8 Ways Writing a Story Is Like Old-School Tetris

Writing a story is like old-school Tetris. And we’re talking Game Boy Tetris here. Grey pixels on greeny-yellow background. No block “ghosts” to show you where your drop will end up. None of this T-spin-to-win nonsense. Back in my day, the tetronimos were heavy and froze the instant they even looked like they might touch something else. We’re talking real Tetris.

1. The main idea is simple, but getting good is hard.

What video game could be easier to grasp than Tetris? Seven different blocks fall from the top of the screen. You can rotate them and move them sideways while they’re falling, but once they hit something, they freeze there. The goal is to complete horizontal rows, which disappear upon completion. When the stacked blocks reach the top of the screen, you lose.

Sounds pretty easy, until you hit level 9, where blocks fall almost as fast as you can drop them.

Writing a story sounds pretty easy too: make up stuff and write it down. Anyone can do it.

But if you want to get good at either Tetris or writing, you’re going to have to put in a lot of work.

2. You’re working with only a few basic building blocks, but you can do fantastic things with them.

There are only seven tetronimos: line, square, L-shape, backwards L-shape, T-shape, S-shape, and Z-shape. But the possibilities in Tetris are almost endless. There’s enough similarity that you can spot patterns and enough variation to keep you always on your toes.

Likewise, there are only twenty-six letters in the English language and a finite number of words. Some languages have fewer, some have more. But out of those puny scratchings of ink on paper (or glow of pixels on a screen), you can create just about any idea you can think of and plant it in someone else’s mind. How cool is that?

3. You’ll be happiest if you plan ahead at least a little…

The key to Tetris is always being aware of what piece you have coming up next. In the new Tetris games, you can see almost the whole line-up. Back in my day, the box in the bottom right-hand corner just showed you the next piece. Either way, knowing what’s coming tells you whether to hold out for a line, save a space for that darned square, or take the plunge and plug up a gap because you can’t afford to wait any longer.

Likewise, having at least a vague idea of where your story is going will help you to avoid writing your protagonists into a corner. You’ll have some sense of which way to go to progress if you know how it’s all going to end, even if you end up having to check out a few different paths before you find the best way to get there.

4. … but sometimes quick-and-dirty is more important than careful-and-well-planned.

Listen, if you’re playing at level 9, and the blocks are stacked almost to the top of the screen, your mad skillz at setting up perfect consecutive Tetrises don’t matter. You are not going to get a prize for never having gaps or holes in your construction. All that matters is getting enough lines to avoid hitting the top of the screen.

Sometimes, when you’re writing, it’s hard to push past that part you know just isn’t any good. But you need the whole story in place to revise it. You just gotta write the dross and trust that dross is what you need for gold to shine through.

5. The very best know how to build the stakes while they delay gratification.

Picture a perfect Tetris screen: all the blocks stacked neatly on one side, no gaps, except for that one-block-wide hole on the right side of the screen, going all the way to the bottom. Sure, you had your chances to make some lines. Maybe you could have got away with a double or even a triple. But nothing matches the feeling — or the score — when you get those four lines at once.

Stories are the same. You can give your protagonists minor victories — have her show up the school bully or make up with her friends the chapter after the big fight. But it’s way more satisfying for you and your readers if you keep building the stakes up, and up, and uuupppp… until finally at the end you allow that last piece to slide into place for the most cathartic triumph (or failure, if you’re writing tragedy).

6. Fame is fleeting.

It takes forever to enter S-A-R-A-H as the “yay you got a high score” music plays. And even if I do? As soon as I turn off the power, all the records are erased.

Unless you are William Shakespeare, you will not have your own Wikipedia entry overnight. Even if the stars do align for you — and they don’t for hundreds of hard-working and talented writers — there will always be the next project, the next story, the next manuscript. You don’t write to get your name out there. It’s just not efficient. If that’s important to you, go film a YouTube video of yourself getting smacked in the junk. And once that life goal’s off your list, you can write in a more peaceful frame of mind.

7. Accomplishment is its own reward.

Let’s face it: the rocket ship that blasts off when you finish a game after hitting 100 lines does nothing but take for-frickin’-ever. And there are much easier ways to listen to music than beating Type B Tetris level 9 high 5. Those screens are there not to give the player something she’ll treasure always but to acknowledge the difficulty of the feat it took to achieve them.

Writing is kind of the same.

Sure, a few published authors get showered with money and glory, but most just get the pleasure of having written something they’re proud of and shared it with other people. And, of course, the pleasure of writing itself.

A publishing contract is the rocket ship. It’s great to get to that stage, but that’s not the only or even the main reason to write.

8. If you do it for too long, it’s all you can think of.

The Tetris Effect is documented: play the game for too long, and you’ll see falling tetrominos when you close your eyes.

There is no similarly documented writing effect, but when a story really gets in your blood, the characters and plot and world come with you wherever you go. And that’s what makes writing awesome.