How do Forewarnings work when Consequence starts in place?

questions
#1

Story Expert says “the foreshadowing events that indicate the approach of the consequence” but what if the consequence is in place?

What about a Failure/Good story? Do the Consequences have to be bad?

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#2

I tend to look at Forewarnings as indications that the Antagonist is winning.

I don’t think Consequences have to be bad. I may want to prevent a war, but the consequence of one might be that my munitions company makes a bundle.

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#3

I’d think of the forewarnings as “events that foreshadow an impending failure to achieve the goal”.

That way it doesn’t matter whether the consequence is coming or is in place. Either way, you’re heading toward receiving or maintaining the consequence.

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#4

Very true. The Consequence of How to Train Your Dragon is “Conceiving a World Where Dragons and Vikings Live Together,” which results from the failure of the Story Goal of “Training the Next Generation of Dragon Killers.”

Source: https://narrativefirst.com/articles/the-relationship-between-character-growth-and-consequence

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#5

Isn’t that more like a Dividend?

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#6

Dividends are benefits gathered while meeting the requirements of the goal. If the requirement of preventing a war were to have the biggest stockpile of weapons, then I’d say making money would be a dividend. But if making money only happens if the war happens, and thus failure has occurred, then making money is the result of failing to achieve the goal and thus is a consequence.

Look at it logistically rather than emotionally. The information just is what it is. Emotionally, making money might be a wonderful consequence to failing to prevent war and might even be a consequence worth giving up the goal for. Or it might be a horrible symbol of all the blood that will be on ones hands for providing munitions. Either way it’s still the result of failing to prevent the war in Mikes’s example.

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