Foreshadowing Through Backstory
On the very first page of the novel—a mere four paragraphs in—an interesting bit of imagery occurs. The imagery itself is not all that particularly interesting, but what passes for rather pedestrian descriptive prose serves two functions simultaneously. It is both backstory which quickly delineates the not-quite-recent past and foreshadowing which provides the attentive reader with a sense of something important yet to come:
“The manor-keep of Lord Withen Ashkevron of Forst Reach was a strange and patchworked structure. In Vanyel’s great-great-grandfather’s day it had been a more conventional defensive keep, but by the time Vanyel’s grandfather had held the lands, the border had been pushed far past Forst Reach. The old reprobate had decided when he’d reached late middle age that defense was going to be secondary to comfort. His comfort, primarily.”
The Work Room
The Work Room will prove to be one of the most significant settings of the story. As such, it is important to convey the full extent of that essential quality of its architecture. This is accomplished with great efficiency through imagery:
“The Work Room was a permanently shielded, circular chamber within the Palace complex that the Herald-Mages used when training their proteges in the Mage-aspects of their Gifts. The shielding on this room was incredibly ancient and powerful. It was so powerful that the shielding actually muffled physical sound; you couldn’t even hear the Death Bell toll inside this room…This shielding had to be strong; strong enough to contain magical `accidents’ that would reduce the sparse furniture within the room to splinters. Those `accidents’ were the reason why the walls were stone, the furniture limited to a couple of cheap stools and an equally cheap table, and why every Herald-Mage put full personal shields on himself and his pupil immediately on entering the door of this room.”
Creeping Anxiety
One peculiarly effective display of imagery has the effect of creating a sense of the creeping anxiety overcoming the character at its center. This example of imagery that bypasses the reader’s conscious apprehension to penetrate into subconscious comprehension by focusing on sensory details is a very simple but powerfully effective example of the magic that can be created with nothing but words to stimulate an emotional response in the reader based upon a collective memory of just such a weird experience:
“The emptiness of the suite almost oppressed Tylendel…there was nothing and no one to break the stifling silence. It closed around him like a shroud, until the very beating of his heart was audible. Outside the windows it was as dark as the heart of sin, and so overcast not even a hint of moon came through. His scalp was damp, hot, and prickly. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck and soaked into his collar. It felt a whole lot later than it actually was; time was crawling tonight, not flying.”
Synesthesia
Synesthesia is the name given to the perceptual condition in which the sensory response to a stimulus is out-of-sync with conventional expectations. For instance, “seeing” music or “hearing” colors. It can be an especially effective form of literary imagery as long as it is not overused because its power derives from its weirdness such as that exemplified here by the use of color to describe sound:
“Cool, green-gold music threaded into the darkness; not dispelling it, but complementing it. It wound its way into his mind, and wherever it went, it left healing behind it…The green-gold music was joined by another, a blue-green harmony like the voice that had spoken to dispel the dream. And this music was no longer letting him drift aimlessly. It was leading him…Then the blue-green music faded, leaving the green-gold to carry the melody alone. It sang to him then, sang of rest, sang of peace, and he dreamed. Dreamed of waking, moving to another’s will, to drink and care for himself and sleep again. But no more dreams that hurt, only dreams full of the verdant music.”
