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I love to play chess. After studying the game, you really get familiar with each square. You kind of create a story for e4, for example. If I wanted to turn a game into a story, how would I make each square more concrete? What details could I give to turn it into an imaginary location? Once we have the details for each piece and square, maybe players could use a board as a wiki to reify many different positions into memorable stories. I feel that if we personified each piece in a position with real emotions, the memories would be more clear and permanent.

So essentially, how would you go about creating an environment out of the squares on a chessboard? I'd like to turn the game into a story.

Thanks for your creativity. :)

Tyler Langan
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    This is very interesting, but I think it veers on "discussion" more than "answerable question." Can you narrow this down to something more concrete and less brainstorming? – Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum Dec 13 '12 at 11:48
  • Maybe tarrot cards can give you inspiration. – Vorac Dec 18 '12 at 13:39
  • I'm sorry, but Writers.SE isn't a good place for brainstorming story ideas - you can peek at our About page and at this Meta question for more details. This is a cool idea that I'm sure you can get mileage out of - but this isn't the place to do it. You could try setting up a brainstorming session in the chat, or try a more general writing board. Best of luck! – Standback Feb 05 '13 at 10:28

2 Answers2

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This question was famously addressed by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking Glass:

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Glen Downey's The Truth About Pawn Promotion: The Development of the Chess Motif in Victorian Fiction explores the metaphor extensively.

Mark Beadles
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The strong appeal of the squares on the board as settings for a story lies (at least in part) in their spatial relationship with one another (within the game of chess).

Although e4 and f4 appear to be contiguous, the knight cannot move directly from one to the other. Your story might be based upon the notion that not all locations are equally accessible to all characters and hence different actors will have very different options and vulnerabilities when they are in (apparently) the same location.

Fortiter
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