but the seating plan.
In the weather or the setting 20
A bakery stands downwind of a pepper mill.Planted: one sneeze in the opening line. Pays off: the judges' table at the pie contest.
A crossroads has four signs, and one of them has been turned.Planted: fresh scratches on the post. Pays off: three travelers at the wrong town's festival.
A family pitches its tent in a beautiful, flat and oddly empty clearing.Planted: no other tents. Pays off: the cows come home at dusk.
A forecast pinned to a harbor notice board goes unread for three days.Planted: the curling paper. Pays off: the regatta, and the one crew that read it.
A garden wall leans a little farther toward the road each spring.Planted: the gardener's string and pencil mark. Pays off: what the fallen bricks uncover.
A hotel is proud that its elevator has never once stopped between floors.Planted: the brass plaque that says so. Pays off: two rivals, one elevator, forty minutes.
A lake freezes from its north shore first, as every child there knows.Planted: the rule, recited. Pays off: the skating race goes to the girl who starts on the north side.
A new street is named Mill Lane, though nobody can find a mill.Planted: the name on a fresh sign. Pays off: the millstone under the playground.
A river runs low enough in August to show the stones of an old ford.Planted: the stones, seen from the bridge. Pays off: the day the bridge is closed for the race.
A school is built at the bottom of the best sledding hill in the county.Planted: the hill above the roof. Pays off: the first snow day, and a sled parked in the staff room.
A town clock is shaded by a chestnut tree at exactly noon.Planted: the shadow on the dial. Pays off: the stranger who misreads the time and stays.
A town holds its fair on the one field that floods, because it always has.Planted: a high-water mark on the gatepost. Pays off: the afternoon the stalls become islands.
A wedding is set for the beach at an hour nobody has checked against the tide table.Planted: wet sand under the chairs at rehearsal. Pays off: the vows, said ankle deep.
An echo in a canyon answers a beat late, and the guide makes a game of it.Planted: the game. Pays off: the straggler found by counting the delay.
Ants cross a picnic blanket in a line, all heading uphill.Planted: the ants, brushed away. Pays off: the cloudburst, and the one family that followed them.
Every bird leaves a village square at once on the morning of the parade.Planted: the empty wires. Pays off: the hailstorm, and where the band shelters.
Fog comes up a valley every evening at the hour the school bus leaves.Planted: the driver counting fence posts. Pays off: the substitute driver's first day.
One house on a street has a porch light that comes on a minute before all the others.Planted: the early light. Pays off: the power cut, and the one house on another line.
Snow begins on the first page and has not stopped by the third.Planted: a shovel left leaning indoors. Pays off: the doorway, and a tunnel to the neighbor's.
The wind in a seaside town changes direction every day at four.Planted: laundry swinging round on the line. Pays off: the kite contest, set for five to four.
In a habit or a skill 20
A baker hums one tune while kneading, never at the same speed twice.Planted: slow tune, heavy dough. Pays off: the apprentice learns the bread by the song.
A boy can whistle like a kettle and has been told to stop a dozen times.Planted: the whistle, in the kitchen. Pays off: the hide-and-seek signal only his sister knows.
A boy holds his breath through every tunnel.Planted: the game in the car. Pays off: the swimming test, and a length underwater.
A boy reads the last page of every book first.Planted: the habit, confessed. Pays off: the class mystery play, where he knows the ending and must keep quiet.
A boy sorts his marbles by color before every game.Planted: the tidy rows. Pays off: the gap in the blues tells him who was in his room.
A dog sits down and will not move whenever rain is an hour away.Planted: the sit, on a sunny walk. Pays off: the one picnic carried indoors in time.
A girl collects keys that open nothing.Planted: the jar of keys. Pays off: the school's oldest cupboard, and key number sixty.
A girl counts stairs wherever she goes and is teased for it.Planted: forty-one steps to the attic. Pays off: the power cut, and who leads everyone down.
A girl draws a map of every place she visits, including the dentist's.Planted: the museum map, drawn while bored. Pays off: the school trip that loses its guide.
A girl talks to her grandmother's parrot in her grandmother's voice.Planted: the impression. Pays off: the parrot finally answers, and only to that voice.
A girl who cannot sleep learns the night trains by heart.Planted: the 2:14 freight. Pays off: the bridge painters ask if anyone knows when the line is quiet.
A grandfather winds his watch at exactly eight each evening, whatever is going on.Planted: the winding, mid-sentence. Pays off: his surprise party is timed by it.
A grandmother saves every rubber band, bread tie and length of string.Planted: the drawer. Pays off: the school play's curtain, an hour before it opens.
A keeper's daughter signals her friend on the mainland with a hand mirror.Planted: the game of flashes. Pays off: the afternoon the island's telephone is down.
A man always parks facing out.Planted: his wife's teasing. Pays off: the snowed-in lot, and the one car that can tow the rest.
A night watchman knits through every shift.Planted: a scarf growing by the page. Pays off: it is long enough to reach the kitten on the ledge.
A postman walks his route backward on Fridays to keep from getting bored.Planted: the Friday route. Pays off: he is at the wrong end of town at the right minute.
A shy boy practices card tricks alone in the mirror.Planted: the fan of cards. Pays off: the talent show act that drops out, and an empty stage.
A waitress remembers every order without a pad.Planted: table nine, recited. Pays off: she knows the visiting critic by his breakfast.
An old sailor ties every knot twice.Planted: the double bows on his shoes. Pays off: the only tent still standing at dawn.
In the title or the first line 20
A story opens: Grandpa said the boat would hold five, and there were six of us.Planted: the arithmetic. Pays off: who offers to stay ashore, and what they see from there.
A story opens: It was the only year the tree was too tall for the room.Planted: only. Pays off: where the tree ends up, and who comes to see it.
A story opens: It was the warmest day anyone could remember for the ice fair.Planted: warmest. Pays off: the fair moves, stall by stall, onto the bank.
A story opens: My brother kept his promise, though not the way he meant to.Planted: the second half of the sentence. Pays off: the promise, kept sideways.
A story opens: Nobody had ever asked the gardener what was under the roses.Planted: the first line. Pays off: the new owner's children ask.
A story opens: Of the three of us I was the only one who could not swim, which is funny now.Planted: funny now. Pays off: the lessons she ends up teaching.
A story opens: The last time I saw the kite, it was still ours.Planted: still. Pays off: the reader watches every gust.
A story opens: The letter had been in the wrong mailbox for a week.Planted: a week. Pays off: everything the family does in chapter one assumes it never came.
A story opens: This was the summer before the bridge.Planted: before. Pays off: the reader watches a ferry family's last season without being told.
A story opens: We did not know yet that the tent was inside out.Planted: yet. Pays off: the first rain.
A story titled Borrowed starts with a girl admiring her sister's coat.Planted: one word. Pays off: by the end the coat is the least of what has changed hands.
A story titled Eleven Chairs begins with a mother setting a table for twelve.Planted: the number. Pays off: the guest who does not come, and why the chair stays.
A story titled One Match begins on a camping trip with a full box.Planted: the title. Pays off: the reader counts every match struck.
A story titled Second Place begins with a girl certain she will win.Planted: the title. Pays off: who comes first is the surprise.
A story titled The Day the Bell Did Not Ring opens on an ordinary school morning.Planted: the title. Pays off: every bell that does ring makes the reader wait for the one that will not.
A story titled The Quiet Car follows the noisiest family on the train.Planted: the title. Pays off: the hour they finally go silent, and why.
A story titled The Short Way Home begins with a boy choosing the long way.Planted: the title. Pays off: the day he is late, and what the short way passes.
A story titled The Understudy opens with the lead actor in perfect voice.Planted: the title. Pays off: not a sore throat, as the reader expects, but a stuck train.
A story titled Until the Streetlights opens at four o'clock on a summer afternoon.Planted: the deadline in the title. Pays off: the game must be won before the last light comes on.
A story titled What the Dog Knew follows a family packing for a move.Planted: the title. Pays off: the dog's odd behavior on each page adds up on the last.
How it works
Each of these 100 story ideas about foreshadowing comes with its hint. The line under the premise names what is planted on the first page and what it pays off later.
Read the full guide
Short story ideas with foreshadowing
A short story has room for one hint and one payoff, and each premise has exactly that pair: a spare key on a nail and a lockout in the rain, a bet about April snow and a snow day.
Five places to hide the hint
In something a character says, in an object seen early, in the weather or the setting, in a habit or a skill, and in the title or the first line. A hint in dialogue is the easiest for a reader to pass over; one in the title is in plain sight the whole time.
Mention the planted thing once more in the middle, in passing, so it is still in mind at the end.
Give the hint a job in its own scene. The whistle is a detail of the raincoat before it is a clue.
Questions and answers
What is foreshadowing in a story?
A storytelling device: hints or warnings of what is coming are planted early. It tends to come early in a story, and it builds up or upsets what the audience expects.
What is an example of foreshadowing?
On this list a fisherman's boat carries a second, smaller oar that he says is for nothing. It pays off the day his granddaughter rows him home. A reader who remembered the oar gets there a moment before he does.
How is foreshadowing different from a red herring?
A red herring is a clue meant to mislead the audience. Foreshadowing leads readers in the right direction: it hints at an outcome that does arrive. Every hint on this list is an honest one.
Can a title foreshadow the ending?
Yes. A work's title, or a chapter's, can itself be a clue to what is going to happen. In the group In the title or the first line, a story titled One Match begins on a camping trip with a full box.