: Re: What's the term used to describe a twist which is badly written because the twist is based on information not yet available to audience? Context: In my question How did Olaf know?, I asked

@Moriarity138

I call this a "reverse Chekov's Gun violation".

The playwright Anton Chekov is often quoted as saying:


If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there.


The maxim is called "Checkov's gun". When a story has an element introduced early on that never becomes important later, I call that a "Chekov's Gun violation".

If a story has an element that is very important at the end and that element was not introduced earlier, I call it a "reverse Chekov's Gun violation".

As far as I know, I'm the only person who uses those phrases in that way, so perhaps this answer doesn't help you. But I strongly think these are good phrases to use for the situations in which I use them, so maybe this answer will be useful to others.

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