The Sport of Story

In every game there are rules and strategies that exist in order to make the competition fair, compelling, and concise.  In checkers, the rules are simple and well defined.  In American football, the rules are quite complicated, but only in order to maintain a strict order of play which results in quick bursts of high-intensity sport.  In order to be most successful at any game, unless it is a game of total chance, one must know the rules and apply them in a way better than the opponent in order to win.  For example, the master chess player is able to apply the rules of the game many, many steps ahead of the current positioning of the pieces in order to imagine all possible scenarios and in what way he may best place his offense and defense.  If the player is able to do this in a better way than the opponent, the player is more likely to end the game victoriously.

I was discussing a game called "Rook" with acquaintances recently.  The acquaintances had variations on the set of rules for the card game which I found to be detrimental to the cohesiveness of the strategy of the game.  One such rule variance they played with was created so that a weak hand of cards could still be powerful - by failing to do any positive thing at any point throughout the dealt hand, a player who bid "low" would earn a very significant number of points.  Unfortunately, this idea was a poor concept because it rewarded failure.  The player with the terrible set of cards did not need to apply any mental prowess to the game if they chose to try to fail, they simply needed to play poorly with an already poor hand.  Whereas the person who bid normally needed to apply great levels of intellect in determining how to gather the necessary amount of points in the game, the player bidding "low" could earn a nearly identical number of points by losing in the worst possible way.  Because of this variant concept, the strategies which make the game of Rook so compelling were deluted.

Writing a novel is much like creating the rules of a sport or a game.  The novel has certain key points that the reader wants from the novel in order to be entertained.  Applying the points is necessary, but the reader also wants those points given to them in an interesting and semi-unique manner in order to keep their focus piqued.  They want to be entertained in the same way that the participant in the game of Rook wants to be entertained, and just as the spectator of an American football game seeks entertainment.  In the novel, the reader wants to identify with the characters, they want to resolve a major issue, and they want consistency in the crafted universe.  The reader wants a plethora of appropriate and accurate words so that they do not bore with the vocabulary - the reader wants to be surprised with the story in a way that makes sense and can be understood looking back.  But the truly good books do not simply follow those basic rules... the truly great novel looks to go for two points in the end, or to shoot the moon.  And in the literary world, that means that the novel seeks to answer or call into question major life issues; and thus, the reader walks away more enlightened, and more keen from the experience.

And what are the rules for writing a really terrific blog?  Well, I'll figure that out as I continue to add additional entries... and if this one isn't exactly mindblowing or worthy of acclaim, it may be because it's 3:30 am and I need to make it another 16 hours without going to sleep.  Yikes.