This weekend I played my first game of chess.
My eldest now 23 learned the game from my husband. Like the cello, I have always admired people who played chess.
It truly is a game of thought, forethought and reasoning. Unlike the game of checkers that I learned as a child and play with my youngest who is eleven, chess pieces have names and characters.
Like the elements of fiction, these characters or pieces have 1 or 2 directions in which you can move them, defined tasks that propel the plot of the game.
For instance, Pawns can only move one space forward except at the outset of the game, and then diagonally only when they are taking a space and replacing a piece in that space, i.e. capturing it.
When this happens, the person moving the pawn has captured the Pawn or character being replaced.
Then come the more defined characters, as I like to call them.
The Rook, Castle or Tower can move along either the rows or columns of the chessboard (vertically or horizontally) in an attempt to either evade capture or overtake, capture another character.
Likewise to achieve the same goal, the Knight moves in the shape of an “L”, 2 spaces forward then one space to the right or left.
The Knight is the only character that can jump over another piece when moving about the board.
The Bishop who stands next to the Queen can move diagonally over a number of empty squares.
Pawns, the Rook, the Knight and the Bishop in chess remind me of the aspects of dialogue, setting, point of view and theme regarding fiction.
They also make me think of ancillary characters that propel aspect of plot–Guardians of the Threshold, The Mentor, Allies, and Shadow.
Pawns present the first line of defense, allies behind which stand the other characters or pieces of chess.
Limitations of the moves Pawns are allowed to make establish parameters not unlike setting and also point-of-view.
Yet it is the Rook, whose ability to move in straight lines, either horizontally along rows or vertically up and down columns that hearken the importance of a writer choosing the point-of-view from which to narrate our story and the narrating character (protagonist) whose perspective who will shape and influence the way the story is told, and then remaining faithful to her or him, and her or his actions, reactions, thoughts and feelings on and towards the plot of events.
The Knight, whose “L”-shaped moves allow for him to double back possesses a wider dimension on not simply moves, but also requires the player to consider the other side, the other player even more.
In this way the Knight exhibits qualities of Shadow, or Other--that which is unsaid, invisible in character’s dialogue, or what a setting lacks, yet is evidenced through, lack, emptiness or silence.
The Bishop, who like the Queen, stands beside the King, delivers elements of the Mentor, guidance in the call and rise-to-action demanded by the dilemma and goal of protecting the King. The loss or capture of a King in chess signals the end of the game.
All movements of each character or chess piece comprise the larger plan that is two fold: to protect your King, while seeking to capture the monarch/King of the opposing player.
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VERY interesting.
I have to disagree with you, though (kindly). In writing we can move in a thousand different directions; even redesign the board.
And, I am the world’s worst chess player 🙁
.-= Patrick´s last blog ..Four =-.
Yes. Writers can move in various directions. And it is in learning the role of each element of fiction and honoring them discipline of that role when writing a story that we gain skill and hone our art at crafting fiction. Likewise in learning plot there is the universal plot form that when integrated into our writing provides a structure through which to deliver our story and that renders it most easily accessible, engaging and entertaining to readers. Like the game of chess, writing, perhaps in a more subtle way, has its rules governing how we play and assure ourselves of having the greatest potential for fun and creating a work about which we can feel we have given our personal best.
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