The Queen, in that she is the most powerful player and closest to the King, along with the one Bishop stands as the protagonist.
Her goal is clear. In that the story hinges on the King’s protection from capture would then seem to not only serve as motive, but also plot.
Where the greatest hope of survival dwells also lives the most sincere vulnerability.
Lose the King and lose the game.
Of Allies, Bishops, Stories and Forethought… Read More »
Capture of the King in chess ends the game. And thus the role of each piece or character’s movements works towards the larger goals of protecting the King of the same color and capturing the King of the opponent.
The players move their characters and/or chess pieces towards accomplishing these two tasks.
In this way process of playing the game of chess resembles that of writing a book. While writers do not move our characters around the chessboard of our stories like the pieces of a chess game, each character of a novel or short story carries her or his own role, both in the narrative line and the structure of the plot.
Of Kings, Strategies and Tactics… Read More »
In chess, the Queen stands to the right of the King. Her major job is that of protecting the King. The dilemma of preventing the King’s capture rests upon the Queen’s head.
As such the Queen’s movements are central to winning the game of chess.
Establishing the major dilemma or problem in a story is essential to crafting fiction. The central problem inherently creates desire. And desire begets a series of actions that through cause-and-effect propel the narrative line–the plot.
Plot-driven stories answer the “What if?” question thereby directly conveying plot. Character-driven stories answer the questions, “Who? and Why now?”
From the personality of the of the central character rises an internal dilemma that determines behavior and reveals through a set of circumstances, often usual and common place, but no less bothersome and terrifying, a shift in way of behaving and perceiving the world.
This change or transformation emerges through a series of reactions and actions, again cause-and-effect set into motion by the protagonist’s personality, not so much the series of action themselves.
In this way the character-driven plot resembles that of the Queen’s aim and motive throughout chess. Perhaps this is why chess has been said to be the game of monarchs and aristocrats.
Of Queens, Personalities, Wishes and Desires… Read More »
Dreams are but stories that possess a beginning, middle and end.
Recognizing this Aristotle superimposed this organization of dreams–his three-act structure onto that of plays and stories to render them more comprehensible.
Dreams, like stories and plays, hold drama, and their trajectory of plot often includes a dilemma, even if the problem is one of overwhelming joy.
Of Silence, The Three-Act Structure and Death… Read More »
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.
Of Pawns, Rooks, Knights and Bishops… Read More »
“Make up a story. Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created.”
–Toni Morrison, Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author
The protagonist, in reaching home, during this last chapter of the journey, must evidence that she or he has traveled, not simply waited steps beyond home, seconds beyond the gates of the home native city and after sufficient time to have journeyed far, they reappear with their tale.
Just as the central character must evidence the crisis has transformed her or his way of thinking regarding making decisions, so too, when reaching home again, she or he must demonstrated they have traveled, that they have truly been away.
Often when we travel we bring back gifts for those we love.
The gifts come from the places we have been, where our itinerary of travel has taken us.
Of Narrative, Journeys, and What Compels Us to Write… Read More »
As movie studios lament the low numbers of moviegoers that seems to be dwindling the directors and producers seemed to going after gimmicks of technology to draw crowds back to the theater.
Movies made in 3-D, and shown on Imax screens comprise the recent fads that are but an extension of forcing plot over character in an effort to engage audiences.
In years past this effort rested on action packed adventures, swashbucklers we call them, and enormous special effects.
But what about story?
Moviegoers, Story, and Dreams… Read More »