Telegraphing (entertainment)

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Telegraphing, in the creation or performance of creative works, is the undercutting of suspense as by advance disclosure or extreme hinting of an element in a composition, narrative plot, or recitation. A familiar example is stand-up comic "telegraphing" the punch line of a joke.

In music and the visual arts, such techniques are respected as means of preparing the audience by "building up" to the foreseeable result, as musical overtures usually do. In literature telegraphing is generally seen as lessening the final effect by approaching it too gradually, and thus as a failure of literary technique.