Fiveshadowing

[metageek]

I've started reading David Copperfield. There is way too much foreshadowing. From about halfway through the third chapter (of 64):

There has been a time since when I have wondered whether, if the life before her could have been revealed to me at a glance, and so revealed as that a child could fully comprehend it, and if her preservation could

Comments

[kahnegabs]

My understanding as to why his books are so interminably long is that he was paid by the word! It shows, I think.

Well, according to Wiki and Project Gutenburg, he got paid by the installment, rather than by the word. But installments, like movie serials, require that you come back for more, so the 'fiveshadowing' was part of the technique of keeping the installment reader interested.

[be_well_lowell]

Another implication is that because he was writing in installments, the audience would be waiting (potentially several) before the foreshadowing payoff arrived.

[kahnegabs]

I agree.
Isn't it interesting that when we find out *why* people did things the way they did, it makes so much more sense?

What once looked to me like unnecessary wordiness has now become a commercial ploy for readership.

[cvirtue]

Well, it was an era with different literary standards.

[kahnegabs]

Indeed. I find myself thinking that the writers for a lot of our current TV show are using that example for their ideas.

lol