Ernest Hemingway’s “Iceberg Theory” or "Theory of Omission" of Writing

If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.

 –Ernest Hemingway



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Anton Chekhov’s “Gun Theory” of Writing

Chekhov’s gun is a literary technique in which any object given a special significance within a story has to be used at some later point. The technique comes from Anton Chekhov, who explained that a pistol hung on a wall in the first act of the play should be used at some time later in the story. If the gun isn’t used, then it serves no purpose and is a mere distraction — unless it is meant to be a red herring. The ideal situation for Chekhov’s gun is one in which the object is noted but partially forgotten in the first instance, and then becomes relevant later in the story.

The biggest misconception about Chekhov’s gun is that it is equivalent to foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is where the writer leaves little clues about future events in the narrative, which are more clearly understood after the event is known. Chekhov’s gun relates more to removing extraneous information and descriptions than layering clues in for the reader. If a loaded gun is described in the first act and never fired, there is no need to describe the gun at all, because it is irrelevant.



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