tower

Of Towers, Castles and the Battles Writers Wage…

The Rook, Tower or Castle in the game of chess speaks to boundaries.

Towers and Castles of the medieval era served not simply as homes, but also places of protection, that place to which rulers, those of their court, and the soldiers guarding them retreated and from which they waged battle.

The Tower provided a place from which the sentry or guardsmen could look out and view those coming to do battle or offend–those who sought to defeat the monarch and occupy her or his home.

Each time we set out to write a story or novel, we wage a war.

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Of Rooks, Guardians of the Threshold and Boundaries…

The chess piece or character known as The Rook, which is also called The Castle or as I like to say, The Tower can move as many spaces along a row or column on the chessboard.

The Rooks (each player has 2) combined with The Queen, form the major chess pieces. In this way they operate like Guardians of the Threshold preventing the opposing player’s pieces from gaining or capturing a player’s King.

Guardians of the Threshold in a novel hold the boundaries between the protagonist and her or his goal.

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Of Pawns, Rooks, Knights and Bishops…

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 »