Storytelling Is A Joke

Seriously.

Set-up / Twist / Punchline

Everything else is elaboration.

1. A grasshopper and a zombie walk into a bar.

2. The bartender says, “Hey, we’ve got drinks named after you guys.”

3. The grasshopper says, “You’ve got drinks named Tom Collins and Harvey Wallbanger?”

It’s the rule of 3, one of the basic building blocks of storytelling.

Do it once to establish the idea.

Do it twice to establish a pattern.

Do it thrice to upend expectations.

Set-up

We establish the parameters of our story, set the stage, lay out the ground rules.

No matter how far-fetched, this is our baseline reality.

In this case, a world where grasshoppers and zombies can walk into a bar.

Twist

I almost used “tension” instead of “twist” but decided against it.

Most three act analysis say “conflict” at this point, but that word too often leads us into simplistic dualistic thinking:  

Good / Bad
Black / White
Yes / No
Left / Right
Up / Down

“Tension” in my mind means something that takes the original set-up and applies some sort of stress to it, but again, that implies a conflict of some sort, one side versus another.

“Twist” is better because there’s no judgment in it; the original set-up is distorted for whatever reason and the distortion needs to be addressed.

A story about a chronically ill person struggling to find the energy and will to continue living lacks morality and conventional conflict, but it can be riveting nonetheless. 

The twist always brings the question “How will this resolve?” 

In this case, the bartender comments on the irony of having drinks named “grasshopper” and “zombie”.

How will the story address this irony?

Punchline

Call it “resolution” or “climax” if you will; I prefer “punchline” because I think all stories need a point.

Kindly note, a punchline is not a moral.

If you need to provide a moral at the end of your story (other than for ironic / comedic purposes), you failed as a storyteller.

The story should bring the audience to the desired point without hanging a lantern on it.

And the point needn’t be moralistic or philosophical.

Often it’s just wry acknowledgement of a universal truth.

In this case, the grasshopper twists the twist back on itself, sidestepping commentary on the bartender’s ironic observation of drinks named after two common nouns, and instead raises the ante by focusing on the irony of drinks with proper names that also happen to be the names of the grasshopper and zombie.

(Bonus points for
naming the zombie
Harvey Wallbanger.)

It’s.
Just.  
That.  
Simple. 

Of course, elaborate edifices can be erected on this simple foundation.

The same technique can be applied again and again and again in the context of the story itself, adding all sorts of themes and sub-plots to the final telling of the tale.

You need a base situation.

You need a twist on that situation
that must be addressed.

You must address it
consistent with
both set-up and twist.

Random doesn’t work.

You can throw in a seemingly random twist, but the truth is that twist needs to relate in some shape / fashion / form with the set-up, otherwise there’s no point in the set-up.

This is where many action-adventure stories fail; they lack genuine set-ups and instead merely offer excuses for retaliatory violence that ends only when everything opposing the protagonist is destroyed.  

Likewise deus ex machina resolutions fail because they arbitrarily shoehorn in a solution instead of letting it grow organically out of the set-up / twist dichotomy.

Allow your problems to solve themselves.

© Buzz Dixon