Ryan, M-L. (2006)
Ch 1: Narrative, Media and Modes
Definition of Narrative:
Bruner: identity
Jean-Francois Lyotard: Grand Narrative of capitalized History
Abbe Don: narratives of interface in computer software
Abbott: story is an event and an sequence of events, narrative is those events represented
-Story is a metal image, a cognitive construct that concerns certain types of entities and relations between these entities -> Narrative is a combination of story and discourse with the ability to evoke stories in mind
Spatial dimension: Narrative must be about a world populated by individuated existents
Temporal dimension: Narrative must be situated in time and undergo transformations
Transformations are caused by nonhabitual physical events
Mental dimension: some in events must be intelligent agents with a mental life and react emotionally
some events must be purposeful actions motivated by goals and plans
Formal and pragmatic dimension: sequence of events must form a unified causal chain
occurrence of at least one event must be asserted as fact of story
story must communicate something meaningful to the recipient
-Memories stored as stories - being narrative: evoke a story to the mind of story
Narrative Modes:
1- External/Internal: External is textualized, internal is not - we can tell ourselves storied
Fictional/Nonfictional
2- Representational/Simulative: representations is an image of one of the possibilities, simulation is a productive engine that generates different events
3- Diegetic/Mimetic: diegetic narration is verbal storytelling act of a narrator. Mimetic narration is an act of showing, a visual or acoustic display
4- Autotelic/Utilitarian: In autotelic mode, story is displayed for its own sake ad in utilitarian mode the story is subordinated to another goal.
5- Autonomous/Illustrative: in autonomous mode, text transfers story that is new to the receiver. In illustrative mode, text retells and completes a story - pictorial narratives
6- Scripted/Emergent: In scripted mode, story and discourse are determined by inscribed text. In emergent mode, discourse and story are created live through improvisation by the narrator, actors, recipient, or computer software
7- Receptive/ Participatory: In receptive mode, recipient is not active. In participatory mode, the activities of the recipients completes the story.
8- Determinate/Indeterminate: In determinate mode, sufficient number of points are specified. In indeterminate mode, one or two points are specified
9- Retrospective/Simultaneous/Prospective: In retrospective mode, past events; in simultaneous mode, events as they happen; and in prospective mode, future events
10- Literal/Metaphorical: Degree of metaphoricity depends on how many features are retained and on how important they are to definition.
Media from Perspective of Transmedial Narratology
semantics: study of plot or story
syntax: study of discourse or narrative techniques
pragmatic: study of uses of narrative
Media features that effect narrative experience:
Spatiotemporal extension: cinema, dance, and digital texts
Kinetic properties: dynamic or static, whether the text changes over time
Number of semiotic channels: spatiotemporal use multiple channels. Combinations include, still pictures-language, moving picture-music (silent films), moving pictures-music-language, and touch, VR technology
Priority of sensory channels
Ch 5: Toward an Interactive Narratology
Features of digital systems:
- interactive and reactive nature ; computer takes input and adjust behavior accordingly
- volatile signs and variable display: change in value, causes pixels on screen to change color
- multiple sensory and semiotic channels: what makes the computer pass
- Networking capabilities
Narrative top-down planning of a storyteller, interactivity bottom-up input from the user
Interactive narratology doesn't have to be from scratch, it could be built upon existing building blocks time, characters, space and events.
Textual architecture: a building composed of a story and a discourse level.
In a rich user-computer interaction system, user create stories by activating the diverse behavior of agents, alter the total state of the system and open new possibilities of action and reaction.
When the world contains high number of different objects, and when these objects offer variety of behavior, system can produce complex combinations.
Types of Interactivity:
two binary pairs: internal/external and exploratory/ontological.
Internal vs External Interactivity: In internal mode, users as members of the virtual world with an avatar; In external mode, users are situated outside the virtual world.
Exploratory vs Ontological Interactivity: In exploratory mode, users navigate the display and in ontological mode, users' decision change the destiny and alter the plot.
External-Exploratory Interactivity: In external-exploratory mode is represented by hypertext fictions.
-no limits to user actions
Links between nodes of hypertext
1- Spatial links: textual networks of contrasts and analogies between themes, images and episodes.
hyperlinks forced these to the reader's attention. - challenging her to arrange them into meaningful structures.
2- Temporal links: succeed each other in time.
3- Blatant links: give the reader a preview of the content of the target lexia, enabling her to make an informed choice among many plot developments
4- Simultaneity links: allow the reader to jump form one plotline to another in order to find out what others in different locations are doing.
5- Digressive and background building links: opposite links together suspend the development of the story momentarily
6- Perspective-switching links: bidirectional links take us into private worlds of different participants in the same episode.
Internal-Exploratory Interactivity: transport the user into a virtual body inside the virtual world
External-Ontological Interactivity: user plays god into a virtual world - Simcity, The Sims
Internal-Ontological Interactivity: user cast as a character situated in both the time and space of the virtual world. - Quake, Half-Life, EverQuest
Myths about Digital Narrative
1- Digital narrative is about choice, and the more choice you give to the user the more pleasurable.
2- Narrative can be produced through a random combination of elements.
3- Becoming a character in a story is the ultimate narrative experience.
Ch 6: Interactive Fiction and Storyspace Hypertext
Chapter asks the questions for each authoring system: what are the affordances and how do these affordances affect the construction of narrative meaning?
Interactive Fiction: first narrative genre out of a digital environment, hybrid of game and literature
Video games: much like IF, but more interactivity in real time,
IF and video games, both operate according to the building a dynamic model of a fictional world.
Storyspace Hypertext: a network of links and nodes: lexia (units of text) = digital equivalent of page
when user clicks on a link-> display a new page on the screen-> can activate several different lexia
order of lexia is variable = multilinear - > readers' choice is sequential
a map shows the current state of the developing network
-Combine different linking logics
-Work with little stories that fit within on screen
-Present text as a simulation of mental activity
Best hypertexts are the ones that present the reader's activity of moving through the network and reassembling the narrative as a symbolic gesture specified text, a gesture whose interpretation cannot be predicted by reading the medium.
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