How is Writing Like Chess?

The Writer as a Strategist

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​Though I am largely a fan of strategy games, I am not very good at chess. I studied chess for short while, but instead of improving in my knowledge of the game, the experience gave me a rather interesting insight into the world of writing. And, as I stand now, I fully believe that the art of crafting a story is a lot like the science of playing chess.

​“How, Will?” You must ask. “How is telling a story anything akin to two players moving chess pieces vindictively across the rows and files of the chessboard?”

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​And the answer lies within the question, for all a story is composed of is two forces, two objects of willpower, making moves across a board in hopes for a victorious goal.

​Sit with me here and imagine. Have you ever been writing an arc, a chapter, or a scene and stopped to think: “Why isn’t this working? Why am I not moving towards my desired goal?” And thus the writer, whether they know it or not, sits at the board, ogling the pieces before them, pondering as to why their decisions up until this point are not working, when in a sudden in a whirlwind of epiphany, they think “Of course! If I do this, then it will work!”

Just like that, the writer is no longer merely a spinner of ideas or characters, but a strategist of the storytelling art. As the same way a grandmaster moves his pieces to his designs, the writer places their characters to create certain effects. The characters dance upon the board—upon the plot in a magnificent play to move toward the end goal.

The writer desires the checkmate, or, the end of the story.

But how do they do this with so much against them? And who, then, is their opponent?
The opponent of the writer remains one object, be it the the World, the Psyche, the Self. The writer fights against the mind, in a glorious duel to uncover the World within.
And so, for every brilliant move, there is an equal counter-force. This, is the exact way that the story is like the chess match. The writer concocts his plot by moving their pieces to the common goal of finality, just as the grandmaster moves their pieces to the common goal of checkmate.

How does this—how should this—change our mentalities as writers?

Well, it’s rather simple. If we think more about the utility of our characters, we will see more about their quality to the plot and why they are important. Likewise, if we think of the plot less a series of events and more a strategy, it gives us the ability to take away the intimidation that it sometimes presents. After all, it is merely the concoction that results from our strategic decisions along the writer’s journey—the writer’s game. And lastly, if we think of our end goal as checkmate, it implies one thing particularly.

It implies that we must be aware of the goal (the ending) and thus it gives us a goal to play our pieces in favor of.

I have been thinking about this analogy much lately, and I believe it is a strange one, yet equally refreshing. And though the World, the Psyche, and the Self strike against us, we must know that the strategy is in our hands, and, as long as we can play our way to victory, the art is eternally free.

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