Revision checklist: Chekhov’s bunnies
It struck me this week that fiction writing itself mirrors the messy experience of living. Even when authors make plans, they can be pulled away from them by so many different forces: the sheer volume of words, a character arc that is unexpectedly compelling, a plot twist that comes in a burst of inspiration.
As an editor, I often see traces of an old plan that wasn’t fully carried out. Sometimes an author has changed course halfway through, and an early bit of plot is no longer necessary. Or sometimes they’ve given a character a nifty piece of equipment or costuming without knowing yet what they’re going to do with it. A fictional world is so complex and a manuscript is so long, that it is very difficult for authors to see places where they haven’t fully transmitted what is in their head onto the page.
So my job as an editor is to keep an eagle eye out for those mismatched or unrealized bits and pieces. One example is the famous Chekhov’s gun principle. As he phrased it to a fellow writer, “One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn’t going to go off.” In a fantasy novel I worked on this summer, the author hinted at the existence of a kraken early in the novel. I added it to my list of things to track and waited for it to show up again. The kraken does indeed reappear in spectacular style near the end of the book. I commented approvingly during the copyedit, and the proofreader added her own comment later: “Chekhov’s kraken!”
It’s a fantastic shorthand phrase I immediately adopted for myself. In a novel I edited last week, for example, I was keeping track of “Chekhov’s pants”—a pair of special-ordered battle trousers that were indeed used in a later scene.
So when does a detail get that Chekhov label?
It has to do with the qualities of the thing described as well as how you describe it. For example, if your protagonist is wandering through a forest and startles a group of bunnies that hop off into the underbrush, well, those are just background bunnies. However, if one of the bunnies is given a striking or unusual detail—a medallion hung from a collar, maybe, or intelligent-looking eyes—then you’ve created Chekhov’s bunny, and readers will expect to see it again. (Maybe they will run away?)
Some items, like guns, have enough power to get the Chekhov label without any special descriptive work. For example, one book I worked on last year featured an exciting battle between two characters on top of a flying carpet (just as much fun to read as it sounds). After the protagonist defeated the opponent, she rolled up the carpet and took it with her, at which point both she and the author forgot all about it. In the revised version, Chekhov’s carpet was left behind at the end of the battle.
How do you track or check for Chekhov bunnies in your draft?
It depends on how much planning you do in your writing process. If you are a complete pantser and come up with, say, Checkhov’s magic paperclip on the fly, then highlight it in your document so you can easily spot it again, or make a note to yourself to include it later.
If you are planner, you might already have a scene or a specific use for the magic paperclip in mind. (It turns into Clippy and thwarts a malware attack on your protagonist’s laptop?) Make a note about it in the outline and identify which scene it first appears in so you can refresh your memory about what readers already know about it.
If you have a lot of special items at work in your novel, it’s best to include them in a list and then check them off when you’ve worked them in a second time. When I’m editing, I often keep an ‘open questions’ list of any plot point or detail readers will expect to have answered by the end of the novel or the end of a series. Chekhov items fit naturally in such a list.
Chekhov bunnies should also be part of your revision checklist. When you do your first cold read of the entire manuscript (ideally, at least a few weeks after finishing your complete draft), keep an eye out for them and add them to your list of to-do items, if needed. If you create one and never use it, ask yourself whether you want to work it in or cut it? If you cut it, put the idea in a ‘maybe later’ idea file so you can use it in a future book.
When is the best time to have your Chekhov bunny reappear?
You also might consider during revision whether your Chekhov bunny is optimally positioned in your novel. If you move it elsewhere, will it have more impact?
In general, you want to leave enough time for readers to have forgotten about that special bunny, so it can be both surprising and satisfying to see it reappear. If you feel that too much time has elapsed, or this is a particularly long book and your bunny was introduced in the first chapter, you can show your character noticing it or remembering it again at a later point, without actually using it.
Note as well that Chekhov’s bunnies might be just the thing you need to get yourself out of a messy plot tangle. So if your revision to-do list includes one of those, consider whether you can position a bunny early in the novel and have it reappear to straighten out your plot.
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