As some might remember, my friend Adam and I began a game of literary chess.  The initial post is here, but in a nutshell, I wanted to slow down writing and add in some unpredictability.  I thought back to those old days of chess by mail, where you wait a week to know how your partner moved and then you send back your move.  I thought it would be cool to do that in the literary world- have a partner and volley back and forth.  Thus, literary chess via twitter was born.

Well, the second iteration has begun with the grandmaster that is Jacob Haddon.  You can follow us at the twitter hashtag #literarychess.

Of course, we encourage others to begin their own games (and I’m always up for players!)  The rules are. . you make your own rules.  Do you want a rhyme scheme to be followed?  What about length, both in time to respond or in lines?  Maybe you want a prose piece, not a poem.  Maybe not.  And even with the team making the rules, you develop your own strategy for response and see what happens.  The only concrete rule is each line has to fit into twitter length and include both the hashtag and other players name (so they know you made your turn).

Happy playing!