Nothing is Irrelevant

There is an axiom in theater, attributed to the Russian playwright Chekov, that goes something like this: If a gun is visible onstage in Act One, it should be fired by the end of the play. And if a gun is to be fired during the play, it should be visible onstage in Act One.

In theater, or really any kind of fiction, the day-to-day details of life are chosen for the audience. Strolling down the street, minding your own business, you may notice several irrelevant details: a tree, a drugstore, a small boy with an ice cream cone. In fiction, however, it's more like the author is walking beside you, pointing things out. "Look," the author says, "see that tree? And the drugstore? And over there, there's a boy with an ice cream cone."

This gives the details of the story a certain weight. They have been selected from all the possible details that could have been provided. If the details are not important, than the author becomes a bore and the reader stops listening.

This doesn't mean there can't be stage dressing -- details may exist only to set the time, place, or mood. Boy with ice cream is significantly different from boy huddled close under the shelter of his mother's umbrella.

But any detail that stands out, that appears odd or fraught with additional significance, must be resolved. A gun, for example, or perhaps a child eating ice cream on a cold rainy day --must have a pay off or the reader will wonder why they were there.