How to Write Scrabble
Scrabble is obvs a bit important in Bond fandom bc of Q’s iconic Scrabble mug (Q10!), but not everyone has played it. So after reading a few 00Q fics featuring Scrabble, I came up with a little Scrabble meta!
The basics:
You play a word by connecting it to other letter tiles on the board. There are double and triple word scores and letter scores on the board that add an element of strategy to the game, and there’s a randomizing element bc you draw your seven letters blindly from a bag.
The most common trip-up:
The #1 most unrealistic thing is characters playing super long, extremely thematic lists of words while they’re playing Scrabble in order to illustrate a state of mind a character is in.
I know it’s tempting. I do. It’s a convenient and fun device.
And l can stretch myself to accept it if it’s something with diverse word lengths like “hate, hellfire, inferno, rage, enemy, git” or whatever. Maybe the board and tiles are in your favor.
BUT if it’s several really long words in a row like “infuriate, annihilate, wrathful, destruction, explosion, bastard” then my disbelief is officially suspended.
For one thing, the odds of the board and letters lining up to make all of those in a row are pretty dicey even for awesome players. With some of the words that are more than seven or eight letters, e.g., ‘annihilate,’ someone had to have a played a shorter word, ‘at’ or ‘ate’ that the player could piggyback off of.
(Words like ‘ate’ aren’t sexy and thematic, but they do sometimes get played in Scrabble!)
Cool things to include if you write Scrabble:
There is an element of strategy to the game. Is the character a defensive player who leaves few openings? An aggressive or generous one who always opens new areas of the board? Does their strategy shift with their mood or are they really consistent?
Two-letter words can feature heavily in the game. Is your player one who knows all of the more unusual two-letters words, like ‘qi’ and ‘ka’ and ‘za’?
Long words can feature: is your character always on the lookout for ways to get the 50-point bingo that comes with using all seven tiles to form a word?
That moment of satisfaction when you use your S tile in the most advantageous way possible (’Think you can play ‘KAZOO’, do you? Well, I’m playing ‘KAZOOS’ and ‘AXES’ all at once, take that’)
The moment of even deeper satisfaction when you find THE word that you can combine with a block of words already on the board, e.g., something like adding ‘ARSE’ to the end of the BAKE/DAY/KEY block diagrammed below, bc even though A-R-S-E are all one-point letters, making all of those new words will net you a decent amount of points
K-/A
B-A-K-E/ R
D-A-Y/ S
/ E
Above all: character dynamics!
Just like with any other game, show your characters’ relationship through the game play!
Yes, you can do that by having them play pointed words like ‘fuck’ and ‘you’ on the board, but you can also do it in other ways.
If the relationship is antagonistic: Maybe they don’t leave each other many openings to play. Maybe your character gets up for a drink, sees that the other character has the X, and immediately plays in the exact best place an X could go even though it’s a low-point move for them. Maybe it’s a ruthless point-for-point battle and the characters don’t even care about the words they’re making anymore, it’s all about the point values.
If the relationship is friendly: They may play words based more on the ‘fun’ principle than on point value; they may help each other out of a bind on the board by opening up a space for the other to play; they may agree to a themed game but it’s something they both acknowledge like ‘add 10 points to your score if you play a dirty word’ or w/e; they may play competitively but be good-natured about any thwarting/awesome moves the other player makes
If the relationship is between a novice and a more experienced player: Is your more experienced character the kind of player who will beat the novice by 250 points, or will they handicap themselves in some way? How do they handle the disparate abilities? Is your novice the kind of player with a quick grasp of the strategic aspect of the game, or are they more focused on trying to make ‘good’ words? Is this a game to make friends or a game for one player to exert dominance over the other?
Conclusion:
I hope if you haven’t played Scrabble before you’ve got a better idea of the different ways it can be included in a fic. Themed words on the board are great, but like any other game, there’s lots of other ways you can use Scrabble to convey the developing dynamics between your characters! And if you have played Scrabble, feel free to add on any of your experiences and stuff I’ve forgotten!
I’ll also leave you with this question: Bond fandom, what are your Scrabble headcanons for the MI6 Squad? Who are the pros, who fails completely, who’s never played, when did they learn, what kinds of variations do they play amongst themselves?
