Week 2 Questions - "Finally, we get to narrative..."

1. In the Introduction to Story and Discourse, Chatman quotes Claude Bremond, who says: “Any sort of narrative message… may be transposed from one to another medium without losing its essential properties: the subject of a story may serve as argument for a ballet, that of a novel, can be transposed to stage or screen, one can recount in words a film to someone who has not seen it.” Chatman goes on to suggest that “transposability of the story is the strongest reason for arguing that narratives are indeed structures independent of any medium”.

Choose a narrative that has been expressed in both an interactive and a non-interactive medium, for example the game Tomb Raider and the movie Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Discuss how the transposition to/from interactive media has changed the narrative. Has the structure of the narrative remained intact?

When the word “interactive” is used, the first thing I think of is computer games. “Non-interactive” medium refers to all traditional forms of story-telling, i.e. books, movies etc, where the audience has absolutely no control over the flow of the narration.

An example that comes straight to mind, of a narrative expressed in both an interactive and non-interactive medium, is the Lord of the Rings book and movie, and the Lord of the Rings computer/video games. There are a couple of similar examples around, since it seems to be the “in” thing now to have convert movies into games, or vice versa.

The transposition of the book/movie (non-interactive) into an interactive form has changed the narrative in the sense that, while the story is similar, the discourse has been altered. Story, as mentioned by Chatman, consists of events and existents. In the book/movie form and the game form, the events and existents seems to remain the same. “Same” here doesn’t refer to entirely same actions and paths as the book/movie. If it is so, there would be no interactivity. Rather, the different stages in the game seem to correspond to the different scenarios in the original storyline, i.e. fighting off the Ringwraiths who have come for the hobbits, finding the path to the “ghost army” etc. The characters that you can play are also the “same” – Aragon, Legolas etc. The main events and existents are the same. As such, since these two are the main components of what a story is, we can claim that the story is essentially the same. Essentially, the main aim is to get to Mordor and destroy the ring.

(Disclaimer: I did try playing the second game – The Two Towers, on PlayStation, but I didn’t actually play it for very long and it was also quite a while ago, so what I’m typing is only what I recall. It might not reflect reality. I got stuck in one of the stages, and I got bored trying to find my way out. That was the reason why I didn’t complete the game. ;p)

However, the discourse – as in how the different events link together or what the characters do to achieve their aim, can be quite different, depending on the player. The narration has changed from reading/watching something that has been pre-determined to something that is on-going. This, we will discuss in Q2.

As for the question on whether the structure has remained intact, I guess it is so. Chatman mentioned that the 3 key notions associated with “structure” are wholeness, transformation and self-regulation. Wholeness refers to the compositions of the narration – events and existents. Transformation refers to the way the story unfolds and the relevance to the events or existents must be present. Self-regulation means that the structure maintains and closes itself in that it does not entail something that is impossible within its scope. The structure of the book/movie is definitely intact. As for the game, I believe it is largely so. “Wholeness” is satisfied. “Transformation” depends on the players’ actions and, in a well-conceived game, should be satisfied in that the actions of the players should be relevant to the unfolding of the story, i.e. completing a quest to get on to the next stage so that you can ultimately destroy the ring. “Self-regulation” is satisfied in the game as it is not possible to do anything outside the scope of the games’ code. As such, I conclude that the structure of the narrative is intact.

To tell the truth, I’m not sure if I answered the last part correctly. “Has the structure of the narrative remained intact?” seems to suggest both the interactive and non-interactive medium are of one narration. However, I actually view them as 2 different versions of the same narration or maybe even 2 different narrations. It’s akin to Run Lola Run, where you get to start over again and again and the different actions add up to different stories. Hence, what I’m wondering is does “structure of the narrative” refer to the structure of the book/movie or the structure of the game? Or is it a matter of interpretation of the question?

2. Chatman observes that “whether… the author elects to order the reporting of events according to their causal sequence or to reverse them in a flashback effect – only certain possibilities can occur… Of course certain events or existents that are not immediately relevant maybe brought in. But at some point their relevance must emerge, otherwise we object that the narrative is ‘ill-formed.’” This is the notion of self-regulation.

Interactive media allows for choice and control on the part of the reader/user. What problem does this raise for self-regulation? What, if anything, does this suggest about designing interactive narrative?

The problem people might foresee for self-regulation in interactive media is that the reader/user might be able to do something outside the scope of the plot and that their choice and control would influence the development of the story over time. Probably what it suggests about designing interactive narrative might be to limit the extent to which the users’ action can influence the development of the story so that it is self-regulating?

What I’m thinking here is with respect to games. Take the Lord of the Rings game for example, different players might have a different experience in the different stages of the game, i.e. they may have more health points than another, or they encounter more enemies due to a different path that they took. However, the overall story remains largely the same, in that they have to clear a stage to get on to the next, and eventually complete the game. As such, while they have choice and control, it is largely limited to the original story. They are unable to do anything outside the story or game codes. And as such, all events and existents are relevant to each other and hence the game is self-regulating.

Either this or the designers should make sure all the choices made by the user will have an immediate or eventual effect on the development of the story so that they are relevant and fulfils the criteria of “self-regulating”. This would require much more thoughts.

I think that typically, the only type of interactive media in which we might foresee this problem is in games. E-books and such are simply the original stories digitized. I feel that this problem will not be a problem, if we view the narrative in the interactive media to be separate from the non-interactive media, in that they are different stories. In Run Lola Run, the different actions of Lola lead to various different stories, even though the main theme – to get $100,000 to Mammi within 20 minutes, remains the same. Different players will have different gaming experiences, even though it is the same game with the same theme. As such, different players would experience a slightly different “narrative” of the story. Some of their actions might be “irrelevant” and hence “ill-formed”, i.e. running around in circles, but they’re probably trying to find their way out of a maze or something and it all accumulates to the eventual clearing of the specific stage. In this manner, they are very much relevant to the different players. Hence, self-regulating should not be a problem.

To tell the truth, I don't know what the hell I'm typing. It's all a jumble in my brain. Sorry if it sounds incoherent.

3. Discussing the concept of interpretation, or "filling in the gaps", in narrative, Chatman states that “there is… a class of indeterminacies… that arise from the peculiar nature of the medium. The medium may specialize in certain narrative effects and not others. For instance, the cinema may easily – and does routinely – present characters without expressing the contents of their minds… verbal narrative, on the other hand, finds such restrictions difficult… Conversely, verbal narrative may elect not to present some visual aspect… The cinema, however, cannot avoid a rather precise representation of visual detail.”

Think of an example of the use of narrative in interactive media. With reference to your example, suggest what the “peculiar nature” of interactive media may be, and which narrative effects it may specialize in.

One example I can think of in computer/video games is that there will usually be a video of a scene prior to the start of a mission. This scene will inform you the basis of your mission as well as the goal of it. In computer/video games, the players do not necessarily know what the story is about, and a narrative is necessarily to give some background information as well as to inform the player what needs to be done to clear a mission. Computer/video games probably belong to visual narrative, in the same category as cinema in the example. As such, visual details such as characters’ faces, clothing, movements, need to be a precise representation of them. Thoughts are usually omitted in that they are not essential to the game, unless there are specific uses of them, then they would be expressed in speech bubbles and such. Speech is usually omitted in games as well, unless you count those things they say after you issued a “command”, i.e. “affirmative”, “roger”, as speech. There is usually limited speech in computer/video games. The only form of speech present is actually part of the narrative.