The Punch Line
By Anna Elliott | July 15, 2011 |
“Maybe I shoulda said DiMaggio?”
“Okay, you’re ugly too!”
Maybe laundry isn’t your biggest problem.
That’s right, jokes (the above taken from the first list a quick google search found me) don’t really make a lot of sense when you only hear the punch line. We all think of that punch line as the most important part of the joke–and yet just the punch line alone isn’t going to make anyone laugh. It’s missing its, well, punch.
My point is, setup is just as important as the payoff. And I absolutely think it’s just as true for novels as it is for jokes. After all, they’re both about telling stories, right? I just the other week got to read the working draft my fabulous writing partner’s new book. It’s a wonderful, fast-paced and magical story, and one scene in particular caught my eye. In this scene, the heroine is tempted by an Otherworldly goddess to betray all she believes in for the boon of being granted a child of her own. A powerful, gripping scene.
Now, its been previously mentioned in the story that there are doubts as to whether the heroine will ever have a child. Her husband is Otherworldly himself, one of the magical sidhe, and no one can say whether any human woman can bear his daughter or son. But what I suggested to my writing partner was that she add a scene earlier in the book, showing her heroine longing for a child, wishing for a baby with all her heart. As powerful as that temptation scene already is, do you feel how much more powerful yet it is when we really understand just how agonizing a temptation it is for the heroine? How hard it is for her to turn the goddess down?
Setup is key.
My own setup/punch line technique goes something like this: I divide my story line roughly in two with a mental line down the middle, at about the halfway mark of the action. And then I try to look at the most important scenes in the second half of the book as the punch line to jokes I’ve set up in the first half. (Even though they’re obviously not really jokes, ie not necessarily funny). Is the setup to the scenes I really want to “pop” there? If not, what can I do to get it in there?
Any emotional scene will feel like much more of a payoff if it’s been well set up first. Is your heroine going to lose her job? Make the blow all the more tangibly devastating by showing first how much your heroine loves her job, or maybe just how much she needs the money. Is your main character about to tell her boyfriend she’s unexpectedly pregnant? Ratchet up the tension with an earlier scene of the boyfriend telling someone else that he’s planning to break up with her.
Setup and punch line. Try it with your own manuscript–and let me know what you think!
Anna Elliott is an author of historical fiction and fantasy. Her first series, the Twilight of Avalon trilogy, is a retelling of the Trystan and Isolde legend. She wrote her second series, the Pride and Prejudice Chronicles, chiefly to satisfy her own curiosity about what might have happened to Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Darcy, and all the other wonderful cast of characters after the official end of Jane Austen’s classic work. She enjoys stories about strong women, and loves exploring the multitude of ways women can find their unique strengths. Anna lives in the Washington DC area with her husband and three children.
I agree that set-up is necessary, but I think a writer also has to be careful not to overdo it. If your reader is hit over the head too vigorously with the set-up, they will easily see the punch line coming.
Sonje, I agree–I’m definitely not talking about the kind of heavy-handed foreshadowing that makes an upcoming plot twist obvious from a mile away. What I really mean is that you need to set your character up emotionally in the first half of the book for what happens in the second half.
At the risk of both dating myself, and flying my cartoon-geek freak-flag at once, I’ll admit that the first DiMaggio punchline is from one of my favorite Looney Tunes: Unnatural History, 1959.
I couldn’t agree more about careful set-ups enhancing the impact of payoff scenes. It’s a beautiful thing when in hindsight you find a scene that could have more impact, and go back to enhance the set-up scenes in the rewrite. Having the input of readers, like your friend had in you, is so helpful to the process. Often, it has to do with building character motivation too, I’ve noticed.
Thanks for a fun and helpful new way of looking at your manuscript, Anna. And may I just add the punchline, “Oh yeah? Just get me a Labrador, and I’ll retrieve it.” Trust me, fellow Looney Tunes geeks are cracking up right now. ;-)
Excellent point. I think it’s hard–at least for me–to find the delicate balance between subtle set-up and overbearing foreshadowing. It’s something to always be aware of, while writing. Thanks.
Ooo, I like that tip (draw a line down the middle and make sure the key scenes in the second half are setup in the first). Thank you!
I love this! I’m a hard-core plotter, so this resonates with me. I like seeing the blueprint foundation, so I can check whether scenes build (are “set up”) in a way that maximizes impact, especially in the second half of the book. I probably take it a little far, though. I am a beast with a spreadsheet, and I’m not afraid to use it for complete scene outlines. :)
So so true. Thank you for this. :)
This is so, so good. I have found that I tend to easily write the key scenes in a story, and then get bored and not know what to do next. (Can you tell I’ve never finished a MS?) Now you’ve shown me what to do next! Thanks. ;-)
I like the idea of setup/punch line technique with dividing the story line in two with a mental line down the middle. It’s really interesting.
Great advice! I’ll sometimes revise in a bunch of mini-setups. Like, if someone has a pimple (teen fiction, obv.), I’ll have someone wishing the day before that the Pimple Fairy would visit her. Plus it gives me an opportunity to say “Pimple Fairy.”
I never thought about it in these terms, but it makes a lot of sense — and I will definitely be trying the setup/punch line technique in my WIP. Very useful!
I think setup and punchline are very important, but I also think some should be paid off right away, not all at the very end. I do this in one story, where the MC has forgotten the name of her one night stand, and she’s frantically trying to remember it, and then at the end of the chapter, turns out HE’s forgotten her name, as well. When you do this, the reader is more willing to tuck away these details and wait to see how they pay off.
Also – don’t set me up if you’re not going to pay it off. I read a book once where the author made a big deal, when looking for a criminal, that the children in a particular house had startling blue eyes. Turned out, this had to do with… nothing, the criminal didn’t have those same blue eyes, nor anyone else.
Set-up and punch line – I’ve never thought of it in those terms but you explained it well. Thank you for that. I’m going to paste it on my forehead in hopes that through osmosis it will stick in my brain.
Patti
Yeah, some writers forgot to build a suspense or a tracking path to the punch scene. It’s hard for us readers to determine why is such a reaction on the character when there’s nothing mentioned about it on the story run.