Originally published at: https://shanniiwrites.com/2018/10/14/chekhovs-gun-keeping-everything-relevant/
Chekhov’s Gun can be a vital plot device and general writing rule… if you use it properly.
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Think this is used in RWBY. I could be wrong. Thou it dose seem that way.
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Does this make you feel bad because it’s a comic with the Author ?
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Yes… every time I see it, I just keep thinking… one day…
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Chekhov’s Gun is incredibly important in stories! It makes stories a lot more satisfying, and I think it also helps to solidify the world. The stories are relevant and more complete because they don’t always introduce new things and don’t waste what they do introduce. I also enjoy it because it makes it seem like everything has been preplanned to fit together, even if it hasn’t been. I think that proper use of Chekhov’s Gun can definitely improve a story.
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@Bloggers, have you heard of Chekhov’s Gun and how often have you used it in your writing?
Remember that if you really enjoyed this blog, feel free to recommend it (it’s similar to liking it). This will help with it being higher in the results of search engines too.
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(sorry i’m late again, i’ve been busy with uni)
oh man i love Chekhov and his works, he’s one of the writers who have inspired my current writing style
so brace yourself because this is gonna be a tad long
first of all, i wanna talk about this particular piece of advice in context:
Chekhov’s gun is pretty well known among writer circles
the thing is: most of these writers work on literature projects
and this advice (although useful) wasn’t originally meant for literature, but for scriptwriters and theatre directors (yes i know some people lump theatre into literature but there’s a lot of discussion there so for clarity’s sake i’m separating the two)
and that’s where his words become stronger:
- scriptwriters rarely describe the set for their plays aside from making their characters talk about it: they rely almost solely on dialogue to help actors, directors, and their audience to imagine how everything would happen visually
the older plays didn’t even have cue marks or anything, everything was implied by the dialogue, that’s the only thing that was written
so, with this in mind, the line can be interpreted as “don’t have an actor mention the rifle that’s hanging on the wall if it’s not gonna be useful” because honestly? adding that would make dialogue messy unless… idk someone was admiring someone else’s house or something like that
theatre is very visual, and it requires a lot of imagination to see the places come to life sometimes, so it would be a waste of work, not only for the writer, but for the actors, to make them mention that rifle when the rifle is not gonna be important - now, for directors…
as i mentioned before, theatre is a visual thing, and one of the choices directors make is using props
(personally i’m of the belief that one can have a brilliant play using as little props as possible, but that’s for another conversation)
the thing is: props are ALWAYS meant to add to the play
there can be only decorative props, of course, and there’s backgrounds and all that to help set a scene
but that’s the thing: props are only there to help set a scene
if one were to put a rifle prop there (and assuming there’s no rifle mentioned in the script)… it would be useless
not only it would be a waste of resources for the theatre group, but it could also hinder the scene one is going for
one should NEVER use a prop that could take the protagonism away from the actors and… y’know… the play
that said, i believe Chekhov’s advice is not as restrictive in literature as it is in theatre and his own stories prove it
in fact, there’s very little of this advice in his prose, if there’s any at all
is he contradicting himself by this?
to answer to that i wanna revisit a couple of Chekhov’s stories
i’ve said this before, but most of Chekhov’s stories are short, and not much really happens in them
they have a plot, somewhat
but they can be summarised in only one sentence
for example:
Oysters: a poor kid and his father have nothing to eat, seeing the word oysters makes the kid think about life and death before he falls asleep on an empty stomach.
Mysery: a carriage driver takes some rude people around the city the day after his son died.
Children: a group of kids are home alone, they play some games.
none of these really call for the need of having Chekhov’s gun in them, since they’re short, just one scene, like a picture (or at most a short gif)
and yeah, sure, we could say that the reason he doesn’t follow his own advice there is because the stories are short, but then we can bring The Lady with the Dog as an example
The Lady with the Dog is a longer story, and it doesn’t use his advice either
if anything, it contradicts it, right from the title
the lady has a dog, yes
however, the dog is… really not relevant to the story, it’s just… there
the lady has a dog, that’s all we know about the dog
the dog doesn’t do anything to advance the plot
so why would Chekhov put the dog there? when he was the one who said not to bring unnecessary objects?
my guess is because his stories aren’t about things happening, or something centred around a plot
his stories are about people existing
so his advice there… doesn’t really matter
and there’s this one scene in that same story
the two protagonists are at a lake, watching the sunset
nothing really happens other than watching the sunset
that is never mentioned later on in the story
but Chekhov writes entire paragraphs about that scene
and personally, it’s my favourite in the whole story
does it give anything to the story? i don’t know
but it gives us so much
it’s such a beautiful scene and it gives the reader so much to think about in terms of human mortality and transcendence and life
it gives to the reading experience, though, not to the story itself
which leads me to the last point
after reading a lot of Chekhov, i have come to believe that the gun advice is not about pruning the text from unimportant parts
but about finding the importance of the things in it, finding the beauty in the details and the mundane things
this has helped me a lot in my writing (as i said before, my current style takes after Chekhov)
the only reason people write is because… well we have things to say
so make them matter
if there’s a detail, and you don’t know why it’s there, but you wanna bring it up?
do some soul searching and try to figure out why it’s important, in my experience, we always have a reason to add them, even if it’s subconsciously
after finding said reason, we can choose to keep it or not
but find it first, don’t rush to take out “unimportant” things
because if that were the case, many of Chekhov’s stories would have been scrapped out completely
so hang that rifle in the wall
bask in adding details, find what’s so important about them, hint about it and leave your readers thinking about it
and remember what makes a good story isn’t just the plot, so don’t focus solely on that
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Just adding tags