P.S. Sorry in advance for the loss in productivity to anyone that clicks though and doesn't know what they're in for...
There is a category of story device that goes so far as to become more of a storytelling crutch. Or a wheelchair. Some examples from Star Trek that come to mind (since I'm re-watching TNG right about now):
- Holodeck: Totally new environments on a whim! Just in case FTL travel wasn't enough!
- Troi's empathy sense. Why script and act your way to communicate a character's emotional state when she can just tell you!
- Multiple-universes time travel. Why stick with an existing world and its background when you can just replace it!
- Technobabble. Solves any problem! Causes any problem!
- The Q. Omnipotence itself! To be fair, Voyager did manage to tell some better stories with this one.
Chekov's Gun can rarely, if ever, improve a story. While a lot of people seem to fall for Chekov's Gun, I don't think that those who are aware of it usually consider it to be a mark of a good story. At worst, it's obvious that the writer is bullshitting its audience. Chekov's Gun is just one of the many reasons why Abrams/Kurtzman Star Trek is basically on fire right now.
> - Multiple-universes time travel. Why stick with an existing world and its background when you can just replace it!
I don't think people are bothered by time travel plots because of the infinite possibilities to change the setting. They dislike time travel because it's usually too easy to travel through time, and shows or movies rarely adhere to any consistent time travel mechanics. Time travel stories are good at conveying high stakes, but they almost always lack any real consequences. When someone brings up time travel as a solution, nobody ever says "You know, the last time we traveled through time, we all nearly got killed and almost destroyed the universe."
There's a really nice interview with some of the writers about "Tech the tech". Charlie Stross has it on his blog: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/10/why_i_ha...
> At his recent keynote speech at the New York Television Festival, former Star Trek writer and creator of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica Ron Moore revealed the secret formula to writing for Trek.
> He described how the writers would just insert "tech" into the scripts whenever they needed to resolve a story or plot line, then they'd have consultants fill in the appropriate words (aka technobabble) later.
> "It became the solution to so many plot lines and so many stories," Moore said. "It was so mechanical that we had science consultants who would just come up with the words for us and we'd just write 'tech' in the script. You know, Picard would say 'Commander La Forge, tech the tech to the warp drive.' I'm serious. If you look at those scripts, you'll see that."
> Moore then went on to describe how a typical script might read before the science consultants did their thing:
> La Forge: "Captain, the tech is overteching."
> Picard: "Well, route the auxiliary tech to the tech, Mr. La Forge."
> La Forge: "No, Captain. Captain, I've tried to tech the tech, and it won't work."
> Picard: "Well, then we're doomed."
> "And then Data pops up and says, 'Captain, there is a theory that if you tech the other tech ... '" Moore said. "It's a rhythm and it's a structure, and the words are meaningless. It's not about anything except just sort of going through this dance of how they tech their way out of it."
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuin...
Chekhov's minimal, efficient, realist style is unique to him and complements his tone and content, but it's not a necessary condition for good writing. Consider Nabokov's short story Symbols and Signs (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1948/05/15/symbols-and-si...) which is beautiful purely because of subtext and texture.
- Milieu: Stories about a setting.
- Character: Stories about a person.
- Event: Stories about an event.
- Idea: Stories that explore an idea.
Each one has a different point and appeals to a different set of people. What he stresses is focus on what type of story you are trying to tell and stick with that, revolve around that. I think that Chekhov's Gun falls under the similar idea.
One of my favorite authors Brandon Sanderson has a books series that is a character story; however he often talks about seemingly insignificant world building details that don't seem relevant to the story, but he always manages to tie them back to how it effects the characters or what impact it has on their personality. Thus even though some people would consider random religious observances in the story Checkhov's gun they instead add to the story because they flesh out the characters and help make them more real.
I read a paper recently where every figure made me ask a question that the next figure resolved. "Neurons specifically represent barriers! What happens if a door opens up and there is now a path? What happens if the barrier starts lowering into the ground until you can walk over it? What happens if it floats up into the air and you can walk under it?" It was truly beautiful.
But here's a thread that talks about movies/TV shows in which the gun was never fired:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/64x53j/whats_the...
Funny quote:
> Lost was a Chekhov's Gatling gun
They littered the first few seasons with all these potentially mind-blowing things and events... and then just never did anything with them. At all.
It’s like they knew about Chekhov’s gun and deliberately decided to blow it off in the biggest way possible.
I think many of the better movies out there are known for adding details that do not play into the plot, but which are there more for art's sake. It's something that is usually appreciated where it occurs, and it definitely improves the quality of the movie.
The specific point about a gun seems even worse. It's cliche to show a gun early on that leads to some tragedy later, and bothers me when I see that done in a TV show/movie. It ties too much into an inanimate object when they could be developing a character. And in a lot of settings, guns are all around and have little to do with the actual story.
As soon as I saw DiCaprio's character putting a flamethrower away into his shed, I just knew that there would be some ridiculous climax featuring the flamethrower being used in some way, which kind of ruined the surprise and spectacle of the scene.
This random object can't be for nothing, it will be the linchpin later! Why would that street sign keep showing up if it wasn't incredibly important? Maybe the killer lives on that street!
(I remember an old blog post Eskil Steenberg I read years ago about game design and procedural generation that talked about this; specifically, about the difference in the feel of the game between making sure there's only one solution to every problem, or allowing for some degree of flexibility so that the player is sometimes able to achieve their goals in unexpected ways.)
Granted some things like "nobody liked him" could be still relevant to the overall story, but particularly in film or TV I find those bits of misdirection common, but also kind of annoying.
But it is just entertainment.
It's not a mystery per se but it deals with a lot of unknowns and protagonists finding out information that changes their world-view as they go through the story. It's a great trilogy/book.
ME: "Oh, you know that (x) is gonna (y) before this episode is over...they just have to! It's Chekhov's (x)!"
HER: :groan: :rolleyes:
Does any one actually think this is good? Do any good writers defend it?
I'd put it up there with canned laughter. A cheap hack. I'd prefer a world it wasn't needed because writers were good at their art.
I used to think that it would be nice to have characters and plots that didn't really matter in a story, until I saw it happen a few times and I didn't like it at all.
Guess he was on to something.
