Chekhov's gun: a useful plot device.

By Glen C. Strathy Chekhov's Gun is a plot device whereby you introduce an item in the first part of your novel that doesn't seem important to the story at the time, but takes on greater significance later on. The principle was expressed by the great Russian playwright, Anton Chekhov, who said that if you put a gun on stage in the first act of a play, it should be fired in the second act. According to some sources, he also expressed this in the negative form as: don't put a gun on stage in the first act unless you intend to have it fired in the second. Some writers try to follow this dictate very rigorously and avoid mentioning any object unless it will play a major role in the story, but that is really taking things too far. I believe Chekhov used the example of a gun because a gun isn't just any object. So if you do draw attention to an object, your readers will expect this object to appear again. Here are several ways you can employ Chekhov's Gun: 1. Mrs. 2. 3. Chekhov's Gun vs.

Getting Ideas for Article Writing Writing articles is not that difficult if you have good ideas to write about. An idea becomes good material for an article if it is something new or if it is presented in a fresh manner. The writer must see his subjects from all angles. Jot it down.Keep a notebook or a pad handy in which you jot down anything that suggests even part of an idea to you—phrase, a character, a locality, a plot, a lyric, a tune, a scene, a title, etc. Open your senses.Listen, look, taste, smell, feel, and be aware. Read.Read as much as you can about anything in every field, since all the experiences of life are source materials for the writer. Don’t let your critical sense cancel your creativity. Know and care about the subject you’ve chosen to write about. Don’t be dull.Here’s a tip for writers of business communications. Don’t be afraid to use something colorful if it illustrates a fact. Find what interests you.No one can tell the average writer where to find stories and articles.

Read These Seven Books, and You’ll be a Better Writer Donald Miller I used to play golf but I wasn’t very good. I rented a DVD, though, that taught me a better way to swing, and after watching it a few times and spending an hour or so practicing, I knocked ten strokes off my game. I can’t believe how much time I wasted when a simple DVD saved me years of frustration. • The War of Art by Steven Pressfield: This book is aimed at writers, but it’s also applicable to anybody who does creative work. Pressfield leaves out all the mushy romantic talk about the writing life, talk I don’t find helpful. • On Writing Well by William Zinsser: Zinsser may be the best practical writing coach out there. • Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott: Before becoming a literary superstar, Anne Lamott taught writing, and Bird by Bird is the best of her advice, broken up into chapters. Save the Cat by Blake Snyder: Snyder’s book is specifically for screenwriters, and yet I recommend the book for writers of any kind, and teachers and preachers as well.

The Grolier Club - Home 50 Most Influential Books of the Last 50 (or so) Years In compiling the books on this list, the editors at SuperScholar have tried to provide a window into the culture of the last 50 years. Ideally, if you read every book on this list, you will know how we got to where we are today. Not all the books on this list are “great.” The criterion for inclusion was not greatness but INFLUENCE. All the books on this list have been enormously influential. The books we chose required some hard choices. We also tried to keep a balance between books that everyone buys and hardly anyone reads versus books that, though not widely bought and read, are deeply transformative. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 45.