Breaking Down Satire: Chekhov’s Gun

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blood phoenix saga, blood phoenix: claimed, blood phoenix: rebirth, Breaking Down Satire, Chekhov's Gun, false premises, foreshadowing, literary device, the broken world series, writing payoff

Chekhov’s Gun comes from the saying, “If in Act I, you have a pistol hanging on the wall, then it must fire in the last act,” although the version I heard was a bit different as it featured a table instead of a wall, and many variations exist. In any case, the lesson comes in foreshadowing and cohesion, and Anton Chekhov’s point was that every element introduced in a story should serve a function.

Essentially, Chekhov’s Gun means not making false promises or creating red herrings by introducing important details, elements, or themes without following through with a purpose for it. Why note it otherwise? Often mixed up with foreshadowing, which hints or makes a reader aware of a specific element or detail but doesn’t bring special attention to it.

But let’s clear up one more thing: Every single plot point or detail does not need to be massively meaningful. The blue curtains might not mean melancholy or depression, as I’ve heard so many students groan when we analyze stories in class. The elements or items must play a significant role when presented in a dramatic way or receives special focus.

 

More interestingly, Chekhov’s Gun does not have to be an item like a gun. Scenes, memories, and characters quirks, etc. can all be used in tandem to propel a story forward, and to keep from confusing readers, false guns should be eradicated. Even if they’re your darlings.

Personally, I come across these when I’m stuck writing. Details I don’t know are significant until I have a hurdle to get over often reveals a gun I didn’t know I placed on the wall—or table in my case—and my subconscious is far smarter than I like to give it credit for.

Okay, before I delve into my own uses too deeply (am I setting myself up here or what?), I want to show how this links to satire. Well, typically that focal point reflects the main cause for criticism. We take special note of facts, characters, and events in satire, so we highlight them in dramatic ways in order to make our arguments.

 

For instance, control is one of my big-hitter satirical notes as a sister to conformity. Once Ria wakes up as a vampire, she attacks her maker, drinking his blood and receiving a lecture about how his blood will not benefit her. Well, this serves two gun-like purposes.

One, control plays up throughout book one, but in a big moment, when Ria’s captured and held by the Assetato, they feed her a little girl. The on-going practice of wrangling her hunger, of maintaining control over the new animal inside of her, and trying not to hurt humans comes to a culmination when the child is offered to her. This also hits that satirical note of not letting what others do to her control her actions. She’s strong-minded and individual, and she will not conform. It’s a pretty consistent theme for me in each story I write, but it manifests in several, different ways.

And two, the emphasis on the benefits of paranormal blood becomes a serious issue in book two, CLAIMED, and if I’m being super honest, for the rest of the series, it grows into something that keeps control over her. See what I did there? Okay, cheekiness aside, her need for paranormal blood means a couple of drawbacks: she’ll need consistent volunteers—okay, maybe not a complete drawback given the three men in her life—and it also marks her as the anomaly she is. The scary bit is coming in book four, which I’ve just started drafting.

Much like the need and the control, this is a double-whammy gun moment. But Ria’s worst fears from the end of REBIRTH, book one, will finally come to fruition. Her secrets are going to be revealed, and she’s going to suffer the consequences of her birth. It should be an interesting and nasty experience.

Over the years, I’ve gotten a better handle on Chekhov’s Gun, but I wasn’t always so great at it. Naturally, writers seems to use this technique in some way to create twists and turns in a plot, but we certainly can generate more impact when we understand the usefulness of hanging that gun on the wall in Act I.

 

Let me know what you think of Chekhov’s Gun and how you use it in the comments below!

Happy reading and writing y’all.

Breaking Down Satire: Hyperbole, Exaggeration, & Understatement

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absolute equality, Breaking Down Satire, child slave labor, exaggeration examples, Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., hyperbole explained, satirical elements, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K le Guin, understatement, writing process

Hyperbole is one of the best ways to create a satirical message as the majority of an audience can easily understand exaggeration. This is because it is meant to generate strong feelings or effect. And there’s a good chance that hyperbole will catch a reader’s attention.

Besides, readers are attracted to this type of language because we use hyperbole in our everyday speech, especially in our youth: I’m so hungry I could eat a horse or my mom is going to kill me.

And we all have the natural tendency to exaggerate as it makes our stories funnier and more dramatic. This is how we create characters that are larger than life. We can focus on particular causes or issues without needing to delve into the far-reaching complexities of the real world. If satire does nothing else, it certainly means to make a specific point, so hyperbole is supremely helpful.

One of my favorite examples is in “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., which is probably why I teach it every semester. The themes of equality and Communism are exaggerated to create an extremely oppressed society. Forced to be the same as the lowest-common denominator, progress stalls, people are tortured, and no one bats an eye at the live execution that takes place on television.

Even better is the depiction of Harrison as a character. A behemoth at seven-foot tall with super strength and smarts and good looks that would put Thor to shame. When he chooses his Empress—after prematurely claiming his rule as Emperor by stamping his foot and threatening those in the TV studio—the two of them dance and leap to the touch the ceiling, and defy gravity by hovering there for minutes, kissing.

Well, this exaggeration serves two purposes: one, to indicate how even in an oppressed society, evolution will still create strong offspring to advance a species. No dictatorship can squash this completely. And two, to show how when grace, intelligence, and beauty are suppressed, any hint at true talent will seem miraculous. This plays well into his overall message that absolute equality is not possible.

On the other side, understatement expresses an idea with less strength than expected. Again, we use these often in our daily lives: I’ll be there in one second or this won’t hurt one bit.

This creates a casual or offhanded message about something quite serious.

Once again, I gleam an example from the stories I teach in class, this time in “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin. She goes to great length to establish a utopia. In fact, she takes half the story to convince us that this place, Omelas, can exist, which sets up her message well.

In one last ditch effort to make believers out of us, she casually gives us the image of a naked child in a basement closet, festering in his excrement, barely eating, and shown no kindness. He is the trade that the people make for their luxuriously happy lives. And he’s shown to us in an offhanded way that tells the audience how the people need to think of him in order to maintain said happiness.

The understatement comes in how much focus she imparts on the people and their needs and psyches rather than the child’s and creates a perfect metaphor for first-world problems verses third-world problems, how societies are built off of stomping on others, like the trend of companies utilizing overseas sweatshops and child slave labor to provide us with cheap and easily accessible products. (By us, I’m speaking personally as a lower-middle-class American). In fact, one of my favorite examples is Apple, who put nets around their Chinese factories to keep workers from killing themselves. I’m sure if you do a quickie internet search, you’ll find more examples of this than you can stomach for the companies you buy from, which is why I advocate for voting with your dollar.

Okay, that’s hyperbole/exaggeration and understatement and a great way to launch this year’s focus on satirical elements and tools.

I hope you join me next month for satirical violence.

 

In the meantime, leave me your favorite hyperbolic or understated expressions and examples in the comments below.