Introducing the Interactive Narrative

The initial chapter of "Pause and Effect" introduces the concepts of narration and perspective, describes their history and present day manifestations, and explores their ability to interact. In short, this first chapter lays an excellent foundation for a course on interactive storytelling.

Meadows begins by examining perspective through the centuries. For instance, the painter Giotto allowed his viewers to connect with his creations by developing visual perspective. The concept of perspective applies to writing as well, with visuals and words combining to produce "dimensional and emotional perspective". Furthermore, Meadows discusses the narrative structure of Freytag’s triangle, or a plot structure consisting of desis (beginning), peripeteia (middle), and denouement (end). He also mentions Edgar Allan Poe, one of my favorite authors. Meadows describes how Poe eliminated the desis of his stories to form mystery stories. Seeing as I shamelessly skip to the middle or even end of a novel, perhaps this desis elimination explains in part why I enjoy Poe’s work.

Narration also receives an examination. Meadows begins by mentioning AOL, which feels somewhat outdated to the modern reader. Granted, this book was first printed in 2002, so a book that deals with the constantly evolving world of interactive media can be expected to feel dated faster than a text on, say, geology. I also promptly created a Banja account to explore the book’s example of an interactive game. Perhaps by 2002 standards this Flash game was groundbreaking, but to my jaded 2010 perspective it felt like one of thousands of Flash puzzle/interaction games. Meadows also mentions interactive marketing, a precursor to what we now term “viral marketing” as seen in the promotion of the movie Cloverfield and Halo (ilovebees.com). Furthermore, the idea that programming is a digital narrative is discussed although, since basic programs such as spreadsheets have no human elements, this narration is incomplete. Personally, I feel that spreadsheets are tools to manipulate our analysis of reality, nothing more, just as metaphors and symbols are tools to manipulate our understanding of reality. Finally, the story is presented as an interaction between the author and the reader. As I discussed in an earlier comment, the reader has to uphold her part of the interaction in order to fully experience a novel. This explains why so many great classics put me to sleep when I was required to read them in middle and early high school – I wasn’t fulfilling my side of the author/reader collaboration!

Meadows next describes interaction. With interaction, a user collaborates with the author not only to understand a narrative/experience, but also to construct it. The principles of interaction are input vs. output, inside vs. outside (the world of meaning vs. the world of sensorial experience), and open vs. closed (reactive vs. unresponsive). Furthermore, interaction is accomplished through the four steps of observation (viewing the author’s interactive environment), exploration (determining the user’s power to change said environment), modification (invoking that power), and reciprocal change (observing the user’s effect on the environment, reacting to those changes, and making further change). I was delighted to see that Meadows mentions Myst, one of my favorite childhood computer games, as an example of interactive narration.

Finally, these principles are combined into the idea of the interactive narrative. In this, the author provides tools for user to build a story. There is a balance between interactivity and narration – one that my group has struggled to find for this course – that Meadows describes with three plot structures. These are as follow: nodal, with one path featuring separate feedback loops; modulated, with separate paths and the option to explore between them; and open, with no set narrative path and instead unfettered exploration. Using these concepts, our project is a nodal plot that requires user interaction to advance along the narrative path. Potentially, we can change it to a modulated plot system.

All in all, this chapter addresses some concerns in our own interactive narrative development (namely the balance between narrative and interaction) as well as provides excellent tools to analyze our work and construct future progress. As a team, we look forward to continuing to apply the concepts put forth by this chapter to our own interactive story.