(Untitled)

[greygirlbeast]

This is a democracy. You will always be voting for the lesser of two (or three, or four) "evils." So vote, or don't vote, but stop whining.

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Sirenia Digest #81 is almost ready to go out. There were some snags last night, but I think we've gotten past those now. So, hopefully you'll get it sometime today, if you are a subscriber. This is not

Comments

[stsisyphus]

...the problem of "Chekov's gun" is literary nonsense, a bugaboo to be ignored, unless you need the gun to be fired.

Hmm. RP tends to be much more fluid and forgiving for dropping potential plot details because of the nature of the activity, that's certainly true. I know Synge has about twenty-teen fallen and scattered plot elements which I know I'll never get back to (and probably don't need to do so). Continuity within RP scenes can be a terrible beast to wrangle, particularly as the importance of established events and details wither or swell according to stimuli and improvisation and other factors. Details get lost or forgotten. I didn't mean to suggest that the particular "gun" in question was required to be referenced, like I had a list of things that needed to be checked off. Given the subjective importance placed on the plot point early on, it felt satisfying (from a narrative standpoint) to let the established detail have it's payoff before Lizbeth exited the story.

I can think of numerous brilliant novels, stories, and movies that violate this supposed dramatic principle.

Not to argue with you, but I'm curious for examples. I think you mean in stories where an air of mystery or the desire for "unanswered questions" at the conclusion trumps the necessity to have every single detail and circumstance tidily accounted for by the end of the story, but I'm not certain. My initial knee-jerk reaction is to call the violation of the Chekov's Gun principle a potential plot-hole or violation of the conservation of detail, but that's very likely a poor assumption to make.

[stsisyphus]

Aaaaaand I just realized that this was probably intended as a friendly helpful writing tip and not a prompt for serious writing craft discussion....