Explanation: Setups, payoffs, and the clues in between

- Because we're hardwired to see causality as the cement of the universe, the brain detests randomness. As a result, it's constantly converting raw data into meaningful patterns. The better to figure out what's safe, what isn't, and what the heck to do about it. So it's no surprise that as readers we're always on the lookout for patterns. To the reader, everything is either a setup, a payoff, or the road in between.

Once readers spot a setup, they immediately start hunting for the breadcrumb trail that will lead to the payoff. In other words, a setup is anything that implies further action. Like when a guy throws a banana peel over his shoulder and we immediately start wondering, oh who's going to trip? A big part of the pleasure of reading is recognizing, interpreting, and then connecting the dots as the pattern emerges. After all, it's curiosity that keeps us turning those pages.

That means you want to make sure every setup actually has a payoff, and that there aren't any inadvertent setups leading no where. This is crucial since, as we know, readers assume that everything in a story is there on a need to know basis, which means they take it for granted that everything you tell them is part of a pattern. They believe that each fact, each event, each action, will have story significance, that's why it's incredibly easy for them to mistake a random unnecessary fact for a setup.

To make matters worse, because it's relevance to what's happening now isn't clear, readers assume it'll have even more significance later, so it becomes part of the filter that they run the meaning of everything through from that moment on. Naturally, this undermines the assumptions that you do want them to make. If, for example, no one immediately slips on that banana peel, your reader will spend the entire story expecting someone, sometime, to take the fall.

In order to make sure you don't lead your readers astray, follow these two major rules of the road to get from setup to payoff. Rule one, the setup must come long before the payoff. Telling us about a problem at the very moment it's being solved, robs the story of suspense and of those specifics we were talking about earlier. We don't just want to know that the problem was solved, we want to know how the protagonist solved it and what she went through to do it.

This means that the clues escalate as we go from setup to payoff, because solving a problem is almost always harder than it seems at first. Rule two, the reader must be able to actually see the problem unfold. Writers often believe that once the reader knows that the protagonist is dealing with a problem, they'll automatically imagine how that problem is affecting the protagonist, not so. It's the writer's job to make sure that each clue along the way is there in plain view so the reader can see it.

Writers tend to hold back because since they know what each hint and each clue actually means, they're certain it will be completely obvious to the reader too, it's not. What the writer fears is a dead giveaway is actually a tantalizing clue to the reader who's counting on these clues to be able to anticipate what might happen next, and do what readers love best, try to figure out what's really going on. Remember, by creating engaging setups, you'll trigger the reader's curiosity.

And by giving them intriguing clues that then lead toward the payoff, you'll keep them reading. So when you find something random, irrelevant, or neutral in your story, boot it out, lest it become the banana peel that causes your reader's curiosity to slip and fall.