Chekhov's Writing Principles

• Anton Chekhov, the master writer of short stories wrote to his brother in 1886 identifying the six core principles in writing a story. These principles are held together by the belief that one writes in the purest attempt to depict the world itself and not interpret it.
• His truthfulness in depicting characters, objects and situations makes his stories relatable to the reader.

  Honest descriptions of persons and objects
• His experience as a doctor may have given him the ability to detach the storyteller from the story but at the same time hook the reader completely

  Total Objectivity
• Economy in details which follows the principle of Chekhov’s gun takes a major role in Chekhov’s writing.

  Extreme Brevity
• The reader being emotionally affected by the sequence of events in the story is a feat that few writers can achieve. Chekhov sees this as one of the most effective ways to affect the reader.

  Compassion
• Most of Chekhov’s writing deals with the individual person’s inner self - emotions, thoughts, feelings and experiences. Politics and social issues remain in the backdrop, but are not the main focus of his work.


  No political-social-economic effusions
• While most of his contemporaries in the late 19th century employed high drama, complicated plot twists and resolution in their work, Chekhov did the opposite. It seemed that his stories arise from the characters and their actions rather than the characters reacting to a story imposed upon them.

  Audacity and Originality
• As he had summarized in a letter to Alexei Suvorin in 1888, “One has to write what one sees, what one feels, truthfully, sincerely. My concern is to write, not to teach!”
• palings


  fence
• droshky


  carriage
• lorgnette


  opera glass
• whiskers


  moustache
• sturgeon


  fish
• fetters


  shackles
• toque


  hat
• pomeranian


  dog
• promenade


  a place for strolling
• coiffure


  hairstyle