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.
Interpretation
Chekhov emphasizes that every element introduced in a narrative should serve a purpose, especially in storytelling.
This quote by Anton Chekhov illustrates the principle of narrative economy, suggesting that any significant element introduced in a story should play a role later on. If something is included in the beginning, it is expected to contribute meaningfully to the plot or theme later, reinforcing the idea that every detail in storytelling should be intentional and relevant.
In practice
During a writing workshop, I mentioned Chekhov's principle to emphasize the importance of concise storytelling.
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.
Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
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.
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.
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?
Money, like vodka, turns a person into an eccentric.
The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less.
In my youth I stressed freedom, and in my old age I stress order. I have made the great discovery that liberty is a product of order.
Every human being is intended to have a character of his own; to be what no others are, and to do what no other can do.
All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. However, a path without a heart is never enjoyable. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy - it does not make a warrior work at liking it; it makes for a joyful journey; as long as a man follows it, he is one with it.
We owe the origin and development of human society and, consequently, of culture and civilization, to the fact that work performed under the division of labor is more productive than when performed in isolation.
One thing, all things: move among and intermingle, without distinction. To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection. To live in this faith is the road to non-duality, because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.
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