In a thought-provoking post over at Glimmer Train, Josh Weil talks about Chekhov’s rule: If you bring a gun into the story, then it must fire by the end.
Weil reverses it to produce a new insight: “If you’re going to fire a gun at the end, you’d better bring it in near the beginning.” He goes on to discuss how the emotions that will drive action need to be seeded early:
When a character does something (say, suddenly draws a gun out of his pants waist), that action must be supported by actions that have come before; the mentality that causes it needs to be developed before the action happens. Long before.
Also this month at Glimmer Train:
- Excuses, Pobrecita by Caro Beth Clark
- Worrying the Culture Toward Peace by Sabina Murray
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
I think the quote comes from Chekhov not Nabokov…then again.
Yes, my mistake! (Not Josh’s. He got it right.) Corrected.
You’re so right that symbols SHOULD take on double-duty to have more impact on our readers. Thanks for the reminder.
I actually find Weil’s rule more imperative than Chekhov’s: Firing out of every gun or cylinder that has been introduced also becomes very predictable. This advice was more useful during Chekhov’s time, when it might not have felt like every story had been told a billion times before. It’s a bit outdated today.
However, bringing an item or a notion in without “seeding” it first is a big no-no. It will throw your readers off, because they will feel manipulated. After all, the items and actions of fiction should derive from that very same fiction, and not from the author – at least we all want to make it seem like they do…