The Callback

I’m sitting on a ship with a dead lobster sprawled across my plate. Everyone at the table is grinning and staring intently at me as I hesitantly bring a lobster filled fork to my mouth. I hate seafood. I try chewing and… nope, this one ain’t going down my pie hole. After I regurgitate and burn it, the first words I utter are, “It popped in my mouth!”

Nobody seemed to hear anything else I said after that even though I tried to explain what I meant and why it was disgusting. They were too busy laughing and repeating “It popped in my mouth!” or remixing those words with anything they could think of. “Want some cake? It’ll pop in your mouth!” or “Mmm, that was so good it popped in my mouth!” 

Now, anytime anyone from that group brings up “It popped in my mouth!” we all recall that moment and relive the humorous memory together. It’s an inside joke. 

Chances are you have at least one inside joke with friends or family. Maybe you quote a line from a movie and the other person starts laughing or quoting the movie with you. Maybe it’s a funny phrase or a funny memory.

That’s a connection. You have a bond. 

In stories I like to call an inside joke a callback. 

I really enjoy callbacks in stories. For me, it makes me (as an audience member) feel like I’m somewhat connected to the story. It’s as though the character(s) in the story and I have known each other for a long period of time and I get an inside joke. Keep in mind, it doesn’t have to be a joke, just a shared memory that is recalled.

Let me show you what I mean by using an example of a very clear and well done callback from the movie Men In Black (there's another callback about seatbelts too which is funny, see if you catch it).

Now, what if the first scene had never happened or at least there was no mention of “the red button?” The driver, Kay, in the second scene could’ve just said something like one of the following alternatives:

Alternative 1

Kay: “Hey, push the red button on the lever.” 

And then we see the car transform and we are impressed with the visual effects, but nothing really changes regarding the tension levels and stakes for the audience because we don’t know that the red button is reserved for very very serious occasions. So, a cool special effect is wasted. It’s purely spectacle with no meaning or gravity attached to it.

OR

Alternative 2

Kay: “Hey, we normally never ever push the red button on the lever there, but this is a very serious situation and the stakes are high, so I’m gonna need you to push the red button now.” 

Okay, the stakes are very bluntly stated (FYI: when it’s too blunt like that it’s called “on the nose”), but the story is brought to a standstill as Kay provides the explanation. Now, we, the audience, are being told that we should feel like the pressure and tension is mounting. We don’t get to choose to feel it naturally.

Have you ever been part of an inside joke and then had to turn and explain the inside joke to somebody? It’s not normally as funny. It’s better if they already shared the experience. So… instead of hitting the audience on the nose, try including some intentional callbacks in your next story and see how it goes.

PS - If you haven’t already seen them, you’ll probably start to see callbacks in stories you consume going forward and you’ll also find them in the past. For example, J.K. Rowling uses them in the Harry Potter series all the time. If you’ve read Book 4, think about the portkey. It’s introduced at the beginning of the book so that it can be brought up later. That’s more like a breadcrumb, but it’s also a callback especially when you think about one of the people who was with Harry when he first encountered a portkey. 

PPS - Callbacks are not the same as flashbacks.

PPPS - Callbacks can be used as bread crumbs, but that's another storytelling tool I'll explain some other time.