Chekhov’s Gun - speechwriting advice from a cartoon

Since July 23, 2018 Dave Kellett has been publishing Sheldon cartoons about famous writers in a series titled Anatomy of… On July 8, 2019 there was one titled Anatomy of Anton Chekhov (with lots of text in red) which taught me:

“ ‘Chekhov’s Gun’ is a dramatic principle that says every element of a play must be necessary; and irrelevant pieces must be removed. So if you have a gun onstage, the implicit dramatic promise is ‘that gun is gonna be used at some point.’ “

Both Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations and the Yale Book of Quotations state it as:

“One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.”

At the TV Tropes web site the main page on Chekhov’s Gun lists a series of variations titled Chekhov’s Gun Depot which include:

“Chekhov’s Gunman: When a character seems to be there for no reason, they must be important.”

“Chekhov’s Volcano: If it wasn’t going to erupt, it would have just been a mountain.”

“The Legend of Chekhov: If someone tells a fairy tale or legend, it’ll turn out to be true.”

The July 8 Sheldon cartoon was playfully preceded by one on July 5 titled Anatomy of Chekhov, but it instead was about Ensign Pavel Andreieivich Chekov – a character from the original Star Trek television series.

Obviously not everything in these cartoons is true. For example, the August 8, 2018 cartoon about J. R. R. Tolkien says his initials stand for Jebediah Ricky Roscoe although they really stand for John Ronald Reuel. And the August 22, 2018 cartoon about Carolyn Keene (collective pen name for authors of the Nancy Drew mysteries) claimed that:

“Nancy carries like seven flashlights on her at all times, in case you need her to pose for a book cover…. (She will flat-out refuse to solve a mystery if it doesn’t feature a flashlight).”

The image of Calamity Jane holding a rifle came from the Library of Congress.