Use It or Lose It... Keeping Deleting Scenes/Ideas
Chekhov's Gun... There's an old trope that applies to theater and to writing. It is credited to Anton Chekhov, author/playwright. In a letter to a friend in 1889 he said, "One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it." Since then, the phrase "Chekhov's Gun" has become associated with the idea of not introducing something 'interesting' or 'irrelevant' into a piece, whether it be a stage play or a story, that is not actually poignant to the story. If you put a gun into a scene, make sure someone uses it before the story is finished. Don't just leave it lying there gathering dust. Why? If you were doing a story involving a killer like Jason Voorhees/Michael Myers, before anyone knew they were unkillable, and they were closing in on the hero/heroine in the room where the gun is in plain sight you'd have the person use it, right? You wouldn't have them grab a curtain to try and ke...