What is Chekhov's gun and where does it come from?

What is Chekhov's gun?

Chekhov's gun is a writing principle attributed to the Russian writer Anton Chekhov. Its most common form is this: if a rifle hangs on the wall at the start of a story, that rifle should go off before the story ends; if it is not going to go off, it should not be hung there at all. The heart of the principle is concision. An element that catches the reader's or audience's attention creates an expectation; if that expectation is left unanswered, the element sits in the text as surplus.

In screenwriting the same idea is often called “setup and payoff”: an element is placed first and takes on a function later. In a screenplay these elements usually appear in the action lines, that is, among the objects the camera will see; how those lines are written is explained in the article on screenplay action lines.

Where does the principle come from?

“Chekhov's gun” is not a single sentence Chekhov wrote. The principle appears in three different sources, in wordings that are close but not identical:

• A letter (1 November 1889). In a letter to the writer Aleksandr Semyonovich Lazarev (Gruzinsky), Chekhov says that a loaded rifle should not be placed on stage if no one is going to fire it.
• Gurlyand's recollections (1904). In recollections published in the journal Teatr i Iskusstvo, Ilya Gurlyand reports Chekhov saying that if a pistol hangs on the wall in the first act, it should be fired in the next; if it is not going to be fired, it should not be hung there.
• Shchukin's recollections (1911). In recollections published in Russkaya Mysl, Chekhov is reported to have advised cutting everything that has nothing to do with the story, and to have said that a rifle shown in the first act must go off later.

The fact that the wording changes from source to source suggests that today's precise form of the principle was shaped largely by later retellings. The question of whether an element is necessary to a story, however, is much older; the history of narrative theory's answers to that question is summarised in the article From Aristotle to the Bulut Doctrine.

At a glance: Chekhov's gun and related concepts

The last row is the opposite of Chekhov's gun. The gun principle says “use what you show”; the unprepared solution “has not shown what it uses.” The latter is also known by the term deus ex machina, named after the god lowered onto the stage by a machine in ancient theatre.

Detective fiction: gun or red herring?

In detective fiction the principle splits in two. Under the fair-play rule, the clue that leads to the solution must be shown to the reader in advance; this is the detective-fiction counterpart of Chekhov's gun. But detective fiction also uses details that draw attention in the wrong direction and will never “go off.” The red herring breaks the gun principle on purpose: the reader expects an element to pay off, and it does not.

How these two tasks are balanced in the same text, that is, how a clue can be shown without drawing attention, is explained with the example of the dry shoes in the article on fair-play clues in detective fiction.

Suspense: when the reader knows about the gun in advance

Chekhov's gun builds an expectation. From the moment the reader sees the rifle, they wait for it to go off. This is close to Hitchcock's distinction between surprise and suspense: if the bomb under the table suddenly explodes, the audience has a brief surprise; if they know in advance that the bomb is there, they wait throughout the scene. In both cases the work is done by information given to the audience in advance. This distinction is discussed in detail in the article on showing versus telling in horror.

The same scene, two versions

The scene below was written for this article. Nalan comes home at midnight and cannot find her key.

Version 1: the unprepared solution

At midnight Nalan reached the door of the apartment building. She rummaged through her bag; the key was not there. She rang the bell; no one answered. Her phone's battery was dead. Just then the upstairs neighbour opened his door and came down holding Nalan's spare key.

The problem was solved, but with something never shown to the reader before: the neighbour's spare key was never mentioned in the story. The solution came from outside the scene.

Version 2: setup and payoff

In the morning, on her way out, her mother lifted the geranium pot by the door, swept beneath it and set the pot back. In the middle of the patch of soil under the pot, something small glinted; her mother pulled the doormat over it.

At midnight Nalan emptied her bag twice. The key was not there. The phone screen was dark. She looked at the geranium by the door. She pushed the doormat aside with her foot and lifted the pot with both hands.

In this version the solution comes from inside the scene. The morning paragraph does not name the key and does not draw attention to it: a small movement of the mother's hand, something glinting in the soil, a doormat pulled over it. At night, when the pot is looked at, the reader may remember the morning; it is the reader who makes the connection.

Chekhov's own exception and Hemingway's objection

The most interesting exception to the principle lies in Chekhov's own plays. In Understanding Chekhov (1999), Donald Rayfield notes that The Cherry Orchard contains two loaded firearms and that neither is fired; Rayfield connects this to the play's theme of incomplete action. Chekhov himself, then, sometimes deliberately lets the rifle stay silent.

Ernest Hemingway, in an essay written in 1959 and published in The Paris Review in 1981, objects to a similar teaching without naming Chekhov: he disagrees with instructors who say that every character who enters a story must return later to justify being there. In his view a character can leave a story and never reappear, as happens in life.

Chekhov's gun and Objective Projection

Objective Projection's Micro Focus technique suggests directing the reader's attention to a single small detail. This technique is directly related to Chekhov's gun: when a writer draws the reader's attention to a detail, that detail carries an expectation. The glinting point in Version 2 is such a detail.

But Objective Projection does not require every detail to have a counterpart in the plot. Some details carry not the action but the meaning beneath the scene: an extra plate on the table solves no problem but can hint at a parting. Such details are discussed in the article on subtext. Nor does every piece of information in the writer's scene plan need to enter the text; the distinction between plan and text is explained in the article on the Output Layer.

What the doctrine cannot say here

• It cannot state as a rule that a detail must pay off later. Chekhov's own play and Hemingway's objection show that the principle can be broken deliberately.
• It cannot say that a solution with a setup has a stronger effect on the reader. That is a hypothesis not tested with readers.
• It cannot say that the reader will always notice the connection between setup and payoff.
• It cannot claim that Chekhov stated the principle in its precise present-day form; the principle is compiled from a letter and two different recollections.

Limitations

This article reports Chekhov's letter and the recollections through secondary sources; the original Russian texts were not examined directly. The examples in the concept table were written for this article. The views of Hemingway and Rayfield are given in summary. The doctrine's concepts and sources are listed in Levent Bulut's knowledge graph, and the published works on the Levent Bulut corpus page.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Chekhov's gun?

Chekhov's gun is the writing principle that every significant element shown in a story should later take on a function. In its most common form: if a rifle hangs on the wall in the first act, it should go off in a later act; if it is not going to go off, it should not be hung there at all.

Where did Chekhov say this?

The principle does not come from a single text. In a letter of 1 November 1889 to Aleksandr Lazarev (Gruzinsky), Chekhov says that a loaded rifle should not be placed on stage if no one is going to fire it. Similar wordings appear in the recollections of Ilya Gurlyand from 1904 and of Shchukin from 1911.

What is the difference between Chekhov's gun and a red herring?

Chekhov's gun asks that an element that is shown should pay off later. A red herring uses that expectation on purpose: it draws the reader's attention to an element that has nothing to do with the solution. Detective fiction uses both together.

How is it related to deus ex machina?

Deus ex machina is the solving of a problem with something never shown before; it is the opposite of Chekhov's gun. The gun principle says “use what you show”; the unprepared solution does not show in advance what it uses.

Does every detail have to pay off later?

No. In Chekhov's own play The Cherry Orchard, two loaded firearms are never fired, and Hemingway objects to the teaching that every character who enters a story must return. Some details carry not the plot but the atmosphere or the subtext.

References

• Hemingway, E. (1981). The art of the short story. The Paris Review, 79. (Written in 1959.) theparisreview.org
• Rayfield, D. (1999). Understanding Chekhov: A Critical Study of Chekhov's Prose and Drama. London: Bristol Classical Press.
• Wikipedia. Chekhov's gun. (For the details of the letter and the recollections.) en.wikipedia.org

Citation

@misc{bulut2026chekhoven,
  author       = {Bulut, Levent},
  title        = {Chekhov's Gun Explained: Meaning, Origin and Examples},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://leventbulut.com/chekhovs-gun-explained/}},
  note         = {leventbulut.com}
}