- The rule of thirds for visual imagery [1]
- Three-act structure for storytelling and plays [2]
- Three-part setup for stand up comedy [this article]
Rules for content often fall into a rule of threes, and I'd love to know why.
I'm over simplifying but that is really the basis of a lot of comedy. Stand up less so. Most improv runs on the rule of threes though. It's an easy way to make something not funny at least a little funny.
Try it in a meeting or presentation sometime. Start with some goofy line or joke. Mention it again in the middle. Close with it. You'll probably get laughs. Even if its not that funny and got crickets the first time.
What’s the simplest way to represent most stories? You draw a line. It goes from point A to point B, start to finish, where the characters begin and where they end. There’s a whole lot of “middle” there too. What a coincidence, act two tends to be the longer one! Again, “1, 2, 3”.
How about the simplest way to count to (say) start a race? “Go” is unpredictable; “Ready, Go” is barely better; “Ready, Set, Go” gives you a clear cadence. 1, 2, 3. Beginning, middle, end.
As for images: humans are symmetrical with two eyes, we naturally divide the picture into two sides so you wouldn’t be impressed by a “rule of halves”. A rule of thirds is no more than a grid, one where there are clear sides and a middle to the image. A rule of fifths would also work, as would a five-act structure (which is a thing).
Three is the smallest number to which you can reduce a lot of concepts by establishing a pattern.
Geometrically if you have two points you can draw a straight line between them. Now you can put a third point almost anywhere else to change the shape from a straight line to something more unique, complex and unexpected.
Some comedians like Norm McDonald (moth joke, youthful porpoise joke) use dozens of straight line thoughts with one random one at the end. Norm was a great storyteller with lots of personality so he was able to keep the audience’s interest for minutes before delivering the change in direction. And he had a preexisting reputation so the audience was probably willing to wait longer for the hook.
It’s probably easier for most comics to do the bare minimum though which would be 2 cohesive thoughts and 1 unexpected one.
Jimmy Carr says that the shortest joke he's ever written is two words: dwarf shortage.
If you only do single setup plus payoff the audience may instead try to make the two fit together. If you give them two points of reference, it allows them to prebuild an assumed pattern with less work from the story/music/whatever for you to either play within or subvert.
An example of using just two to build patterns in the audience (but doesn't give a chance to subvert expectations per se) is cutting between shots in movies. The audience inherently tries to deduce the meaning of going from one image to a second. David Mamet has a great book, 'On Directing Film', that is not very long and talks about the shot transition version of this in great detail. You can use the ideas there and expand it to three to get into the ideas I've talked about above.
I would like explicitly to appreciate your choice to give 3 examples.
An assertion about mathematics requires a definition, and I don't believe this one for the usual definition of 'pattern'. For example, if I wanted to exhibit a linear pattern, two data points would be sufficient.
(But we're not talking about mathematical constructs anyway, so it's not clear what the relevance of mathematics is.)
Yes, certainly. And 3 points can show you a pattern that looks quadratic but isn't, and so on. More to the point, 3 points can rule out a claim of linearity, but they also cannot demonstrate a claim of linearity (e.g., you can usually find 3 collinear points on the graph of a cubic). My point was not to make a mathematical claim myself, but rather to argue that the claim "the minimum number of elements necessary for a pattern is three" is so vague to, I think, be nearly meaningless—and, in particular, unfalsifiable; in my mind, it doesn't deserve the adverb "mathematically".