Hiding Chekhov’s gun

“Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”

-Anton Chekhov

While it’s important to both take out unnecessary elements and provide the readers with adequate foreshadowing, it can be hard to do so and still have plot twists and unpredictability.

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