Setup and payoff are the foundation of any good story… but they’re SUPER hard to pull off.
Let’s go over some examples, both good and bad, then create our own setups/payoffs together!
During the last stream, the subscribers voted that we go over setup/payoff in stories
Watch what we did here, or scroll down for highlights.
Setup and Payoff
- Setup/payoff is one of the most difficult parts of telling a good story
- BUT it’s also one of the most important parts too. If you don’t have a good setup/payoff, then readers are going to come away feeling unsatisfied
- So let’s go over what setup/payoff is, then practice coming up with some examples together!
Most stories can be broken down into premise/setup/payoff:
|
Premise What is the story about? |
Setup
An event based on the premise that involves the main character |
Payoff A satisfying ending that involves the setup |
|
The payoff is based on the setup, which is based on the premise. |
||
| A detective is investigating the murder of a woman’s husband | While investigating, he finds a gun in the the dresser of the man’s teenage son | It turns out the son killed his father, who was abusive, and before the detective can tell anyone the son confronts him with the gun |
| Hunger Games: A future where kids have to kill each other in a tournament | Katniss goes hunting using a bow with her friend Gale to feed their families. | Katniss uses her bow skills in the tournament, to blow up the enemies’ supplies |
- The premise: Something that answers: “Okay, WHAT is the story about?”
- The setup: Something that answers: “Okay, THEN what?”
- The payoff: Something that answers: “Okay, but WHY do I care?”
* Put simply, the setup is seeing the gun, and the payoff is firing it.
* Who fires it, how they fire it, why they fire it, and more can play into the themes of your story.
One of the best ways to clearly see setup/payoff is by looking at stories that are lacking one or the other. So let’s take a look at a well-known example of each: a story lacking setup, and one lacking payoff:
| Premise | Setup | Payoff |
| Birdbox: A supernatural presence appears in the sky that kills anyone who looks at it | A woman and two children born after the presence arrived have to blindly go down a river, in order to find a commune where it’s supposedly safe | …there is none!
(Instead: The children take off the blindfolds and they’re fine. The presence only affects people who were born before it arrived. Since they grew up with it, they’re immune, and they love it as much as we love our blue sky. That’s the last thing the woman sees before she dies.) |
| Game of Thrones: Daenerys has been fighting for years to win back the throne and the love of the common people. | …there is none!
(Instead: After winning King’s Landing, Daenerys starts hearing voices in her head, thinking the common folk are saying she’s not the rightful queen, Jon Snow is. She decides to obliterate the secret of his bloodline entirely.) |
Daenerys goes crazy and burns everyone in King’s Landing riding atop her dragons |
Let’s take a look at some more examples:
|
Premise What is the story about? |
Setup
An event based on the premise that involves the main character |
Payoff A satisfying ending that involves the setup |
| You were born with two demons on your shoulders instead of an angel and a demon | You meet someone else who has two angels and no demons, so you both swap one | Both of you go crazy: the angels are weak/soft and can’t stand up to the demons |
| A monster wants to join a band and play piano | The monster fails piano lessons, because she can’t play the same way as the teachers, due to her three tentacle fingers | She learns to use her tentacles to her advantage, busting out sick combinations of notes no one has ever heard before that only she can play |
| A boy named Max opens his closet door to find a strange human covered in monster scales | Max gives the scaly human a mani/pedi to calm them down, since he is an aspiring nail technician. He’s learned it in secret or else his parents would freak out | The scaly human is taken back to their world by a dragon, and Max follows. To defeat the dragon he gives it a mani/pedi. As thanks, the dragon sends Max home, now with the confidence to go up against his parents |
After that, chat came up with some premises that we created setups/payoffs for:
|
Premise What is the story about? |
Setup
An event based on the premise that involves the main character “THEN what?” |
Payoff A satisfying ending that involves the setup “Who CARES?” |
| Girl cuts her finger making arts and crafts and finds out she has blood magic.
(This little girl is snipping a Valentine heart for the boy she likes and cuts her finger with the scissors.) |
(1) Being an art enthusiast, she uses the blood magic for art, creating origami blood-flowers, etc. and becomes a famous artist/magician
(2) After overusing her power, she starts running out of blood and begins taking blood from other people (3) The boy refuses her valentine, so she uses her blood magic on him to make him like her |
(1) People demand more and more of her art, but she can’t supply the blood fast enough, so she severs her limbs to create incredible pieces at a horrible personal cost
(2) The blood she gets only dilutes her own, so she starts donating hers to others so they can have some of the power, when she has completely run out someone sends her a thank-you card… it’s very artistic (3) Now that the boy is under her control, she has to control his every movement and it gets boring, so she makes him drown himself. When the police investigate, they’re suspicious of her… so she gives one of the suspicious officers a valentine card |
| An elderly gravedigger falls into his last grave and breaks his legs. With no shovel and no help, he struggles to escape. | (1) A boney hand helps him up
(2) He struggles for days but nobody helps him, he eventually gives up and dies |
(1) The bony hand is coming from the side of the dirt wall, not above it. The skeleton from the grave next to him pulls him into the dirt and buries him alive. Murder victim turned death-serial-killer
(1) The hand belongs to one of the people he buried — a spirit he helped to move on to the afterlife. Suddenly more bony hands come from the walls hey to thank the gravedigger for his work, and they slowly escalate him out of the grave (2) After his death, the gravedigger must sit in trial as his life is judged to see whether he can enter heaven. He feels he has no chance, since he never helped anyone. But just as all seems lost, his defense attorney calls in all his witnesses: the residents of heaven that the gravedigger helped move on. With their testimony, the gravedigger is allowed into heaven |
| A bed wonders what it feels like to sleep. | (1) The wizard who sleeps on the bed accidentally sprinkles it with “come alive” powder, and suddenly the bed is conscious… but it only cares about sleeping
(2) Bed asks other furnitures and housewares what it’s like (3) An old bed has been suffering for years and they call this doctor to end everything. I can finally sleep. |
(1) The bed goes to sleep, then wakes up and is disappointed that it wasn’t the amazing experience it always thought. It realizes that its true calling in life isn’t sleeping, but helping others sleep
(2) All of the other objects have their own perceptions of sleeping (lamp says sleep = dark, phone says sleep = charge). Bed realizes that its own perception of sleep is cuddling with its owners (3) But the doctor manages to fix the bed up. The bed is thankful that it gets the opportunity to help its owners sleep for that many more nights, and won’t take life for granted again |
| Growing up building LEGO sets, David dreamed of becoming a professional LEGO builder. Now an adult, he attempts to make that dream a reality. | (1) David loses his arm in some horrible accident
(2) His LEGO model goes viral and the LEGO Company sees it and calls to hire him |
(1) He builds the first LEGO prosthetic arm and that gets him the job
(2) They hire him as a janitor (2) He is being told what to build, and finds that turning his hobby into a job destroys his creative passion. |
| A rabid fan’s favorite singer won’t answer their constant mail-in messages, so they try to find a way to meet them in person | (1) Fan works for ad company and writes a commercial that will star the singer
(2) The fan learns to sing and enters a competition against their idol (3) The rabid fan kidnaps the singer, ties them to a chair, just to be able to read them all their fan mail |
(1) The commercial is a flop, and in an article that the fan reads online, the singer blames the writer and calls her out by name… it’s the happiest she’s ever felt
(2) Singer demolishes fan. Fan feels that they wasted so much time and energy on the singer and competition. fan returns home to family and friends who happily cheer the fan and ask them to sing (3) The singer reveals that they already know the fan’s letters all by heart. They are in love as well, but were too shy to send a letter back |
Be sure to check out the video for more!
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you join us on Twitch.
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Featured image: Pakutaso