The Setup's Three Jobs

The setup does three jobs in seconds: establish the character, define the stakes, and create a world a listener can picture. One vivid detail beats ten generic ones. "My grandmother kept a loaded shotgun behind the flour jar" beats a full biography on its own.

Great setups smuggle in the theme without announcing it. They plant seeds that bloom during the resolution. Treat each setup detail as a promise you must keep. Every line that does not pay off becomes a broken promise.