First post: and "...I never saw him/her again"

[LittleRedKing]

Howdy everyone, I just found this site and registered so expect to put up with my ramblings. :biggrin2: I am a long time SK fan, been reading since I was a young teen. I believe the first that I ever read was the Bachman books with The Long Walk/Rage/Roadwork/Running man. Been an addict ever since.

I wanted to start off with a theme I see frequently in Sks writing; I will be reading happilly along and will get hit with a bomb along these lines:

"...and it was the last time I ever saw him/her".


I can think of few, if any, other writing styles that jar me as much as this one does. It's a mixed bag O donuts; on the one hand I am left thinking "What?!?!" and on the other I am thinking "Nooooooo!"

:eek2:

[JohnDalglish]

Hi,

Welcome to the MB, and keep posting!

Personally I greatly enjoy his foreshadowing, and I think it's an integral part of his storytelling style, but I know it divides opinion.

Long days and pleasant nights

[LittleRedKing]

Hi,

Welcome to the MB, and keep posting!

Personally I greatly enjoy his foreshadowing, and I think it's an integral part of his storytelling style, but I know it divides opinion.

Long days and pleasant nights

Thanks. :smile2:

I enjoy the foreshadowing as well, although sometimes it's a bit heart breaking :( sometimes even more so than the actual event. If nothing else it always makes a huge impact on me.

[staropeace]

Even though he is my favorite writer,it doesnt mean I approve of all his lil writing tricks. :biggrin2: I do not like the foreshadowing done this way....it is right up there with the gross-out,in my opinion. Stephen doesnt apologize for the "gross me green" sections....he claims he isnt proud and will use anything at his disposal...:biggrin2:

I dont like the amount of killing he is doing recently. I wonder if he is not doing it just to get our goats sometimes. :biggrin2:
There was no reason whatsoever to have Wireman killed off. The poor guy almost made it to the finish line.

What can yah do really? He is set in his ways.:biggrin2:

Right now,I am rereading Duma Key. I find it very soothing. I am healing from surgery and this story hits the spot. I dont fancy the parts where the aged lady was a small child. It gets on me nerves for some reason. So in this reading,I am cutting it out.

While Uncle Steve has the say-so of what to write......I,the constant reader,can deside what to read..

nah nah na nah na...:wink2:

[ally88]

Hi and welcome, i have to say those little words always make me feel sad because they are usually spoken about a character i really like..such as Wireman, he was one of my favourite characters in a long time.

[Merdoc]

foreshadowing is a tricky thing, in my opinion. most of the time it can come off sounding corny, "little did he know" is WAY overused. But I think King does it in such an organic way that it doesn't come off as corny, at least most of the time.

[Autumnlyn]

ONE of my favs is the tie-ins. As an avid reader its like a treasure hunt




"...and it was the last time I ever saw him/her".


I can think of few, if any, other writing styles that jar me as much as this one does. It's a mixed bag O donuts; on the one hand I am left thinking "What?!?!" and on the other I am thinking "Nooooooo!"

:eek2: Isn't LIFE like that though? Someone who was important to you at one time suddenly falls off the face of the earth. His writing style makes an unbelievable situation/character so believable. (and he cusses alot in his books! Just like me. Thanks Uncle Steve)

[heathfodor]

Welcome to the board!




I wanted to start off with a theme I see frequently in Sks writing; I will be reading happilly along and will get hit with a bomb along these lines:

"...and it was the last time I ever saw him/her".

Yeah. I remember some moments in The STand where he would do stuff like that.

Heath

[blunthead]

..Personally I greatly enjoy his foreshadowing, and I think it's an integral part of his storytelling style, but I know it divides opinion...I enjoy foreshadowing, too, because I enjoy suspense so much. Isn't foreshadowing a crucial element in the writing of suspense--that sense that the bottom may fall out at any moment, that someone's got hold of the rug and is fixing to yank?

[JohnDalglish]

Hi,

Great to see you, Staro, and I couldn't agree more about (Duma Key spoiler) - Wireman.

Your choice, as you say, about what to read or not, but personally I not only enjoyed the flashbacks in Duma, but considered them pivotal to the storytelling - Maybe si, maybe no?

Long days and pleasant nights

[lilredkdn]

My favorite "and I never saw him again" came from The Stand. When the four guys and the dog are going to face Flagg and Stu gets hurt. He says "and they never saw him again", which made me think he's going to die. Little did I know that it was the other three he was actually referring to.

[devious1]

this has always driven me crazy about his writing... all the foreshadowing. i mean, i like it, but at the same time it annoys the hell out of me, because i want to know what's going to happen now! i don't want to have to read 50 or 100 more pages to find out what he was foreshadowing, i want to know now! LOL... it sure is an effective trick to keep you reading though...

[Teddy Duchamp]

First of all welcome!

Its funny you should post that as I was thinking the very same thing while reading "the Gunslinger" .........the ones off the top of my head are also in Pet Sematary and Duma Key.

I actually like the way he does this - it adds to my "ulp" if its a sad situation and adds a touch of drama - and like the others he doesnt do it in a "corny - little did I know that..................." sort of way!!!

[LittleRedKing]

foreshadowing is a tricky thing, in my opinion. most of the time it can come off sounding corny, "little did he know" is WAY overused. But I think King does it in such an organic way that it doesn't come off as corny, at least most of the time.

Good comparison; in fact I think his style of foreshadowing is a few notches up from "little did he know" but it always makes an impact. I have sort of a love/hate thing going on with this. :eek2: It is usually painful but at the same time I cannot think of a better "OMG I can't stop reading now!" device. :biggrin2:

[staropeace]

Yes John,I agree............but this is the re-read...the first of many........and I can cheat all I want now........:biggrin2:

[rose key]

My favorite "and I never saw him again" came from The Stand. When the four guys and the dog are going to face Flagg and Stu gets hurt. He says "and they never saw him again", which made me think he's going to die. Little did I know that it was the other three he was actually referring to.

Good one! That one turned out better than the foreshadowing was leading us to believe.

LittleRedKing: I have mixed feeling about when he does that. I, too, say, "Oh, NO!!!" whenever I read that, and sometimes I have to put the book down, because the effect is so tremendous, but sometimes it can prepare me for a blow to come that is going to be very traumatic.

[elysian]

My favorite "and I never saw him again" came from The Stand.


This is what I immediately thought about when I read the original post. That line is such a punch in the gut!

[bopropadop]

The Dead Zone re-reading group (see the Social Forums) discussed this to some degree. There is a heavy use of foreshadowing in DZ which frustrated some. At the same time, it can be argued that it's use in DZ is appropriate given what the story is about.

If you like foreshadowing, DZ may be the book for you.

[EMARX]

The foreshadowing in Duma Key made me stop and exclaim. No please don't do that.
But we keep reading, don't we.

[crazycrashink]

By happenstance, I just happened to read a section of Pet Sematary last night, that is ripe with forshadowing. In this instance, I think it really serves to up the suspense factor. You know it is effective when your fingers are itching to turn the pages in anticipation!:wink2:

[tigerlilly2k]

[
QUOTE=LittleRedKing;279007]Howdy everyone, I just found this site and registered so expect to put up with my ramblings. :biggrin2: I am a long time SK fan, been reading since I was a young teen. I believe the first that I ever read was the Bachman books with The Long Walk/Rage/Roadwork/Running man. Been an addict ever since.

I wanted to start off with a theme I see frequently in Sks writing; I will be reading happilly along and will get hit with a bomb along these lines:

"...and it was the last time I ever saw him/her".


I can think of few, if any, other writing styles that jar me as much as this one does. It's a mixed bag O donuts; on the one hand I am left thinking "What?!?!" and on the other I am thinking "Nooooooo!"

:eek2:[/QUOTE]

Yeah, that kills me, too. I think this is called, "foreshadowing", a technique to not only drop a mind-bomb in the NOW, but to also let the reader know we are about to learn the details, in the near future. This sort of flashing bacwards or forewards in time is one of SK's many skills...as a World Class Word Slinger.

Most of us tell a story from beginning to the middle to the end. Nothing wrong with that--but why not change it up a bit for that little bit of extra interest? Shoot yeah, man!

Another thing I love is...there is never a gratuitous line in a SK book. EVERY sentence serves to move the story along or add a layer of depth to a character and you can count on every little point eventually revealing it's importance. Amazing!

[tigerlilly2k]

I enjoy foreshadowing, too, because I enjoy suspense so much.
Isn't foreshadowing a crucial element in the writing of suspense--that sense that the bottom may fall out at any moment, that someone's got hold of the rug and is fixing to yank?


Absolutely! Foreshadowing an event serves to put the reader "in the know" about something that the poor character is unaware...say we KNOW what's lurking in the basement and can only watch, heart pounding, as the Character heads blithely toward those dark stairs. "DONT GO DOWN THERE!" we may scream internally...but alas...he cant hear us...and down he goes. This accomplishes getting US, the reader scared poopless LONG before the character knows there's anything to be scared of.

It's a "writer's choice" kinda thing--if he does NOY choose to foreshadoww, that's cool. We Readers will be just as surprised as the Character when the Terrible Thing happens. Or, if he DOES foreshadow, we are put in the omnicient position of Knowing Beforehand.
Remember JAWS? BOTH techniques were used to perfection. The "dum-dum-dum-dum" shark music always played when the shark was around and just hearing it made our hair stand on end....but the music NEVER played when the shark actually attacked somebody. EVERY time, WE were just as surprised as the person in the water, feeling those big teeth.

[LittleRedKing]

By happenstance, I just happened to read a section of Pet Sematary last night, that is ripe with forshadowing. In this instance, I think it really serves to up the suspense factor. You know it is effective when your fingers are itching to turn the pages in anticipation!:wink2:

I think I know exactly which part you are talking about.

Does it have anything to do with flying a kite?

[Bluey Lunger]

one of the most interesting cases of foreshadowing is in black house, the end of chapter eight, jack and henry, spending time w/bleak house, the fog there in dickens story. seems we are presented w/a case of jack, almost 200' feet up in the air, as the story opens chapter one, doing a flyover, and then we get that but for that brief flicker of an old NO TRESPASSING sign completely unaware of the black house he one day will have to enter, jack concentrates again on the page and continues reading bleak house. in the paragraph before, we're in jack's mind, doing the flyover, the way the story opened. baffling. a spoiler cause it's about black house and maybe some don't want to read it, so if you do, doom on you, if you haven't read black house cause you were warned.

[pandora]

I don't believe any of the characters that are supposed to disappear really do. I usually find them popping up in some other novel of his. That's one thing I love about SK.

[Sawney Beane]

It may not have nothing to do with the thread,but for me,one of his lines regarding a great loss that touched me the most was the one that talked about a paperboat´s odissey ,wich "passed out of the tale forever" .But it did get mentioned again,didn´t?.I guess that was because after all "the two brothers had waterproofed it well"

[rose key]

On post # 22; how the heck did you do that???
Is this some new feature?
Ms. Mod?
Jordan?

[tess4da]

Did you just finish Duma Key, Lisey's Story or the Cell? It's a common thread in Mr. King's books, short stories, novelettes, etc. It always brought me to a point of finality, and despair, only to be brought back up again, with a sense of hope, and possibility, probably with a cliffhanger ending. He's a maestro, knows his audience, and, like a great rock band, keeps us wanting more. I've been reading him for 30 years.

[elevelyn]

LittleRedKing: I have mixed feeling about when he does that. I, too, say, "Oh, NO!!!" whenever I read that, and sometimes I have to put the book down, because the effect is so tremendous, but sometimes it can prepare me for a blow to come that is going to be very traumatic.

I know what you mean, when i read the talisman i threw the book across the room because of that line, i was so upset when he hinted that wolf would die i had to wait an hour or two before i could read it again. i love the way he does it but sometimes i think it does take away the sadness when the character i love actually does die because i know its coming.

[lisaofthecoos]

I know what you mean, when i read the talisman i threw the book across the room because of that line, i was so upset when he hinted that wolf would die i had to wait an hour or two before i could read it again. i love the way he does it but sometimes i think it does take away the sadness when the character i love actually does die because i know its coming.

I just read Talisman a few months ago. I remember reading the part of which you speak. IMO I don't think it took away too much of the sadness though, it still hit me hard when it actually happened. I am pretty sure I teared up a bit. One of my fav books thus far.

[Prince of Darkness]

Hi,

I love the foreshadowing, although I can't explain why.

Long days and pleasant nights

[ExcerptsFromATatteredMind]

I don't know what it's called, but I don't think it's "foreshadowing", because in these instances he is flat out telling us what happens later on. And in some cases, that which we are told does not come to pass in the book, but rather is a peek at a character's long term destiny.
We could call it "fore-shattering", for a lot of reasons, but mostly because he shatters our senses with it.
One particularly good usage of it was in the Dark Tower series when he gave us insight into the future of the gun-clerk that Roland had bought ammo from. It blew my mind when he told me the guy died of a heart attack while watching Terminator, because he was so sure he had encountered a Terminator years before. Loved it! Loved it! Loved it! Sooooo cool!
Another great usage of it (albeit painful), was when he asked us if we saw the Ka-tet reunited and happy. Did we see it? Did we see it very well? We sure did. And then he dropped the bomb. Ka-Boom! And true to his word, the Ka-tet was broken, and we never saw them together again.
Great, now I am brutalized thinking about Eddie.
See what happens when you provoke a tattered mind. Lol.

[Prince of Darkness]

Hi,

Yes, now I know why I love it so much.

The first time I ever saw this in SK's work was in Duma Key, then in Salem's Lot (can't remember where, mayhap something to do with Ben never seeing Susan again) then in Carrie where a news report says that Sue Snell is the only survivor, even though I loved Tommy Ross.

Then in The Stand with Stu in the ditch, and then in The Dark Tower where the turtle falls under the table, and then in IT when the paperboat sails the seas forever.

Come to think of it, the foreshadowing is sometimes the best part of the plot in Sai King's novels.

Long days and pleasant nights

[smooth operator]

Hi and welcome, i have to say those little words always make me feel sad because they are usually spoken about a character i really like..such as Wireman, he was one of my favourite characters in a long time.

It always makes me say, "Oh no!"