Lecture notes Interactive
Storytelling
Lecture 1 – Defining Storytelling and Narratives
Historical context - Long and rich research tradition
Aristotle’s Poetica: tragedy versus comedy, narrative forms (epic/dramatic), dramatic
structure
Russian formalism: e.g., Vladimir Propp’s character roles |Viktor Šklovskij: fabula vs.
sujet vs. media/text
Narratology including French structuralism: discipline studying narrative principles
and narrative representations (e.g., Seymour Chatman’s kernels vs. satellites, Gérard
Genette’s focalization)
Definitions
Laypeople’s use of the word story
“Narrative refers to the unchangeable material presented to the interactor [ ...] a
solidified rock”
(Adams, 2013, adopted by Smed et al., 1.1.2)
“a story [...] means now all the events that the interactor can experience in the course
of playing the work”
(Adams, 2013, in Smed et al., p.7)
“Narrative [is] a forgiving, flexible cognitive frame for constructing, communicating,
and reconstructing mentally projected worlds”
(Herman, 2002 – optional source)
“A narrative is a representation of events or a sequence of events that is independent
of medium and form (audio, visual, symbolic, in real actions)”
(Kinnebrock & Bilandzic, 2006, citing Abbott, 2002, p.12 – also in Smed et al., 1.1.2)
the story is “the content plane of narrative as opposed to its expression plane or
discourse; the ‘what’ of a narrative as opposed to its ‘how’”
(Prince, 1987, in Smed et al., 1.1.2)
Narrative – our definition
Story
The “what” / content
Chronological sequence of events on a
timeline (plot, fabula, arc) | Kernels
and satellites – Characters | Character
roles
Narrative
Discourse
The “how” / expression
(Re)presentation of the story | Result
of the act of narration
Discourse structure (a.k.a. sujet) |
Focalization | Point of View (PoV) |
Voice
Note: Russian formalism distinguishes three layers: fabula, sujet, and media/text (Smed et
al., intro 2.1.3). Kinnebrock and Bilandzic (2006) distinguish three layers as well: story,
discourse and structure. We combine RF’s sujet and media/text and K&B’s discourse and
structure in our discourse layer.
,Defining narrative and storytelling
The term narrative includes both a story and its telling (discourse)
Defining a narrative
A narrative consists of a:
Story: A chronological event sequence
Event 1 Event 2 Event 3 Event n
Transmitted through a discourse: the (re)presentation of the story, which is the result
of the act of narration/telling
Story structure, events and discourse structure
Story plot = Sequence of events on a timeline = Event structure
Event = a change of state, something happening, usually involving a character
Plot event = plot point = narrative turn | dramatically significant
Causality: “ a cause-and-effect chain of events”
Discourse structure – the order of narrated events
e.g., chronological, in medias res, flashbacks, flashforwards
Discourse structures can evoke certain emotions: surprise, curiosity and suspense
Story structure (plot)
Freytag’s dramatic arc (“pyramid”)
Other story structures:
Aristotle: beginning - middle – end
Three-Act structure
(Smed et al., 2.1.1.3)
Campbell’s hero’s journey (‘monomyth’)
(Smed et al., 2.1.4)
Labov & Waletzky’s story structure, including an Evaluation
(K&B, p.7)
o Orientation - Opening storyworld: who/what/where/when
o Complicating actions - Sequence of unfolding events, moving the story
forward
o Critical event - Tellable event, central in the story
o Resolution - Outcome of the story: how did it end?
o Evaluation - Comments on the significance and meaning of the events – the
take-home message
o Coda - Transition to the here and now
Tellability
, Newsworthiness / reportability / the “raison d’être” of the story
A tellable event is the critical event in the story structure (see previous slide).
The event that makes the story worth telling and worthy of the audience’s attention.
o Something extraordinary/remarkable/unexpected/wonderful.
Finding a tellable event starts when you create your story structure.
Examples of tellable events:
o being acquitted in court after having left your child in a car on a hot summer
day
o finding a medicine curing the medical condition you have been suffering from
for years
o being taken under the wing of a humanitarian organization while fleeing from
Syria under terrible circumstances
Evaluation(s)
Also part of Labov and Waletzky’s story structure
The narrator’s comments on the significance and meaning of the events
o Not an event itself
o Answering questions like “what does this all mean?” / “so what?”
Functions to make the point of the narrative clear, includes the take-home message.
Explicitly present in the narrative
Story structure: kernels vs. satellites
Events function as either kernel or satellite:
Kernel: obligatory event that guarantees the story’s coherence/logic | essential
content of the story | part of a story’s identity | initiates, increases, or concludes an
uncertainty, so it advances or outlines a sequence of transformations | plot points
Satellite: serves to embellish the basic plot | content that can be omitted without
changing the identity of the story | amplify or fill in the outline of a sequence by
maintaining, retarding, or prolonging the kernel events they accompany or surround |
pinch points
Increasing narrativity
Narrativity = an attribute of the text
“we define narrativity as the presence and interaction of a set of textual elements
that distinguish narrative texts from non-narrative texts and that constitute the
potential of a text to create a rich mental representation of the story and to generate
transportive experiences.
Narrativity is not a dichotomous characteristic – a text is not either narrative or non-
narrative –, but a continuous attribute that can be found in almost any text – but to a
varying degree”
Kinnebrock & Bilandzic, 2006, p. 5
, Narrativity factors (NFs)
Narrativity factor ≃ narrative elements
Both at story and discourse level
Narrativity factors related to the character
Character(s) experiencing the events
Transactiveness: character plays an active role in the events – makes the events
happen
Transitivity: character interacts with other characters – having conversations,
performing actions together, discussing possible solutions, etc.
Round vs. flat characters
Characters: a continuum from flat to round
A flat character has only one distinctive characteristic, exists only to exhibit that
characteristic, and is incapable of varying from that characteristic – a one-
dimensional.
A round character is multi-faceted. Psychologically more lifelike. Develops/changes.
Propp’s character theory
Hero (protagonist)
Helpers
Dispatcher
Donor
Villain (antagonist)
False hero
Princess
Voice
Who is the narrator? Who tells the story? Two types:
Intradiegetic narrator: narrator = character
1st or 2nd person perspective (“I’ or “you”)
Extradiegetic narrator: narrator ≠ character, above the story
3rd person perspective (“he/she/they”)
Focalization (Genette, 1980)
Through whose senses do we perceive the events? Two types of focalization:
Internal focalization: character and focalizator know the same - invasion into internal
world of the character (getting to know the character’s thoughts, feelings)
External focalization: character knows more than focalizator – demonstration of
character’s actions and external appearance – no insight into the thoughts and
feelings of the character
Narrator (voice) versus focalizator (“perceiver”)
Who tells the story? (”voice”)
Who sees/feels/smells/hears/thinks?
Storytelling
Lecture 1 – Defining Storytelling and Narratives
Historical context - Long and rich research tradition
Aristotle’s Poetica: tragedy versus comedy, narrative forms (epic/dramatic), dramatic
structure
Russian formalism: e.g., Vladimir Propp’s character roles |Viktor Šklovskij: fabula vs.
sujet vs. media/text
Narratology including French structuralism: discipline studying narrative principles
and narrative representations (e.g., Seymour Chatman’s kernels vs. satellites, Gérard
Genette’s focalization)
Definitions
Laypeople’s use of the word story
“Narrative refers to the unchangeable material presented to the interactor [ ...] a
solidified rock”
(Adams, 2013, adopted by Smed et al., 1.1.2)
“a story [...] means now all the events that the interactor can experience in the course
of playing the work”
(Adams, 2013, in Smed et al., p.7)
“Narrative [is] a forgiving, flexible cognitive frame for constructing, communicating,
and reconstructing mentally projected worlds”
(Herman, 2002 – optional source)
“A narrative is a representation of events or a sequence of events that is independent
of medium and form (audio, visual, symbolic, in real actions)”
(Kinnebrock & Bilandzic, 2006, citing Abbott, 2002, p.12 – also in Smed et al., 1.1.2)
the story is “the content plane of narrative as opposed to its expression plane or
discourse; the ‘what’ of a narrative as opposed to its ‘how’”
(Prince, 1987, in Smed et al., 1.1.2)
Narrative – our definition
Story
The “what” / content
Chronological sequence of events on a
timeline (plot, fabula, arc) | Kernels
and satellites – Characters | Character
roles
Narrative
Discourse
The “how” / expression
(Re)presentation of the story | Result
of the act of narration
Discourse structure (a.k.a. sujet) |
Focalization | Point of View (PoV) |
Voice
Note: Russian formalism distinguishes three layers: fabula, sujet, and media/text (Smed et
al., intro 2.1.3). Kinnebrock and Bilandzic (2006) distinguish three layers as well: story,
discourse and structure. We combine RF’s sujet and media/text and K&B’s discourse and
structure in our discourse layer.
,Defining narrative and storytelling
The term narrative includes both a story and its telling (discourse)
Defining a narrative
A narrative consists of a:
Story: A chronological event sequence
Event 1 Event 2 Event 3 Event n
Transmitted through a discourse: the (re)presentation of the story, which is the result
of the act of narration/telling
Story structure, events and discourse structure
Story plot = Sequence of events on a timeline = Event structure
Event = a change of state, something happening, usually involving a character
Plot event = plot point = narrative turn | dramatically significant
Causality: “ a cause-and-effect chain of events”
Discourse structure – the order of narrated events
e.g., chronological, in medias res, flashbacks, flashforwards
Discourse structures can evoke certain emotions: surprise, curiosity and suspense
Story structure (plot)
Freytag’s dramatic arc (“pyramid”)
Other story structures:
Aristotle: beginning - middle – end
Three-Act structure
(Smed et al., 2.1.1.3)
Campbell’s hero’s journey (‘monomyth’)
(Smed et al., 2.1.4)
Labov & Waletzky’s story structure, including an Evaluation
(K&B, p.7)
o Orientation - Opening storyworld: who/what/where/when
o Complicating actions - Sequence of unfolding events, moving the story
forward
o Critical event - Tellable event, central in the story
o Resolution - Outcome of the story: how did it end?
o Evaluation - Comments on the significance and meaning of the events – the
take-home message
o Coda - Transition to the here and now
Tellability
, Newsworthiness / reportability / the “raison d’être” of the story
A tellable event is the critical event in the story structure (see previous slide).
The event that makes the story worth telling and worthy of the audience’s attention.
o Something extraordinary/remarkable/unexpected/wonderful.
Finding a tellable event starts when you create your story structure.
Examples of tellable events:
o being acquitted in court after having left your child in a car on a hot summer
day
o finding a medicine curing the medical condition you have been suffering from
for years
o being taken under the wing of a humanitarian organization while fleeing from
Syria under terrible circumstances
Evaluation(s)
Also part of Labov and Waletzky’s story structure
The narrator’s comments on the significance and meaning of the events
o Not an event itself
o Answering questions like “what does this all mean?” / “so what?”
Functions to make the point of the narrative clear, includes the take-home message.
Explicitly present in the narrative
Story structure: kernels vs. satellites
Events function as either kernel or satellite:
Kernel: obligatory event that guarantees the story’s coherence/logic | essential
content of the story | part of a story’s identity | initiates, increases, or concludes an
uncertainty, so it advances or outlines a sequence of transformations | plot points
Satellite: serves to embellish the basic plot | content that can be omitted without
changing the identity of the story | amplify or fill in the outline of a sequence by
maintaining, retarding, or prolonging the kernel events they accompany or surround |
pinch points
Increasing narrativity
Narrativity = an attribute of the text
“we define narrativity as the presence and interaction of a set of textual elements
that distinguish narrative texts from non-narrative texts and that constitute the
potential of a text to create a rich mental representation of the story and to generate
transportive experiences.
Narrativity is not a dichotomous characteristic – a text is not either narrative or non-
narrative –, but a continuous attribute that can be found in almost any text – but to a
varying degree”
Kinnebrock & Bilandzic, 2006, p. 5
, Narrativity factors (NFs)
Narrativity factor ≃ narrative elements
Both at story and discourse level
Narrativity factors related to the character
Character(s) experiencing the events
Transactiveness: character plays an active role in the events – makes the events
happen
Transitivity: character interacts with other characters – having conversations,
performing actions together, discussing possible solutions, etc.
Round vs. flat characters
Characters: a continuum from flat to round
A flat character has only one distinctive characteristic, exists only to exhibit that
characteristic, and is incapable of varying from that characteristic – a one-
dimensional.
A round character is multi-faceted. Psychologically more lifelike. Develops/changes.
Propp’s character theory
Hero (protagonist)
Helpers
Dispatcher
Donor
Villain (antagonist)
False hero
Princess
Voice
Who is the narrator? Who tells the story? Two types:
Intradiegetic narrator: narrator = character
1st or 2nd person perspective (“I’ or “you”)
Extradiegetic narrator: narrator ≠ character, above the story
3rd person perspective (“he/she/they”)
Focalization (Genette, 1980)
Through whose senses do we perceive the events? Two types of focalization:
Internal focalization: character and focalizator know the same - invasion into internal
world of the character (getting to know the character’s thoughts, feelings)
External focalization: character knows more than focalizator – demonstration of
character’s actions and external appearance – no insight into the thoughts and
feelings of the character
Narrator (voice) versus focalizator (“perceiver”)
Who tells the story? (”voice”)
Who sees/feels/smells/hears/thinks?
