Foreshadowing and Tie Backs are two useful literary tools.

Foreshadowing means a writer provides a hint about an upcoming event. Here’s an example from my first novel, with a news reporter speaking to my protagonist. The foreshadowing passage goes like this

     “I ran across Bradshaw while I was there, and . . .” the reporter looked away. “And he asked me out.”

     “Bradshaw? Ken Bradshaw? The police chief?”

     She nodded.

     Dave laughed. “That old goat! He must be more than twice your age.”

     “I didn’t really mind that he asked me out,” Sarah replied. “Guys do that all the time. But what I’m upset about is that he seemed to get really angry when I told him no.”

Much later in the novel, police are telling my protagonist that the chief is a person of interest in a murder investigation. (A person of interest is someone who may be connected to a crime but hasn’t been formally accused.) My protagonist doesn’t believe the chief, who is his good friend, would be capable of murder. Among other reasons is that the protagonist had never seen his friend get angry, certainly not angry enough to kill. However, the protagonist then remembers . . .

     But then the memory rushed in like a flood—the long-ago conversation with Sarah.

     “Wait a minute,” he said. “I remember something Sarah told me. She said Bradshaw had asked her out and she had turned him down. She said he seemed to get really angry when she told him no.”

     “How angry was ‘really angry?’”

     “I don’t know, but I remember her telling me she was glad other people were around. She was that afraid.”

The first passage sets the stage for what’s to come later by hinting that the chief is capable of anger. The second passage reminds my readers of the earlier conversation, which seemed unimportant at the time (and thus readers may have forgotten about it) but in fact was critical to the plot.

If I hadn’t included the foreshadowing my readers would question my story’s credibility. I generally portrayed the chief as a good guy. I couldn’t have him suddenly have a problem with his temper severe enough to kill without hinting earlier that it was a possibility.

Tie-backs

A tie-back, sometimes called a tie-in or a back story, is the opposite of foreshadowing. In foreshadowing we’re dropping a hint about what’s to come. In a tie-back we’re telling what came before. Here’s an example of a tie back:

     A Dallas man who was involved in two DUI-related crashes has been sentenced to 10 years in state prison.

     Martin Popovich Smirnoff, 40, was sentenced to five years for child neglect and five years for DUI causing serious bodily injury, with the sentences to run consecutively.

     Smirnoff was driving under the influence when he caused a crash that seriously injured two people in 2019. He was also under the influence when he was involved in a single-vehicle crash early in 2021. Smirnoff’s son was riding unrestrained in the vehicle during that crash.

The third paragraph is the tie-back. Without it your readers would have no details on why Smirnoff was being sentenced to prison.

Generally speaking, foreshadowing is a technique used in fiction and tie-backs are used in nonfiction. However, you may find them useful in either genre.