plot device

There’s a famous storytelling rule: if you show a gun on the wall in the first act, it better go off in the third. That’s Chekhov’s Gun.

In the world of mystery and crime thrillers, one of the most effective narrative tools is the MacGuffin—an object, person, or event

When you hear ‘Chekhov’s Gun,’ you probably think of a weapon on the wall that must go off by the end of the story. But in sci-fi and fantasy