The loaded gun

Imagine you are watching a play (or a film, either works). A character walks into the scene, opens a drawer, and pulls out a gun. For the rest of the play (or film), you know that this character has a gun. You can catch glimpses of it tucked into their costume; they even pull it out a couple of times just to remind the audience that it's there. In the climactic scene, our character is having it out with someone, and it's getting heated. You get uneasy—you know that the gun is still in play, and one of these characters is going to get shot. But who? And how badly?

What I've just described is a fairly literal example of Chekhov's gun. Anton Chekhov himself, a highly influential Russian playwright working throughout the late 19th century, referred to the principle repeatedly in advice to beginner playwrights; he expressed it roughly along these paraphrased lines: "if you have a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, then it needs to go off in the second or third act, otherwise it shouldn't be there". Now, unlike my own example, Chekhov didn't mean this literally (his play The Cherry Orchard features guns that notably don't go off, for thematic purposes). Rather, he was speaking metaphorically about, well, a lot of things.

Let's break it down: what does Chekhov's gun actually mean, and how is it useful for writers?

In practice, Chekhov's gun is all about foreshadowing; you're introducing a feature or object (represented by the gun) that becomes an important part of the action later on. It's also, more specifically, about making sure that you follow up on the things that you are foreshadowing. If your audience spends an act and a half staring at the loaded rifle in the middle of the stage and it doesn't get used for anything, what is its purpose—does it even clearly have one? Foreshadowing can be addressed or subverted in a number of ways, but the least helpful thing you can do with it in your work is just forget about it.

As well as being a type of foreshadowing, this principle is also a method of building up suspense. The gun in Chekhov's example doesn't just make a brief appearance and then disappear again until it's needed; it remains where the audience can see it, where they can't forget that there is a potentially lethal firearm in easy reach. The longer it sits there unfired, and the more likely it seems that someone's going to use it, the more tension you get in the scene. And as with any other kind of suspense, the resolution is key. The gun will be fired, as its presence has been threatening all along.

It's important, however, to consider who Chekhov was giving this advice to, and from what perspective, as this colours the principle's purpose. He proposed it as wisdom from one playwright to another, and that is a key piece of context. In prose, you see, the author can introduce hundreds of objects that might be interacted with as needed for brief moments. On the stage, though, there is a much stricter limitation to the number and types of props available for use, so an object being specifically mentioned carries much more weight for the story and for the audience watching the piece being performed. (This is especially true in the time before realism and naturalism started becoming ubiquitous in theatre; Chekhov was only involved in the very early stages of that shift—but more on that next week.) And a gun, in particular, is a prop that carries a lot of significance for audiences; they will definitely notice it, and keep noticing it as long as it's in play onstage.

What we can gather from this additional context is that Chekhov's gun is not something that can (or should) be applied to just any object—it must be already notable and/or significant in some way. We use this principle to, firstly, set up an expectation for our readers or audience, and then to follow up on that expectation with total inevitability.

How to use Chekhov's gun in your own writing

And now the big question: how do we make use of Chekhov's gun ourselves? Well, folks, you're in luck today, because I have a very handy 5-step process for you right here!

1. Choose an object to function as the "gun". This may literally be a gun, but could also be one of a host of other things, such as an oncoming hurricane, a poisoned glass of elderberry wine, or even a piano being lowered from an apartment window. Remember that we aren't dealing with symbolism here; the object actually needs to be used in a critical scene later in the piece. It's also generally an object that poses some kind of danger to your characters (one of them at least, but it could be quite fun if the reader/audience doesn't know who the "gun" will be levelled at).
2. Keep the object in the peripheries of your readers or audience to build suspense. If, like Chekhov's students, you're writing a play, this is easily solved by keeping the object onstage (the director can handle things from there). In prose, however, you may need to keep bringing it up to ensure the readers don't forget about it. Let it lower threateningly like a storm on the horizon for a good long while.
3. Fire the gun. Let the consequences you've been teasing pay off in all their glory! Provide that satisfying, cathartic resolution we all saw coming.
4. ?????
5. Profit

Yes, alright, I only had three steps. But that makes it even easier to remember! Set it up, percolate, pay it off. Go on, try it out yourself. Do it, I dare you. And then comment below with the results, or some of your favourite examples of Chekhov's gun.

Happy writing, friends!