Chekhov’s Gun Dictum: An Addendum
Jun 16th, 2007 by Lynne
Many people who read my blog regularly are probably already familiar with Chekhov’s Gun, but for those of you who aren’t, here’s a quick summary. Anton Chekhov, the famous Russian playwright and short story author, once said, “One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.” I’ve often heard it paraphrased that if you introduce a gun in Act One it must go off by Act Three. The “gun” can be anything — a magical ring in a fantasy story, a dreadful secret someone is keeping, whatever.
As I was reading an old Carla Kelly Regency romance last night, I realized that she’d violated Chekhov’s Gun Dictum, and it prompted me to come up with an addendum, courtesy of a term borrowed from the incomparable Paul Stanley. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Love Gun Dictum. If problems with the hero’s penis are a major element of the story, then, by God, that bad boy had better “go off” by the end of the book. We don’t have to have a graphic sex scene or a long discussion about it, but we must be given some indication that there’s been a resolution.
In Kelly’s Miss Chartley’s Guided Tour, the story begins with the hero leaving the heroine at the altar, and all we know is that he woke up on his wedding day covered in blood and was too freaked out to go through with the ceremony. The heroine is given no explanation; he simply disappears. When we pick up with the heroine eight years later, she’s traveling to a new teaching post, but things get complicated when she rescues a young runaway from a Bow Street Runner who’s trying to catch the boy and return him to his evil uncle. The two of them flee into the countryside and meet up with a young Spanish girl and a wounded veteran from the Napoleonic War. What’s this got to do with The Love Gun Dictum? Heh. Well, the book goes on a long digression before the hero and heroine ever meet again. In fact, I wondered if the author might be going to set up Miss Chartley with Hugh, the veteran, but no such luck.
Anyway, the four of them travel together to seek refuge with the boy’s other uncle, who turns out to be Miss Chartley’s former fiancé, Matthew Bering. Of course, the big question on the reader’s mind at this point is how soon we will learn WTF Matthew was doing on the night before his wedding that caused him to wake up drenched in blood. We don’t have long to wait, which surprised me.
The hero tells the heroine that a group of his friends and acquaintances, one of whom just happens to be the nephew’s EEEVIL uncle, threw him a bachelor party and brought a fourteen-year-old prostitute for him to shag while they watched. (Aren’t you glad, ladies, that you aren’t living in Regency England?) Unfortunately, Matthew was unable to rise to the occasion, and when the girl laughed at him, he slapped her and made her bleed. He passed out after that, and the next morning, he woke up covered in blood, lying in bed next to the very dead prostitute.
The story up until that point had been very light and humorous, almost reminiscent of Patricia Veryan’s frothier works. When the hero dropped this little bombshell, I came very close to putting the book down. It’s not that I don’t like darker, edgier stories — quite the contrary — but it seemed such a non sequitur that I completely lost my immersion in the story. But morbid curiosity won out, so I kept reading.
It turns out that the hero is impotent, which he believes makes him unfit for marriage. He didn’t kill the prostitute, but his embarrassment over his impotence led to an ugly scene in which the villain killed her. The hero doesn’t remember many details of that night, however, and for years he has blamed himself for the girl’s death. The only reason he temporarily marries the heroine near the end of the book is because he believes the villain is going to kill him in a duel the next morning. (You don’t want me to explain all the twists and turns that led up to this, believe me.) When he returns from the duel alive, he tears up all the paperwork from their hasty wedding and tells the heroine she’ll be better off without him because he is unable to have sex with her.
Okay, so the love gun has become central to the hero’s and heroine’s future happiness. They LUV each other but are being kept apart because the gun can’t/won’t go off. On the night before the heroine is to leave his life forever, she goes to his bedroom and, in the space of a few lines, resolves everything. There’s no money shot, physically or emotionally. The gun which has been hanging menacingly on the mantel since Act One was mysteriously vamoosed sometime at the end of Act Three and we’re told — by a narrator or perhaps a stagehand — that the gun probably did go off, somewhere. Gah!
I know that there are no graphic sex scenes in traditional Regency romances, and I wasn’t expecting one here. But don’t introduce the guy’s penis as a central element of the plot and then run away from doing anything meaningful with it.
I think I’m not comfortable discussing troubles with my Dictum!
(Ask your book doctor whether graphic sex is right for your denouement. Side effects may include hilarity and a deep sense of shame. In a small percentage of cases, a pseudonym may be required.)
LOL, John!
You were on such a roll there that I had hopes you might also work in an analogy about ERD products’ tendency to induce priapism!
LOL!!
Wait, I had something to say.
Giggle.
Seriously.
Snort, guffah!
Um… Oh yeah. I totally agree. If a guy’s gun gets put on stage, it should go off. Preferably in a spectacular way.
Alice
Giggle! Yep. . . there should be some resolution. Perhaps we’re just to infer that the problem is solved!
Doing meaningful things with the hero’s penis.
I think I need to sit down.
I mean, good post!
:)
Hi, Alice! I bet Mr. Chekhov had no idea his words would be twisted in such a way. :-P
Hiya, Ericka! And that’s exactly the problem. If we don’t see or hear the gun go off — or, at the very least, see the effect on the characters — then I think it wasn’t fired. That’s why the end of the book was so, umm, unsatisfying. :-)
“Doing meaningful things with the hero’s penis.”
Y’know, Sara, I didn’t realize I’d said it like that until you pointed it out. LOL!
Yeah, makes me think of all the meaningless things you could do with his penis. :D
Alice
“[D]on’t introduce the guy’s penis as a central element of the plot and then run away from doing anything meaningful with it.”
See, Lynne, it’s not just guys. You have a real knack for writing straight lines like that. It’s not our fault if we do meaningful things with them.
Alice, you made me laugh. :-)
Too true, James. You and John know better than anyone else that I am often unaware of the unintentional silliness in things I say. :-) But that’s what my pals are for — to help me out with this stuff!
Best thread EVAR. Will probably also set a record for the most uses in Lynne’s blog of the word “penis.” If we all really try.
I’m just waiting to see what kinda crazy searches hit the blog after this. :-)
ROFLMAO Lynne, love your penis blog. Even the comments are hilarious.
Yes, if a penis gun is mentioned, it must go off — in a meaningful way, of course.
LOL, Edie! I’m never going to live that down, am I? :-)
Hey, someone should submit a bogus RWA National workshop proposal on “Doing Meaningful Things with the Hero’s Penis, OR Don’t Let Your Love Gun Misfire.” It’d be a riot if they accepted it!
I’ve been hearing that KISS song in my head ever since I posted this. I guess there are worse songs to have stuck in your head. :-)
Lynne, when you give the ‘Doing Meaningful Things With Your Hero’s Penis Workshop’ at RWA next year, I’ll be first in the queue. LOLOL. Please do it. Oh, please! ;)
You really should, Lynn. :D
Alice
Hi, Michelle! I don’t know how we’d get through that without expiring from laughter. And my face would be bright red!
You are too funny, Alice. :-)
No, John, I am NOT re-christening this site as The Penis Blog. :-P
No matter what crude things I had to say about that Cabernet Sauvignon I poured down the drain earlier.
Lynne, that would be an awesome workshop. And think how well it would fit San Francisco. :-)
LOL, Edie! Someone ought to do a body parts workshop, seriously. That would be really cool, and it might help dispel some of the myths about where hymens are. I think the History Hoydens had some blog posts along those lines.
(Eek, another weird keyword now added to my blog!)