Chekhov's Gun

Well, if you want a much more in-depth discussion (at least if you follow the links...) with examples than Wikipedia, you could do a lot worse than checking tvtropes.org.[1]<p>P.S. Sorry in advance for the loss in productivity to anyone that clicks though and doesn&#x27;t know what they&#x27;re in for...<p>1: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tvtropes.org&#x2F;pmwiki&#x2F;pmwiki.php&#x2F;Main&#x2F;ChekhovsGun" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tvtropes.org&#x2F;pmwiki&#x2F;pmwiki.php&#x2F;Main&#x2F;ChekhovsGun</a>

Useful, but not universal. Efficiency is not the point of storytelling. Some details might not appear to have led anywhere in the story, but could have been there for texture, subtext or symbolism.<p>Chekhov&#x27;s minimal, efficient, realist style is unique to him and complements his tone and content, but it&#x27;s not a necessary condition for good writing. Consider Nabokov&#x27;s short story Symbols and Signs (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.newyorker.com&#x2F;magazine&#x2F;1948&#x2F;05&#x2F;15&#x2F;symbols-and-signs" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.newyorker.com&#x2F;magazine&#x2F;1948&#x2F;05&#x2F;15&#x2F;symbols-and-si...</a>) which is beautiful purely because of subtext and texture.

So one of the best books I ever read about storytelling is Orson Scot Card&#x27;s Characters &amp; Viewpoints. He points out that there are 4 types of stories.<p>- Milieu: Stories about a setting.<p>- Character: Stories about a person.<p>- Event: Stories about an event.<p>- Idea: Stories that explore an idea.<p>Each one has a different point and appeals to a different set of people. What he stresses is focus on what type of story you are trying to tell and stick with that, revolve around that. I think that Chekhov&#x27;s Gun falls under the similar idea.<p>One of my favorite authors Brandon Sanderson has a books series that is a character story; however he often talks about seemingly insignificant world building details that don&#x27;t seem relevant to the story, but he always manages to tie them back to how it effects the characters or what impact it has on their personality. Thus even though some people would consider random religious observances in the story Checkhov&#x27;s gun they instead add to the story because they flesh out the characters and help make them more real.

When I teach my students how to write academic papers, I always refer them to this statement. Basically, don&#x27;t raise questions you&#x27;re not going to resolve (unless in the discussion) and alternatively, raise questions that you will resolve. There may be an equivalent principle for prose, but I&#x27;m not aware of it.<p>I read a paper recently where every figure made me ask a question that the next figure resolved. &quot;Neurons specifically represent barriers! What happens if a door opens up and there is now a path? What happens if the barrier starts lowering into the ground until you can walk over it? What happens if it floats up into the air and you can walk under it?&quot; It was truly beautiful.

I saw this a while ago, and knew it would come back to haunt me.

This has ruined many movies for me.<p>But here&#x27;s a thread that talks about movies&#x2F;TV shows in which the gun was never fired:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;AskReddit&#x2F;comments&#x2F;64x53j&#x2F;whats_the_most_disappointing_unfired_chekhovs_gun&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;AskReddit&#x2F;comments&#x2F;64x53j&#x2F;whats_the...</a><p>Funny quote:<p>&gt; Lost was a Chekhov&#x27;s Gatling gun

Game of Thrones owed part of its success to not following this principle. I think when most works of fiction and Hollywood leave no detail unused, they lose unpredictability. Over time the audience will talk about shows that stand out from the crowd and Game of Thrones left enough details out to keep its outcome unpredictable to the very end. Had they not run into the budget and time constraints, they could have continued the show for much longer than we got.

I&#x27;ve never been a fan of Chekhov&#x27;s gun. Interactions and details that aren&#x27;t directly connected to the main plot do a good job at giving the world texture and making it feel alive. Fiction that does away with too many unrelated details (and I&#x27;d argue a lot of fiction does this) often feels artificial and empty to me.

What if something is there just for sake of creating proper atmosphere?

One of the reasons the final season of GOT was so bad is because there were a lot of Chekhov&#x27;s guns that never went off...

I like the concept but in many cases it ends up being annoying&#x2F;distracting. I&#x27;ll see something innocuous in a movie or video game, and immediately think &quot;welp, that&#x27;s going to be an issue later.&quot;

Related: if a new hire comes to your company and it&#x27;s rumored that heads will roll, consider refreshing your contacts at other companies and replying back to &#x27;are you interested&#x27; emails.

This annoys me greatly in commercial movies because often it makes the plot predictable. Most of the things that you see are consequential to the plot, so there are no surprises.

Interesting point about a style, but it sounds like the kind of rule that&#x27;s meant to be broken.<p>The specific point about a gun seems even worse. It&#x27;s cliche to show a gun early on that leads to some tragedy later, and bothers me when I see that done in a TV show&#x2F;movie. It ties too much into an inanimate object when they could be developing a character. And in a lot of settings, guns are all around and have little to do with the actual story.

This was one of the reasons I didn’t like the book A Canticle for Leibowitz. (Minor spoilers) There’s one character that keeps reappearing throughout the hundreds of years spanned by the story, and you get the impression that this guy is going to be really important at the end. And then no payoff whatsoever. I’m sure that was deliberate as it fits in well with the overall theme of the book, but it was still infuriating.

See also from 2013: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=6541508" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=6541508</a>

Learning about this trope has, to some effect, ruined some movies for me. The most recent example I can think of is (spoilers?) Once Upon a Time In Hollywood.<p>As soon as I saw DiCaprio&#x27;s character putting a flamethrower away into his shed, I just knew that there would be some ridiculous climax featuring the flamethrower being used in some way, which kind of ruined the surprise and spectacle of the scene.

I wonder if there&#x27;s an analogy between a schizophrenic looking at reality and a savy movie goer looking at a movie. There&#x27;s certainly something a bit deranged to &quot;movie logic&quot;.<p>This random object can&#x27;t be for <i>nothing</i>, it will be the linchpin later! Why would that street sign keep showing up if it wasn&#x27;t incredibly important? Maybe the killer lives on that street!

I wonder how this plays out in mystery stories where there is what seems to be intentional misdirection where you are lead to believe someone might be the killer, but they&#x27;re not.<p>Granted some things like &quot;nobody liked him&quot; could be still relevant to the overall story, but particularly in film or TV I find those bits of misdirection common, but also kind of annoying.

It&#x27;s really fun to call out Chekhov Guns while watching movies with a group. You appear clairvoyant.

Cheap lazy writing would be another way to look at it.<p>Does any one actually think this is good? Do any good writers defend it?<p>I&#x27;d put it up there with canned laughter. A cheap hack. I&#x27;d prefer a world it wasn&#x27;t needed because writers were good at their art.

I find this is one thing I use in reverse to get a sense of whether something is likely to be fictional. Real experiences are chock full of irrelevant details and false leads that go nowhere. Fiction usually ties things up neatly.

In the Harry Potter series, Rowling makes a conspicuous mention of the diadem in book 5 and it never pays off in the book. It seemed so strange to me. When it returned in the 7th book I literally yelped with joy.

Nice to have a term for this. Thanks.<p>I used to think that it would be nice to have characters and plots that didn&#x27;t really matter in a story, until I saw it happen a few times and I didn&#x27;t like it at all.<p>Guess he was on to something.

Chekhov&#x27;s Gun is a determining trope on &quot;Frankenstein&#x27;s Monster&#x27;s Monster, Frankenstein&quot;. Quite literally, actually. There&#x27;s a real gun at the beginning of the movie.

The problem, with both Chekhov’s gun and the All is lost moment is once you see them, you can’t unsee them.

I like when little things have subplots of their own in movies, like the tale of the boot in Fury Road.

Once you read this article, it will ruin every book, movie and TV show you watch.

Well, except for the intentional red herring, right?

He used a phaser