Playing the game of chess demands that individuals strategize their moves.
To accomplish this each player must think ahead, considering what character or pieces they can move upon the chessboard, and to what square, empty or filled by one of the opponent’s characters or pieces, and the various moves their opponent can make in response.
A move that captures the opponent’s Rook, may allow, stimulate or energize the opponent to see a move they can make that not only captures your Rook, but also allows one of their Pawns to reach the end of your side of the board. At that point your opponent has the opportunity to raise his Pawn to the status of his Rook that you captured.
Plotting, which is the cause-and-effect or action-and-reaction that propels of our stories and novels from the beginning, through the dreaded middle and onto the end requires similar forethought. Like the front line of Pawns on the chessboard we open our stories with a forward movement. Only at the opening of a chess match can a play more her or his Pawns 2 spaces and only forward. After that we are limited to moving a pawn but space during a turn.
A player, at the outset of the game can also choose to move her or his Pawn but one space if she or he so desires. But as always the movement must be ahead and/or the next square in front of the Pawn. They Pawn cannot go the space left of right of it, only to a square straight ahead.
Only when capturing the Pawn or character of the opposing player can you move your Pawn to a space diagonal. In fact, a player can only capture the pieces or characters of her or his opponent that are located in spaces standing diagonal to her or his Pawn.
Stories take detours from the path we intended when the encountering discoveries in the personality structure and history of characters, namely the protagonist, and perhaps the antagonist or most profoundly when the protagonist encounters an obstacles rooted in setting or not to belabor the role, the antagonist.
As with chess, also when writing we, the writer, must consider not simply the moves, actions or thoughts of our protagonist, but as well, the wishes, desires, hopes and dreams of our antagonist when not only designing what are protagonist is considering in the face of obstacles, but also how she or he will respond.
And then our focus returns to the antagonist and other supporting characters and their response.
For every action there occurs an equal but opposing reaction.
Einstein’s law of relativity.
And so it goes with human interactions, even those upon the printed page or computer screen.