QuoteProject
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.
Anton Chekhov
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Every element in a story should serve a purpose and contribute to the overall narrative.

Anton Chekhov's quote emphasizes the importance of narrative coherence in storytelling. He argues that if an object or element is introduced in a narrative, it must play a significant role later on; otherwise, it detracts from the story's integrity. This principle suggests that writers should carefully consider every detail in their works to ensure that everything contributes meaningfully to the plot or theme.

Themes

StorytellingNarrativeDetailsPurposeWriting

In practice

Example use cases

A writing workshop focused on effective storytelling techniques.

More from Anton Chekhov

If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there.
Anton ChekhovRead
There are still many more days of failure ahead, whole seasons of failure, things will go terribly wrong, you will have huge disappointments , but you have to prepare for that, you have to expect it and be resolute and follow your own path.
Anton ChekhovRead
Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
Anton ChekhovRead
To a chemist, nothing on earth is unclean. A writer must be as objective as a chemist; he must abandon the subjective line; he must know that dungheaps play a very respectable part in a landscape, and that evil passions are as inherent in life as good ones.
Anton ChekhovRead
When you want to touch the reader's heart, try to be colder. It gives their grief as it were, a background, against which it stands out in greater relief.
Anton ChekhovRead
Why are we worn out? Why do we, who start out so passionate, brave, noble, believing, become totally bankrupt by the age of thirty or thirty-five? Why is it that one is extinguished by consumption, another puts a bullet in his head, a third seeks oblivion in vodka, cards, a fourth, in order to stifle fear and anguish, cynically tramples underfoot the portrait of his pure, beautiful youth? Why is it that, once fallen, we do not try to rise, and, having lost one thing, we do not seek another? Why?
Anton ChekhovRead

Similar quotes

It is only the story...that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of the cactus fence.The story is our escort;without it,we are blind.Does the blind man own his escort?No,neither do we the story;rather,it is the story that owns us.
Chinua AchebeRead
The social system based on and consonant with the altruist morality-with the code of self-sacrifice- is socialism, in all or any of its variants: fascism, Nazism, communism. All of them treat man as a sacrificial animal to be immolated for the benefit of the group, the tribe, the society, the state.
Ayn RandRead
It is essential that justice be done, and it is equally vital that justice not be confused with revenge, for the two are wholly different.
Oscar AriasRead
There is nothing in the world more stubborn than a corpse: you can hit it, you can knock it to pieces, but you cannot convince it.
Alexander HerzenRead
She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand.
F. Scott FitzgeraldRead
Fiction is a bridge to the truth that journalism can't reach.
Hunter S. ThompsonRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.