Gru's Plan

A four-step plan whose third step is fine and whose fourth is the same as the third.

The mechanic is precise and worth stating exactly: panels one, two and three are the plan. Panel four repeats panel three's text, unchanged. The picture supplies the reaction — Gru reads his own third step again and is horrified by it.

That repetition is the format. Writing something new in the fourth panel breaks it completely, and it is the mistake almost everyone makes on their first attempt.

So the third step has to be the consequence nobody thought through. Steps one and two are the plan as intended; step three is what it actually leads to, stated flatly and without alarm — the flatness is why the fourth panel is funny.

Where the captions go

The numbered rectangles are where the text actually belongs on this template, measured against the real image rather than guessed from the panel count. These are the same coordinates the editor uses.

#	What goes here	Position (px)	Size (px)	Tilt
1	Step 1	189, 54	147 × 162	—
2	Step 2	546, 54	147 × 162	—
3	Step 3 (it goes wrong)	189, 278	147 × 162	—
4	Step 3 again	546, 278	147 × 162	—

Common mistakes

Writing four different steps. The fourth must duplicate the third, verbatim.
Making step three obviously bad. It should read as neutral until you look at it twice.
Long text — these are flipchart slides and the boards are tall and narrow, not wide.

Where it comes from

Four frames from the 2010 film Despicable Me, in which Gru presents a plan on a flipchart and reaches a slide he does not like.

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