Writing FAST - Jeff Bollow 2012
Setup and payoff
Make your idea specific
Focus
The concept of Setup and Payoff can give your project a shape more quickly than just about anything else I can think of. I believe everything you write will fall into one of these two categories. Just by being aware of it, your ideas will take shape almost without any effort at all.
A setup needs a payoff. And a payoff doesn’t pay anything off without a setup.
Take this sentence for example. Was it setup or payoff?
Answer: It was setup. This sentence is the payoff!
The setup “sets up” the idea. It builds the context. It creates the anticipation of “more-to-come.” When she reads the setup, your reader expects something more.
The payoff answers it. It closes the gap. It completes the idea in the mind of the reader.
Remember that caveman analogy in the first chapter? Remember how I told you I’d give you the answer later? Well, that was a setup. It opened the thought, and created an incomplete idea. If we want to close that idea, we’ve got to pay if off.
What did you think the payoff to that story was? Did you think it was when the image of the mammoth filled their minds? That was a payoff, yes. But a larger payoff was the line “And written communication was born.” It pays off the whole story.
Fact is, they were both payoff lines. But that story has an even bigger payoff. It’s the line (on page 12) “You saw the mammoth.” Because with that line, I didn’t just payoff the story, I made the story itself payoff.
Make sense? Good. Because the previous two paragraphs were the payoff for the “I’ll tell you later” setup on page 13.
See how it works?
Of course you do. Because that was the payoff for this segment. (Wow, what a head-trip.)
Every payoff should be a new revelation. But it only works when you’ve set it up effectively.
When you’re creating the Preview for your idea, break it down into setup and payoff. The payoff is the kicker. It’s where your reader grasps the central idea you’re going for, even if you never say the idea directly.