Use Chekhov’s Gun The Right Way By These 4 Tips
Anton Chekhov sure has some great tips for us writers
Whoever has read Anton Chekhov knows how brilliantly the man can write, with his beautiful descriptions and brevity. Even more brilliant are the tips he gave for rookie writers.
The most famous of these is Chekhov’s gun.
The Russian playwright said:
“Remove everything that has no relevance to the story.
If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”
The quote boils down to saying that if an item or scene you put in your novel has no relevance, it should be removed.
Often, I see Chekhov’s gun used wrongly. The author puts too much attention on the device. The mystery and the element of surprise go away because the reader already gets to know how the author will use the device.
The trick is to make the device as inconspicuous and natural in the setting as possible.
While it’s important to both take out unnecessary elements and provide the readers with adequate foreshadowing — as explained — it can be hard to do so and still have plot twists and unpredictability. Say the gun going off in the second act is supposed to be a surprise.
How do you prevent readers from figuring it out as soon as they see the gun?
One way is to make the background camouflage the gun’s reputation.
Make it seem like the gun is a natural part of the setting. If your story is set in a hunting lodge, it makes sense for there to be a rifle on the wall and readers may assume it’s there for flavour.
As an example, take Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
When Hagrid picks a parcel from vault 713 to take to Dumbledore, nobody thinks of the action much. The readers are new to the story, Hagrid works for the headmaster, and Harry is in Gringotts for his motive. Later, when this parcel is linked with the mystery of the story, readers have the satisfying “A-ha” moment.
Another way to throw off the reader’s suspicions is to use the gun before its true purpose comes.
This way, the reader will realise that the plot significance of this gun is finished and will forget it.
For example, in To Kill a Mockingbird, Boo Radley and his strange life are briefly mentioned. In the first half of the book, the readers see glimpses of him. Once Boo stops keeping gifts on the tree for the Finch children, we consider his part in the story over.
I loved it when he made his appearance again in the second half of the story.
Authors can also subconsciously enforce that the device means nothing.
For example, take the dragon eggs Dany was gifted in Game of Thrones. Innumerable people said that the dragons were long dead, and the eggs wouldn’t hatch as they hadn’t for hundreds of years.
So, when the night came alive with the dance of dragons, my heart got excited beyond measure.
The last way is to introduce several other distracting and interesting plot threads between when the gun is introduced, and when the gun goes off.
The time limit and other scenes will make sure that nobody remembers the gun.
For example, take the “Others” in Game of Thrones.
They appeared in the first chapter when the reader didn’t understand anything much. When they made their appearance unexpectedly again — after tons had happened — the readers got rattled.
To surprise and please the readers even more, make the gun go off for an unexpected purpose. People will expect the gun to be used for shooting somebody, so if the gun goes off as a way to make loud noise as a distraction, it is a stunner.
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