Chekhov’s Gun and Red Herrings
Chekhov’s gun is a guide to purposeful storytelling: prominent details create expectations of later significance. A red herring uses that expectation to direct attention away from what will matter.
THE IDEA
There’s an old rule of theater that goes, “If there’s a gun on the mantel in Act I, it must go off in Act III.” The reverse is also true.
—STEPHEN KING
The principle of Chekhov’s gun states that everything that appears in a story must serve some overall purpose in the wider plot. Playwright Anton Chekhov advised that a gun hanging on the wall in one scene must go off later in the text. Otherwise, its presence is unnecessary.
Distinct from Chekhov’s gun is the importance of foreshadowing, which is when events early in a narrative give clues as to what is going to happen later. What happens early on in a story essentially makes a promise to the audience about what might happen later, so it’s important for a writer to fulfill that promise. However, sometimes an author may deliberately mislead the audience with what seems like a future plot device but in fact goes nowhere. Known as a “red herring,” when this technique is used deliberately, it can be an effective means of keeping an audience on their toes and of challenging their expectations. To surprise readers in an even stronger way, a writer may incorporate a plot twist. A plot twist changes the audience’s understanding or expectations; it need not break the story’s causal logic.
One of the challenges of the principle of Chekhov’s gun is that in real life, not everything present in one moment is relevant to something that might happen later. In life, there are coincidences and lots of props that don’t matter. Life is not a novel.
When to use it
Writing a novel: applying Chekhov's gun to streamline subplots and ensure every character or object contributes to the resolution.
Designing escape room puzzles: placing props that either directly solve puzzles (Chekhov's gun) or intentionally mislead (red herrings) to control difficulty.
Analyzing film: evaluating whether every introduced element—like a character's skill or a background detail—is later used or intentionally left as a red herring.
Creating marketing narratives: making sure all campaign messages align with the brand promise and avoiding unintentional distractions that confuse customers.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Mystery Novel Red Herring
In a detective story, a suspicious neighbor with a shady past is introduced early on, leading readers to believe they are the culprit. Later, it’s revealed the neighbor was merely a witness, diverting attention from the true, less obvious perpetrator.
Chekhov's Gun in Film
In a thriller, the protagonist’s childhood fear of drowning is mentioned in a casual conversation. In the climax, they must overcome this fear to survive when trapped in a flooding compartment.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
How can you distinguish between a necessary story element and a redundant detail in your own writing?
When encountering a red herring in a story, how does it affect your trust in the narrative, and what can you learn from that technique?
In what ways might the human tendency to seek patterns cause us to treat real-life coincidences as 'Chekhov's guns' that must have later significance?
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- The Great Mental Models Volume 4 Economics and Art