Interactive Storytelling

Writing for Interactive Media

Aristotle’s Poetics

• Beginning

• Middle

• End

• A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle and an end (Poetics VII).

• Plot: “the arrangement of the incidents”

Gustav Freytag’s Analysis of5-Act Dramatic Structure(German Dramatist and Novelist in the 1800’s)

Mark Stephen Meadows

Pause & Effect (www.bore.com)

NARRATIVE DIAGRAMS

Branch Narratives

Paths with decision points that create forks in the road (branches)

Example: Choose Your Own Adventure Stories

Dunnbar Bound Riptide

“The Romp” – Ebaum’s World

3 Basic Interactive Plot Structures:

1) Nodal

• Linear events interrupted by moments of interactivity.Possibly “do or die.”

• Interactive branchingmoments are called“nodes.”

• Each segmentbetween nodesis called a “place.”

A Variation

• With PuzzlingLinear narrative interrupted bypuzzle or game to continue(Chris Crawford)

3 Basic Interactive Plot Structures:

2) Modulated

• Several plots going on at once that you can tap into, but all stories are impositional—you couldexhaust all possibilities.

3 Basic Interactive Plot Structures:

3) Open

• No discernable story line(example: SIM)Players create their ownnarratives with their ownjustifications.

Structures

• Impositional: the user uncovers a single plotline

• Expressive: users free to generate their own plots in an open, simulated environment

Keith Johnstone's Impro

• Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre, 1981, explores a number of games and techniques for reawakening spontaneous creativity. Some of these techniques include group storytelling a word a time, automatic writing, and wearing masks.

Finding a Balance Between Impositional and ExpressiveFrom A Theory Review,

by Zach Tomaszewski for ICS 699Spring 2005, directed by Dr. Kim BinstedUniversity of Hawaii

Treating the audience like actors does not make them behave like actors. As Johnstone explains, new improv students often have difficulty keeping up an extended improv because they tend to "block" offers.

Even if we are continually creating new plots for the user, we must be cautious not to err in the opposite direction of leaving the player too few choices.

If we have been generating narratives and then trying to add interaction, starting with interaction and then trying to generate a narrative will be a new approach.

Questions?

Exercise: Branch Narrative

Bibliography

• Aristotle. Poetics. Translated: S. H. Butcher. Introduction: Francis Fergusson. New York: Hill and Wang, 1961.

• Freytag, Gustav. Technique of the Drama. Translated: Elias J. MacEwan, from 6th German edition. Chicago: S.C. Griggs & Company, 1895.

• Johnstone, Keith. Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre. NY: A Theatre Arts Book/Routledge, 1979.

• Laurel, Brenda. Computers as Theatre. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1991.

• Meadows, Mark Stephens. Pause & Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative. Indianapolis, IN: New Riders,

2003.

Teacher’s Resources

• Foundations of Interactive Narrative A Theory Review, by Zach Tomaszewski for ICS 699Spring 2005, directed by Dr. Kim BinstedUniversity of Hawaii

• Choose Your Own AdventurePedagogy for young kids