Writing is a two-player game

In chess or tennis you can't make the same move every time and expect to win — you play the person across from you. Writing is no different, except for one cruel twist: your opponent isn't in the room. You sit alone, so it's easy to forget that reading is something the reader actively does. They filter every sentence through their own needs, firing off questions, objections, and expectations as they go. Treat writing as a monologue and you lose them.

How it works

Treat writing as a two-player game: you move, they respond, you adjust. Every sentence is a move, and the reader answers it in real time — "so what?", "prove it," "I don't buy that," "get to the point." Good writing anticipates the next move and is written in reply to it. So while you draft, don't only think about what you want to say; think about what your reader will do with the sentence you just wrote, and write the next one to meet it. The isolation is the trap: writing is a social act performed alone, and the whole skill is keeping the absent player on the board.

Why it matters

A writer who only plays their own moves produces prose that's correct and dead — every point made, no reader met. The reader, getting no response to their silent questions, quietly leaves. Playing both sides is what turns a monologue into something that feels written for the person reading it, which is the only kind of writing anyone finishes.

Try it

1. After a paragraph, voice the reader's move: what would they now ask, doubt, or expect? Write the next paragraph in answer.
2. Hunt the places you made your own moves several in a row — sentences with no reply to an obvious objection.
3. Name your one reader and picture them across the board; write to beat their moves, not to complete your own.

Common pitfalls

Imagining a passive reader who simply receives — the monologue trap, and the reason "I said it clearly, why didn't they get it?" happens. The opposite error is answering moves the reader never made: pre-empting objections nobody has, which stalls the game with defensiveness.

Treat writing like a two-player game. You move, they respond, you adjust.

WILLIAM · WRITING IS A TWO-PLAYER GAME · 2025

You're not writing a monologue. You're playing a game whose other player never sits down.

Drawn from

• William, Writing is a Two-Player Game (here's how to win) (Writer Science, 2025).
• Related: Know your reader, not just your audience, Make moves, not templates, To essay is to try.