The principle that every prominent detail must pay off - if a gun appears, it should later fire.
Chekhov's gun is a rule of narrative economy from the playwright: don't hang a loaded rifle on the wall in the first act unless someone will fire it by the last. Every element given weight - an object, a skill, a stated fear - creates a promise the story is expected to keep.
It cuts two ways. Introduce a gun and readers wait for it to go off, so a detail that never pays off reads as a loose thread; conversely, a payoff with no earlier plant feels convenient. It's the twin of foreshadowing: the gun is the plant, the firing is the promise honoured.
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