Unlocking the Secret of How to Write Great Setups and Payoffs

S2_E37. Unlocking the Secret of How to Write Great Setups and Payoffs

One of the best things I ever learned in terms of setups and payoffs is how to make a setup ne barely noticeable. A truly good setup is something that the audience shouldn't be aware of, let alone expect a payoff to come from it. The problem is that audiences today are so  sophisticated that they see them coming 1000 miles away. They know when they've been set up. And when an audience member knows they've been set up in either a novel or a movie,  they wait for it to come back into play. They expect you to do something with it later, which diminishes their delight and surprise. So how do you fool your audience? How do you truly set them up without them knowing it? This entire episode is dedicated to the answer to this question, which is possibly the best trick I've ever learned as a writer.

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SPECIAL THANKS to composer CARLA PATULLO for the original music she graciously permits us to use in the intro and outro of this podcast. To find out more about this amazing talent, go to  www.carlapatullo.com