flash-forward
Narrative time leap
A flash-forward is a narrative device that jumps ahead in time to show events that will happen later in the story, the opposite of a flashback.
Common in film and literature to create suspense or dramatic irony: The movie opens with a flash-forward to the protagonist's death.
As a verb, to flash-forward is to skip ahead: The story flashes forward ten years.
Hinting at later events
- previewAdvance showing sample
- anticipationState of awaiting something
- glimpseFleeting view
- premonitionAdvance sense of future events
time jump · storytelling · plot device · teaser · hint · narrative technique · screenplay · novel
Ability to see
- premonitionAdvance sense of future events
- intuitionInstinctive immediate understanding
- déjà vuIllusory prior experience
- precognitionParanormal future awareness
imagination · anxiety · anticipatory · daydream · worry · visualization · prediction · expectation
Time still to come
jump · leap · projection · eventual · upcoming · subsequent · timeline · chronological
foreshadowing
Hinting at later events
- previewAdvance showing sample
- anticipationState of awaiting something
- glimpseFleeting view
premonition · time jump · storytelling · plot device · teaser · hint · narrative technique · screenplay · novel · film editing
vision
Ability to see
- premonitionAdvance sense of future events
- intuitionInstinctive immediate understanding
- déjà vuIllusory prior experience
precognition · imagination · anxiety · anticipatory · daydream · worry · visualization · prediction · expectation · foreboding
future
Time still to come
skip · jump · leap · projection · eventual · upcoming · subsequent · timeline · chronological · advance
- plot devicesMacGuffin, red herring, plot twist, foreshadowing, deus ex machina
- story scenesopening scene, closing scene, climax, prologue, epilogue
- narrative techniquesnonlinear plot, fragmented narrative, point of view, narrator, first person
- film timetime lapse, time-lapse, slow motion, slo-mo, montage
- timesecond, minute, hour, day, seconds
- beginningsbegin, beginning, start, first, opening
flash-forwardflashback
Involuntary past memory
retrospection · cutback · recall · retrospect · backstory