At a smaller scale, a joke is a setup—a straight line or a situation—followed by a payoff—the punchline. So a comedy is a sequence of humorous setups and payoffs. A mystery, of course, is a setup: its solution is the payoff. It too is composed of smaller setups/payoffs. If our sleuth finds a footprint under the window, the reader expects to find out whom it belongs to. If the footprint has no role in solving the mystery, we feel cheated at some level—or at a minimum, the author has wasted our attention, creating a subliminal question in our mind that takes our focus away from things that the writer does want us to be aware of.
In a classic mystery, that footprint might be a red herring, a false clue that points suspicion away from the real murderer. A mystery reader even expects some of those. But what you can’t do is mention the footprint and not tell us, at some point, whose it is: that subverts expectation the wrong way. The most famous maxim about setups is Chekhov’s remark that if there’s a rifle hanging on the wall in Act I, it must be fired by Act III. The rifle sets up the idea of a gunshot in the audience’s mind, even if subliminally.
Some of the greatest openings in literature are setups: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. Immediately we expect to meet this single man and understand that there will be a competition among young ladies for a husband.
It’s worth noting that this setup leads not to the central plot of Pride and Prejudice, but to another setup. The “single man” of the first line is Mr. Bingley, and its payoff is Elizabeth Bennet meeting not him but his friend Mr. Darcy. That event launches the driving action of the novel—which is interwoven with other setups and payoffs, such as Elizabeth’s attraction to Mr. Wickham, later revealed to be a bounder; the pompous Mr. Collins’ pursuit of Elizabeth and her rejection of him—and so on.
Just as readers count on narrative setups being paid off and feel conscious or unconscious dissatisfaction when that doesn’t happen, readers expect key plot points to connect to facts or character elements that have been established earlier. Taking the mystery example again: if the detective wraps up the case by saying, “and we know it was you, Throckmorton, because you left your footprint beneath the window!” and there has been no mention of a footprint, that’s pretty unsatisfying.
Some setups are what might be called latent or silent ones: the author includes information or an image that will come into play later without calling attention to it, just so the reader isn’t left wondering, “now where did that come from?” This is also called planting or establishing a fact (or character trait, or clue, etc.). In Hollywood they call it “laying pipe.” If a vital scene of your novel involves a husband striking his wife in a jealous rage, you need to establish early on that he’s prone to jealousy, or the moment feels unearned.
To take a Hollywood example, in the climactic battle of Game of Thrones, Arya Stark, a teenager, kills a seemingly invincible villain with an exceptional bit of knifeplay—so exceptional, for a young woman especially, that it might feel implausible. Except that the writers have carefully set it up by showing her practicing this very skill at two earlier points in the series where it was merely incidental to the business of the scene.
I recently edited a richly textured, deftly written novel about a young woman who takes a job assisting a famously difficult and uncompromising older painter. She is intimidated, yet inspired, by the older woman’s example, and privately begins working on drawings of her own. The book ended with these two characters, after some challenging episodes, acknowledging that they have gained from each other. It was a good resolution, but something was missing. I realized the moment where young, self-doubting Alex showed flinty Paula her artworks had not been narrated: we learned about it afterward. I pointed this out to the author, who said, “of course!” And promptly wrote a handful of pages that paid off this crucial setup beautifully. She delivered what writing manuals call “the necessary scene.”
So if you’re feeling that your novel or story is lacking some oomph, look at it again and ask: Are all my setups paid off? And look at it the other way too: could my payoffs be set up better? When your setups and payoffs are in balance, your manuscript will deliver both the right amount of anticipation, and a satisfying sense of resolution. And no one will close the book saying, “Wait, why was that gun hanging there?”
Note: This essay originally appeared at the website of the Independent Editors Group, an association of experienced freelance editors I have recently joined. The IEG has recently started an "Advice" page where my colleagues and I will post about writing, editing, and the publishing business. Anything I post there will also appear here, but the reverse is not necessarily true.
