I do not believe that videogames are stories. Then again, I don’t believe that songs, books, art, photographs or movies are stories either. The process by which stories are transmitted (meaning: storytelling) is a complicated and comprised of many elements–some in the control of the author, some in the control of the audience. Because of this, a videogame, book or movie is no more a story than Magritte’s painting of a pipe is a pipe. So, given my emphasis on storytelling and games, how do I refer to videogames, sculpture and photographs then?
Well, the central element without which storytelling cannot take place is the Narrative. Videogames are narratives. As are songs, books, art, photographs and movies. So if it encompasses all that media, what is a narrative exactly? At it’s most condensed (and therefore most abstract), my definition of narrative is as follows:
narrative (năr’ə-tĭv) (n): the intentional context of any media
That’s nearly as useless as the dictionary definitions for narrative which run the gambit from, “storylike, chronological,” to the Oxford University Press’s Literary Dictionary’s very traditional, “a telling of some true or fictitious event or connected sequence of events, recounted by a narrator to a narratee (although there may be more than one of each).” In order to understand my definition better, we need to break it down into its components. We’ll start with the most familiar.
Textual Components: This component is quite simply–text. Textual components are what most people mean when they say “story” or “narrative” in relation to videogames and other media. Categorizing ‘text’ as an component of the narrative, rather than the lone conveyor of ’story’ is one of the biggest conceptual hurdles for many people to get over. Planescape: Torment is often considered a great story game because it contains a lot of compellingly written textual components. I consider oral narration to be primarily a textual components, although it also contains components I’ll cover in a moment.
Musical Components: A sequence of notes arranged to produce a particular experience. You’ve probably heard Peter and the Wolf at some point in your life, even if you don’t own the CD version with David Bowie’s oral/textual narration. PatW is a classical piece of music which relates the tale of a brave lad and several animals he protects from the BBW. It’s the most obvious example which leaps to mind, although a vast majority of music is communicating something even when unaccompanied by the oral/textual component via lyrics.
Auditory Components Any non-musical sound. A perfect example of great use of auditory components in a narrative is Spielberg’s use a cannon roar for the firing of Indiana Jone’s revolver (the whole movie has great sound design). My reference to oral/textual narrative components incorporates the auditory component. The sound of an actor’s voice is certainly something to be seriously considered when crafting a narrative.
Visual Components It’s probably an injustice to condense the whole sphere of visual components into a single definition, but in the interest of space I’ll do just that for the moment. This ranges from staging to framing, to use of color and light, to movement and facial expression.
Ludic Components Quite simply put, this refers to gameplay. Ludic components are the underlying rules which govern any interactive or participatory media. There are many narrative which contain ludic components, not just games and videogames. These non-game ludic components would effect narratives as diverse as a hands-on exhibit at a science museum to Comedy Sports style improvisational comedy such as Who’s Line is it Anyway? to Choose Your Own Adventure books.
Presentational Components Marshall McLuhan famously coined the phrase, “The medium is the message.” This concept lies at the heart of my approach to defining narrative and because it’s probably the most divergent portion of my narrative components, I’m covering it last. The very medium upon which you present your narrative is probably the most impactful component. Going to the theatre (ranging from Broadway to a community theater), reading a book (ranging from a cheaply printed mass market paperback, to a more expensive trade paperback, to a hardcover or leather bound antique), watching a television (ranging from a seasonal show, to a mini-series, special event, or DVD etc), going to the movies (ranging from stadium seating to folding chairs in a civic center, digital projection to reel to reel, full surround sound to stereo, IMAX to smoke stained flat screen) and playing a game (ranging from your desktop or laptop (installed from a CD/DVD or download, or online), or a console (dual analog or Wiimote or touch screen), alone or against an opponent or with a team) all provide very different experiences to your audience.
Even individual experiences with a single medium can vary dramatically. Will the theater audience be tuned in and reactive, or distracted and bored? Will the book be read on the subway or on a favorite couch? Will the DS game be played with headphones, or the volume turned down? Will the 360 game be played on an HD flat screen television or on standard format CRT? Will the album be listened to in the car or on expensive stereo equipment? Regardless, the media a narrative is presented on has an enormous impact on the experience of that narrative. However, for the purposes of my definition–cranky audience, family members bugging you to do the chores, failing hardware, and failure of the audience to understand the media are not actually part of the Narrative. If you recall my definition of narrative:
narrative (năr’ə-tĭv) (n): the intentional context of any media
…you will note that it refers to the intentional context. Ideally, the audience will fit the narrative the author wished to present, their environment will be conducive to the experience, etc. So the narrative component, for the purpose of my storytelling model refers to the Ideal Narrative which, as I go on to define other elements in future posts, we’ll see is not often achieved.
The Narrative is the foundation of the storytelling experience. It is built by the author and experienced by the audience. Future posts in this feature will cover the other elements which govern/influence both author and audience. You can bet that the components listed here will be mentioned frequently on MBB as I begin to analyze videogames and other narrative media.