On June 21, 2013, Kenzi Anne wrote, So I have a question about riddles…I don’t know about you guys, but I like to throw in a riddle sort of mystery into some of my books, like a prophecy or enigmatic saying, but… I’m not very good at making them! I feel like it’s either too easy to decipher so that the story’s ending is too predictable, or otherwise the clues are too much of a stretch and won’t make much sense. Any advice? 🙂

I love enigmatic auguries, too! And I’ve used them in many of my books. In Ella Enchanted and Fairest gnomes can see into the future, but dimly, so they just give hints. In Ella, a gnome gives this warning: “Danger, a quest, three figures. They are close to you, but they are not your friends. Beware of them!” The quest, of course, is to end the curse of obedience; the three figures are Dame Olga, Hattie, and Olive; and danger abounds – from ogres, from Ella’s stepfamily, and from the curse itself.

The trick here is that the warning doesn’t foretell the solution to the story, so it doesn’t give anything away. It just heightens the mystery, enhances the atmosphere, and makes the gnomes more exotic.

So that’s one way to go. If your prophecies don’t give the ending away you don’t have to worry about being too specific.

In Ever, Puru, the god of fate, drops an occasional hint. But then he contradicts everything he’s said with: “Fate may be thwarted.” And he confesses, “I long for a happy outcome.”

That’s another approach: Make your omens contradictory.

In The Two Princesses of Bamarre, the kingdom is afflicted with a fatal disease called the gray death, but a specter has foretold that the cure will be found when “cowards find courage and rain falls over all Bamarre.” MC Addie obsesses about the prediction and wonders how many cowards have to find courage and how long  the rain has to fall, and whether it has to fall all at once.

So make your portent open to interpretation.

Here are two more rolled up in one. In Stolen Magic a wooden puppet issues a warning: “Expectation misleads.” In this case, the words are so vague and the source so questionable that nothing is given away. You can make your prediction hazy, or make the character who gives it unreliable.

I’m sure there are more that I haven’t used. For example, we can introduce so many signs that the reader doesn’t know which to believe. Or the prophecy can be received in a dream or a hallucination, and its credibility can be in doubt. The character who delivers the prediction can have questionable motives. Or the person who receives it can be too receptive. For example, if Portia believes fortune-cookie fortunes and spends ridiculous sums of money on handwriting analyses, tea-leaf readings, tarot-card fortune tellers, and she consults her Ouija board nightly, the reader will be skeptical when she tells her best friend to avoid anyone with a harpoon tattooed on his or her wrist. Even so, the reader will sit up when that harpoon tattoo shows up.

We need to pay attention, too, to the timing of a prediction. If it’s delivered late in a story, it may feel contrived to the reader, like a set-up.

I’ve talked about Chekhov’s gun on the blog before, but in case you haven’t seen that post and don’t know about this rule, the Russian novelist and playwright Anton Chekhov wrote that one mustn’t show a reader a rifle hanging on a wall and not have it be shot at some point in the story. I don’t always agree with this. Sometimes the rifle can just reveal the character of its owner or provide atmosphere. But I do believe that it has to contribute in some way, and, in the case of predictions, I agree completely. That harpoon tattoo has to come into the story. It can’t just be left hanging. Same with any portent. You need to use it, although not predictably, and it doesn’t have to come true.

Naturally there isn’t a single way to use your foreshadowing. In Ella, I use it subtly, I think. The gnome delivers the warning and, if I remember correctly, Ella doesn’t think much about it after that. The reader may identify the three figures, may see danger on all sides, and may wonder until the end of the book and possibly after that what the quest was. Still, it plays out enough to be satisfying.

It plays out more overtly in Two Princesses. When MC Addie is huddling in her castle, she looks to the prophecy for deliverance; she keeps searching for signs that it’s coming to pass, but once she takes action, she becomes less fixed on it.

In Ever, the prediction that Kezi hangs onto, that sustains her, is that fate isn’t immutable.

A prophecy has power. It will linger in the reader’s mind, so we don’t have to refer to it often. We can let it spin its magic in the background. The reader will compare story events as they move along with the augury and will wonder if it’s playing out yet or when it will rear its head.

One more thing. This is a reply to Kenzi Anne from Elsabet, suggesting how to handle prophecies: I LOVE riddles!!! Read a book of poems maybe, read books of riddles. That helps me. I like to see how other people do things, and then I do it myself, but MY way. I’m not sure about other people, but I love poems that rhyme. Other poems, they’re okay (No, I’m not insulting anyone, it’s just my preference.), but they don’t seem to have the same type of dazzle, the same type of power. My dad says it this way: Anyone can write a non-rhyming poem, but it takes someone special to make a really great rhyming poem. It’s harder, and funner. My dad’s a poet (unofficially, of course, but he writes good stuff). So just keep that in mind. The riddle probably shouldn’t be too short, and if it rhymes, I suggest you use a different scheme (or whatever poets call that) than aabb or abab. Too common. If it’s an old prophecy or riddle it should probably rhyme. Make it special, and don’t worry. Use longer words and serious sounding synonyms if you can. Run it past a few people, and if they think it’s too cheesy, try again. If you like it the way it is, keep it. Mrs. Levine is good at writing poems, she probably has some good advice. I don’t know too much about writing all kinds of poems, but I write songs, which can be challenging, so I totally understand how hard it can be. Just do your best! I hope it comes out great.

Yes, rhyme scheme is the proper term, and that’s a great idea, to pay attention to the language of your prophecy. If the prophecy comes from a character who is given to elevated language, or if she’s in a trance, pull out your $600 words. Make it into a poem, if you’re feeling poetic. Make it rhyme, if you’re feeling rhyme-y.

Here are three prompts:

• Cassandra is a tragic figure in Greek mythology. The god Apollo gave her the gift of future sight, but after she angered him, he turned it around so that no one believes her when she accurately forecasts the future. And yet she keeps trying. Bring her into the modern world and put her into a situation, a party, on a train, a family gathering, whatever pleases you. She meets people and instantly knows their fate. Write her as your MC, trying to get out of her own fate while also attempting to help the people around her.

• Your MC’s father has disappeared, and she’s trying to find him. In desperation she consults several people who say they can look into the future, an astrologist, a fortune teller, a specialist in tea leaves, and someone with a crystal ball. Write a scene with each. Keep going if you like.

• The MC whose father has gone missing becomes convinced that a particular character really has powers of divination. She goes to him, but he won’t help her unless she answers a riddle. Write the riddle. Keep going, if you like. Let this seer stay in the story.

Have fun, and save what you write!