If you say in the first act that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the third act it absolutely must go off,” reads one of the many versions of the narrative principle commonly known as “Chekhov’s gun”. Developed by 19th-century Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov, Chekhov’s gun was the playwright’s way of insisting that every element in a story must ultimately be necessary; that there can be no insignificant details, and, therefore, that every detail carries a sense of imminence with it. Through my years of studying, analyzing, and working in politics, I have come to believe that a similar principle applies in real life: the details, often unnoticed at the time of their emergence, have a way of coming back and turning the plot like Chekhov’s gun.
