365 days of writing prompts

10 writing prompts about the art of weaving the future into the now in stories.

Welcome to Day 19! Today, we explore one of storytelling’s quietest but most powerful tools: foreshadowing and echoes.

Foreshadowing plants seeds of what’s to come, guiding readers with subtle hints and promises. Echoes are the patterns that tie your story together; repeated words, symbols, or moments that circle back with new meaning. Together, they create unity, rhythm, and emotional payoff.

Here are many blog posts and videos that K.M. Weiland produced on this topic.

When used with care, these tools make a story feel inevitable yet surprising, and deeply satisfying from beginning to end.

1. The Seed
   Write a small, seemingly ordinary moment that hints at something big to come. What emotion or symbol does it quietly plant?
2. The Early Warning
   Create a scene where readers sense that danger or change is coming, even if the character doesn’t.
3. The Prophetic Detail
   Use an image, object, or line of dialogue that will return later with greater meaning.
4. The Promise
   Foreshadow a triumph, a heartbreak, or a revelation. How can you make it feel earned when it arrives?
5. The Mirror Scene
   Write two versions of the same moment. Create one early in your story and another near the end. The second should echo the first in tone, setting, or dialogue.
6. The Refrain
   Choose a phrase or image that repeats at key points in your story. How does its meaning evolve each time?
7. The Full Circle
   Write an ending that subtly calls back to your story’s beginning. What threads now connect them?
8. The Missed Clue
   Plant a detail your reader won’t notice at first, but that will feel perfectly placed in hindsight.
9. The Shadow of Regret
   Let a character recall or repeat an earlier mistake. How does the echo show their growth or pain?
10. The Last Echo
    End with an image, sound, or line of dialogue. It should feel like an echo of something once lost. Now, it is understood.

Foreshadowing and echoes are the heartbeat of resonance. They remind readers that everything in your story matters. Today, think like a weaver. Every thread you place can shimmer again later, connecting past and future in a single, beautiful pattern.

Leave a comment and let me know which of the prompts you found most helpful.