Make All Your Moves Count

Part 2 of a chess-inspired series on writing

In chess there’s this concept called tempo, which means not wasting moves, especially at the beginning because they end up working against you later. Without getting into details, there’s a tendency for folks just starting chess to dally and just move their pieces around for no good reason at the start of a game, but they end up losing because the important piece they should have put in the right place at the start isn’t there when they need it later.

Studying the Ruy Lopez opening while revising the opening of my novel; in both cases, I try to make sure that every single move counts.

Same goes for writing. One of the habits I see a lot with developing writers is the tendency to dwell in the aspects of writing they enjoy most and to avoid the parts they have trouble with, but it’s those parts that are key to the story. I see a lot of lush, gorgeous prose especially near the beginning of a piece, which is wonderful to read but doesn’t really drive the narrative. Or there’s a character at the start that’s vividly and extensively described, but turns out to be a minor part of the story and so is given too much space at the expense of more important characters.

Another problem that wasting tempo at the beginning of a story creates is that key details of plot or characterization is either lost in a sea of description or isn’t there altogether. This is what often creates the feeling of the big emotional revelation at the end of the story being unearned, which leads writers to think there’s a problem with the ending. But in my experience, it’s more often the case that the problem goes all the way back to the start of the story, where the emotional stakes and the desires of characters are not sufficiently set up, and the writer has instead indulged in more description than necessary.

I recently edited Charley Burlock’s wonderful essay, “Possession” at Electric Literature, which is about her life as a teenager dealing with a manic mother and the attention of an older man while wrestling with her own self-control. They gave me permission to use their first paragraph as an example. Here it is prior to editing:

“The summer after eighth grade, I began working at a mental hospital at the very top of a very tall hill in San Francisco. I had gotten the job—the internship—because my mother was, at the time, a patient of a doctor who practiced there. The doctor had the kind, yellowish, and exhausted eyes of a basset hound and a perpetually popped middle shirt button. He was too good of a man to be a good doctor. Being a good doctor, or specifically, being a good psychiatrist, requires a curious and rare balance of empathy and detachment. You must be capable of connecting with your patients enough for them to feel the connection but, ideally, not enough for you to feel it, not really. Connecting with someone means allowing yourself to be hurt or disappointed by them, wanting to help them more than is helpful. For example, when your patient—in the grips of a particularly psychotic bought of mania—mentions that her daughter has no plans for the summer and, curiously, an interest in psychology, it is in no one’s best interest to offer that daughter a position down the hall that you made up on the spot. I know that now, but didn’t then. I believed then that I would make a good doctor.”

We edited this down to:

“The summer after eighth grade in 2012, I began working at a mental hospital at the very top of a very tall hill in San Francisco. I had gotten the job—the internship—because my mother was, at the time, a patient of a doctor who practiced there. Being a good doctor, or specifically, being a good psychiatrist, requires a curious and rare balance of empathy and detachment, a balance this doctor did not possess.”

The description of the doctor as having the “kind, yellowish, and exhausted eyes of a basset hound” was amazing, as was the insight into his psyche, but it also leads the reader to think the story is going to be about the doctor when he turns out to be a minor character in the story. Also, placing such prominence on him prevents us from getting to the heart of the story as soon as possible, and from the reader’s mind to be prepared for the major events of the story centering, not around the doctor, but a different man.

So my advice: don’t waste moves. Set the scene well, but know when you’ve done enough and cut those lines that make you feel good but don’t actually advance the story. Take the time to make the hard, complicated moves because they’re necessary as the story progresses. Don’t waste your tempos, because you always want to be a few steps ahead of the reader to create satisfying experiences in your writing.

Until next time,
Meredith