Promise, Progress, Payoff

This is the simplest way of thinking about plot that I found practical and useful. The “three P’s”: Promise, Progress, Payoff. Rules for how to construct a story are called “narrative structure”. While this one is general to the point of not being a structure, we’ll get more and more specific as the course goes on.

How does it work?

Every storyline has three parts.

• Promise: you start with something. You promise the reader a conflict, a character change, a certain idea.
• Progress: you progress on the promises you made. You repeat the cycle of “event->consequence” as often as needed, until …
• Payoff: you deliver on that promise. Promised a big fight between good and evil? Deliver it. Promised a character who’d learn to not be selfish? Deliver it.

Leave out any of these parts, and the story becomes confusing or unsatisfying.

• Without Promise there can be no Payoff.
• The reverse, merely promising something and never delivering, is even worse.
• Promise and Payoff should always be different, so there MUST be steps of progress between them. To connect the two extremes in a realistic way.

I deem this a general truth, a rule that can’t really be broken. Your stories will only feel satisfying if they have promise, progress, and payoff.

Multiple storylines

This idea applies to your story as a whole, but also every individual storyline within it.

• For each major character, include these three elements. (The first time a new side character is introduced, you “promise” the reader what kind of character it’s going to be. Don’t make the wrong promises by accident.)
• For everything you set up, make sure it’s paid off. (Both big and small. Both the major mystery that started the book, and the smaller mysteries introduced along the way.)
• The first chapter of your novel should promise more general things about the story, like genre or pacing. (The last chapter should, as expected, pay off on those general promises.)

Every single tip or tool for plotting simply applies to every storyline equally. (Because every storyline is just a separate plot.) This course, therefore, doesn’t say much more about it.

Assume that everything you learn can be applied to any storyline, long or short, major or minor. In fact, most books have the same overall plot, but rearranged to feel unique. With so many books already written, finding fresh ways to combine storylines is one of the only ways to create a unique plot.

For more concrete tips on handling multiple storylines, check out the A, B and C Story from my Storytelling course. The chapters after it also regularly give concrete tips for combining storylines.

An example

Say your book starts in the middle of an action scene. A big fight between two opposing sides (land A and land B), with flying creatures and magic spells.

What are you promising the reader?

• This is a fantasy book.
• There’ll be a lot of action and fights
• It’s about a battle between two sides (which will probably be the climax)

After this scene, you try to make progress. Because that’s what you’re supposed to do, right?

So you introduce a character, who lives in land A. They dream of starting their own bakery. They start to pursue it. They collect funds, study recipe books, and wait—what?

This is not what you promised! Sure, the character lives in land A, which was introduced in the first chapter. Sure, eventually, the bakery might be involved in the war somehow. It might sound like an alright idea. But that’s not what you promised.

Progress should be laser focused on the promises. After that first chapter, progress should be about …

• Advancing the battle. (New strategies, plans for a new attack, dealing with consequences.)
• Delivering the fantasy. (Slowly explain the magic system, or how the world works, or introduce a strong soldier character who wields the magic like no other.)
• Moving to the next big action sequence.

So, how could you change the original idea to deliver on the promises?

• Move that bakery to the front lines. The character specifically has to ensure a proper food supply for the army of land A.
• The magic of this fantasy world revolves around food. What you eat, determines your magic. Magically enhanced bakery goods are a big deal :p
• Design the plot so our main character regularly has to enter the action. (To get their ingredients, save their bakery, learn new magic, whatever.)

And finally, you need to have payoff. Again, these should resolve the promises you made.

• You promised big battles and action? The finale is a big battle between A and B.
• You promised fantasy? The discovery or use of new magic should play a major role in this resolution.
• (You promised a bakery and a character who really wants to become a baker? It would be deeply unsatisfying if the story ended and this character had lost its bakery and just decided to become a plumber instead. End the story with some resolution to this promise.)

With these three simple steps, I’ve just constructed a practical plot I can follow while writing. It took me a few minutes, nothing more, to get a clear beginning, middle and end to this story. (In fact, I might use the idea of food-based magic in a future book …)

Another example

To make sure it sticks, another (shorter) example.

Your story starts with a boy and a girl meeting, falling in love, kissing. What are you promising? Romance. Love. Relationships. A generally happy and uplifting tone.

How do you make progress? Take new steps in this relationship. Maybe they move in together, maybe talk about marrying or kids. Introduce other characters that have their own storyline related to romance or love. (Maybe they struggle to find someone, maybe they created a new trendy dating app, whatever!)

Yes, there’ll be obstacles and conflict. But these aren’t life-threatening (or common), otherwise the story would stop being upbeat.

How do you pay off the story? Maybe they get their first kid. Or maybe the story is really about someone else, and they’ve helped a friend of theirs fix their dating life (or romantic life in general). Or maybe it’s for a younger age group, and the payoff is that the main character finally gets their first kiss.

Hopefully you agree that this is easy to do, but gives a satisfying (though loose) outline for a whole plot.

Next chapters will dive into detail on Promise, Progress and Payoff (separately).