Premonitions may be quite a useful tool in thriller writing. They can and do indicate future things (usually going horribly wrong) - and they are often arbiters of death, dying or some other catastrophic event.
Premonitions fascinate us because our understanding of how
things can be foretold (or foreseen) without the aid of the usual human senses
does not lie within the normal limits of our innate abilities. How can a person
look into the future and – some would say - why would a person want to look
into the future? Through the ages, from time immemorial, there are countless
instances and stories about premonitions and seeing future events that could
not possibly have been foreseen. Or so it seems…
I think most of us would agree that there are stories where
we are stumped for answers and a quick straw poll of any largish group of
people would, I am sure, come up with one or two stories that defy the laws of
existence. And it all adds to the mystery…One of the most famous people who claimed to foresee the future was, of course, Nostradamus. His writings and prophecies are with us still today – 500 years later. When I looked up his work and his life I found the following:
“Recent research
suggests that much of Nostradamus’ prophetic work paraphrases collections of
ancient ‘end of the world’ prophecies (mainly Bible-based), supplemented with
references to historical events and anthologies of omen reports. He then
projects those into the future in part with the aid of comparative horoscopy.
Hence the many predictions involving ancient figures such as Sulla, Gaius
Marius, and Nero, as well as his descriptions of "battles in the
clouds" and "frogs falling from the sky."But even when all the charlatans are taken out of the equations we still remain fascinated with the idea that some people can predict the future and some ordinary people can have ‘once in a lifetime’ premonitions ( especially about a loved one).
In my own writing
(The Witcheye Gene) I used the concept for one of my characters but the visions
only came about because of a particular familial characteristic of different colour
eyes. And it was quite limited otherwise it can seem contrived and in the worst
way seem like a ‘deus ex machina’ . But I did find it quite fascinating to
research and include it in my plot. It actually ratcheted up the tension when
one person could foresee something but no one else believed
them. So do you use the idea of premonitions in your writing?
Despite writing science fiction, this is a subject I've not really played with. The closest thing so far, is probably a character's sense of foreboding.
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