Consequences and Payoffs

Like setup and foreshadowing (see last week’s post), payoff and consequences aren’t quite the same thing. If you look up the definitions, the writing-relevant one for “payoff” is “a final outcome or conclusion,” while the one for “consequences” is “the result or effect of an action or condition.” That seems pretty clear; it’s when you start applying those definitions to story that things get murky.

For stories, the first instinct is to pair off setup and foreshadowing with payoff and consequences, but as soon as you try, the problems become obvious. Setup/payoff isn’t horrible at first glance (though it isn’t as clear-cut as it initially looks). Foreshadowing/consequences, on the other hand, is a really bad fit.

In a story, consequences are the necessary results of something that happens—the “that” part of “if this, then that.” Consequences can be obvious, as in “If Gregory throws that glass vase out the second floor window, then it will break when it hits the ground.” Consequences can also be somewhat unexpected, as in “If Jenny picks up the unfinished bomb out of curiosity, then she’ll get blamed for it later when they find her fingerprints on it” or intriguing “If John proposes to Erika, then she will be humiliated and angry (because of background that the reader doesn’t have yet).”

Without the “if” part, the vase won’t break, and Jenny won’t be accused of bomb-making. And if Erika snubs John before the reader sees them exchange a word, that reaction to him becomes a setup. We, as readers, assume the snub is a consequence of something in their backstory, and we will expect to find out what it is before we get to the end…a payoff.

Consequences, therefore, can be the result of actions and happenings that took place offstage or before the story started. Consequences can be major (like Jenny being accused of bomb-building) or minor (like George breaking a vase). But they’re always the result of some action or event. Consequences are the “effect” part of “cause-and-effect.” But foreshadowing isn’t a cause; it’s a hint. The thunderstorm over the Gothic mansion foreshadows the dark turmoil to come, but it doesn’t actually cause any of the heroine’s perils.

Strings of minor and major consequences occur all through every story. In most action-adventure stories, the chains of cause-and-effect is fairly linear. The reader sees Frodo procrastinate about setting off for Rivendell with the One Ring, and then sees the result (instead of Frodo having a head start, the Black Riders are on his trail almost immediately). In most murder mysteries, the cause-and-effect chains are tangled, and it is the detective’s job to untangle them until it is clear which string leads back to the murderer. To put it another way, consequences always happen and result from some action or event, but the reader doesn’t always get to see them in cause-and-effect order.

Effective payoff, on the other hand, always comes after some kind of setup. It is frequently the end of a long cause-and-effect chain, but not always. This is because  there are more types of setup than just cause-and-effect. Hanging a gun on the wall is a setup, but it doesn’t cause anything to happen, even if one can clearly see the payoff when somebody grabs the gun at a key moment. Giving the protagonist an obvious fear of teacups is a setup; the payoff comes when the reason for his/her fear is revealed (making the setup the effect, and the payoff the revelation of the cause, which the reader learns out-of-order). The detective’s summing-up in a classic murder mystery takes a string of clues (the half-burned letter, the victim wearing bedroom slippers when he was found in the park, the timing of the unexplained power outage) and ties them together to provide a sudden clear picture of what happened, how, why, and who the murderer is; this is also a payoff.

The story’s climax is, of course, the big payoff, but many other things can pay off at different point in a story. When this happens, the payoff scenes frequently serve more than one function. The mid-book scene where the meek protagonist finally tells off their bullying sibling can be both a satisfying payoff (after a series of setup scenes showing the bullying) and also foreshadowing for the story climax in which the formerly-meek protagonist tells off their boss, their king/queen/president, or the overconfident general of the alien fleet.

Both consequences and payoffs need setup, but they require different kinds. With consequences, there is always an action or event that they are the consequences of. The writer has flexibility in when the initiating action/event gets shown to the reader (it can be offstage or have happened before the start of the story), but there’s always a cause, and the consequences are always a result. “Consequences” describes what’s happening within the story.

“Payoff” has more to do with the reader’s expectations and reactions. The reader wants and expects to see the bully get a comeuppance; the comeuppance is the payoff. The reader wants to find out why the protagonist has that morbid fear of teacups; the revelation of the reason is the payoff. The reader wants to know why matchbooks, bunny slippers, and lemonade keep showing up and described as if they are significant; the payoff is the scene where their importance is revealed or explained.