As I've mentioned before, I tend to write by blitzing ideas onto paper and then slowly editing it into something that actually makes sense and isn't completely boring. I brainstorm as I write, and The Immortal Game evolved rapidly from revision to revision. One of the landmark things that happened during the process was the selection of the title. Fans of Chess history (and incessant Google-maniacs) likely know the significance of the title, but perhaps not anyone else. Its not an arbitrary title. The story invoked the title, and the title guided the story.
At one point, I had the first two parts written, two more rough drafted, and the outline for the ending done. I still had no title yet, but I began to get an idea for the themes the story was traversing. I could see that it was shifting from a group of actors against the Battalion to this hand-off from the Dream Doctor to Silos, and it was Silos that would become the true architect for the story. I wanted to explore each character that was in the story, and that exploration would, for Silos, inevitably focus on him being the ultimate planner. I began to see him as this focused chessmaster seeing everything as a game against some foe, where the goal was not to crush his enemy but to mate him: to put his enemy into a position where defeat was inevitable, and then walk away. In Chess, the object of the game is not to capture the opponent's King. That actually never happens. The goal is actually to reach a point where that capture is inevitable. When it is, your opponent is "checkmated." He cannot escape being checked - having his King under attack - which means hypothetically the next move would lead to his or her King's capture. Its just that capture doesn't really occur under the rules of Chess. Its an interesting property of the game of Chess that the winning move is not the one that defeats your opponent, but rather the move that makes defeat inevitable. That's the end of the game.
It was at this point that I began to think about The Immortal Game. The Immortal Game is the name for possibly the most famous game in all of published Chess. The game was actually an informal game between Adolf Anderssen - the man considered by many to be the best chessplayer of his day - and Lionel Kieseritzky, considered one of the strongest players of the time as well. They met in 1851 to play the first International Chess Tournament, a tournament Anderssen eventually won. During a break, Anderssen and Kieseritzky decided to play a game. Anderssen went first and played black - back then the convention of White always going first did not exist - and Kieseritzky went second and played White.
The modern game of Chess has evolved over the last two hundred years or so, much like many other games and sports. In the same way that American football evolved from run-dominant leather-helmeted play to the West Coast offense and beyond, Chess has had eras of different stlyes of play. In the 19th century, Chess was played in a very aggressive offensive/counter-offensive style designed around "development" (moves that deploy pieces in a way that allow them to attack large amounts of the board) that you don't see today in the strongest players, who today are more likely to be strategic position players. And Anderssen proceeded to play the game most consider to be the pinnacle of 19th century developmental offensive.
To me, the similarities between The Immortal Game and my story line were, if not perfectly aligned, spookily parallel. The story revolves around sacrifices and a strategy of attack that doesn't reveal its true nature to its opponent until its too late. And so I decided to explore the idea to see if there were any other explicit parallels to the game that either already existed or could easily be incorporated.
The game begins with a sequence known as the King's Gambit. In Chess, the King's Gambit is an early move designed to offer your opponent a free piece which, if he or she takes it, as the potential to weaken their position as they move to take it. In my story, the first move is to deal with Cole, and offer him ultimate power knowing he can only use it to assist in Silos' plan. And from his perspective, it asks him to sacrifice himself for the greater good. This could become my King's Gambit.
Later in the game there's another move which sacrifices a rook but seals the fate of the opponent. Rooks are also called "castles" and this seemed to parallel Prometheus going to the Shadow Shard to talk to Rularuu. Originally I had Prometheus talk to Ruladak, but that decided I could change that to Faathim and make the location the Chantry. I.e. a castle within the shard.
Above all, what makes The Immortal Game one of the most amazing games in Chess history is that Anderssen sacrifices his bishop, then a rook, then another rook, and then finally a knight, and still checkmates his opponent who still has all of his major pieces. Anderssen gives up piece after piece because each sacrifice pushes his opponent into a smaller and smaller corner and scatters his pieces too far away to be useful, and then mates him with a remarkable combination of weaker pieces.
That theme of sacrifice to win the game seemed very apropos, and I decided that I would call this story The Immortal Game after that chess game. People familiar with Chess would get it, people not familiar would assume the title referred to the three main characters at the beginning of the story: a game among immortals.
The selection of the title wasn't just a gimmick, though. It refocused my writing in a way that allowed me to do something I knew I wanted to do, but wasn't precisely certain how to do yet. This story is about cosmic fireworks. Its easy to get caught up in cosmic fireworks, but ultimately I wanted to tell a story about people. Powerful, inscrutable people perhaps, but people the reader could relate to. I needed to make Prometheus the asshat relatable. I had to make Silos the Nemesis plotter relatable. I really wanted to make Cole the badly-written relatable. I even wanted Rularuu to be relatable. I wanted readers to have a sense that these characters had a past that explained their present. And with the theme of sacrifice for the end game inspired by the Immortal Game, I knew what to focus on. Sacrifice.
Prometheus the asshat became Prometheus the exile, Prometheus the cheater, who cheated on our behalf and suffered for it, and when given a second chance cheats again for us. Rularuu the plot device became Rularuu the shattered. Rularuu the all powerful who didn't realize that with infinite power he would not become god, every piece of him would become a separate god who did not want to share. Rularuu sacrificed his very identity for power. Silos the maybe hero became Silos, the seeker of redemption who decides that he can't deny who he is, but can choose to make the ultimate sacrifice for humanity. And Emperor Cole, former ruler of Earth, gains ultimate power and becomes Marcus Cole, servant of humanity, and sacrifices not only his life, but his belief that he and he alone can guide humanity to its proper future.
Ultimately, the title gave me a chance to step back and look at the story, and what started off as a plot, a scheme, a magic trick to save humanity gained a subtext: a morality story. Who are these people that would save humanity, and why. What I needed to do to make every character interesting was simply to ask this question: what did this character sacrifice to bring them to this point, or what would they sacrifice to make the future happen? Everyone understands sacrifice, and if I could make that sacrifice make sense, the character would then make sense. I think I did a decent job there.
I don't recommend gimmicks like this. I think novice fiction writers get caught up in gimmicks. It would have been easy for me to twist my story into a pretzel to make it an echo of the actual Immortal Game as it was played, to overplay the metaphor and the analogy to the game. I've seen it happen many times. In my case, I was fortunate enough that the parallels did not need to be forced, and I was willing to let the metaphor go before they became forced. And I got something in return: (I believe) a stronger, somewhat more human story than originally intended.
The title works on many levels, something I like in a title. The theme of humanity (aka the players) achieving Immortality through dreams. The theme of a game played by immensely powerful beings on the largest possible stage. The chess-related theme of using sacrifice to defeat your opponent. Things just seemed to come together to make that work. I think I just got lucky there.