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Re-Tellings: The Fourth Layer of Narrative as an Instrument for Critique

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Interactive Storytelling (ICIDS 2018)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 11318))

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Abstract

The fourth layer of narrative in Interactive Narrative Systems (INS), such as games, is the players’ re-tellings of the stories they have experienced when playing. The occurrence of re-tellings can be considered as an indicator for a well designed INS and as an instrument of critique - the experiences of play are important and memorable to such a degree to the players that they find them worthy to tell others about. The notion of the fourth layer is added to the structural model of IN Systems having (1) a base architectural layer giving conditions for a (2) second layer of narrative design, while a (3) third layer is the narrative discourse - eg. the unique, session-specific played or traversed sequences of events. In relation to this, the Story Construction model is described.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The use of the terms story and narrative in this text conforms to Genette’s theoretical framework for narrative analysis. Genette’s definition of histoire, or in the English translation, story, reads as follows [15, p. 27]: ‘I propose [...] to use the word story for the signified or narrative content’. Slomith Rimmon-Kenan uses Genette’s definition in her book Narrative Fiction, but accentuates the chronological aspect of the concept: “Story’ designates the narrated events, abstracted from their disposition in the text and reconstructed in their chronological order, together with the participants in these events.’.

  2. 2.

    When Genette uses the word narrative he means ‘the signifier, statement, discourse or narrative text itself’ [15, p. 27]. The French word Genette uses for narrative is récit.

  3. 3.

    An example of an abstract entity that has an expressive and performative role could for example be weather, such as a storm god manifesting by changing the conditions in an environment.

  4. 4.

    As noted earlier this lens for seeing narrative is adapted towards the creation of interactive narratives rather than analyzing them.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Södertörn University, Alfred Nobels allé 7, 141 89, Huddinge, Sweden

    Mirjam Palosaari Eladhari

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  1. Mirjam Palosaari Eladhari
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Correspondence to Mirjam Palosaari Eladhari .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA

    Rebecca Rouse

  2. University of the Arts Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Hartmut Koenitz

  3. Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Mads Haahr

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Eladhari, M.P. (2018). Re-Tellings: The Fourth Layer of Narrative as an Instrument for Critique. In: Rouse, R., Koenitz, H., Haahr, M. (eds) Interactive Storytelling. ICIDS 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11318. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04028-4_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04028-4_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-04027-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-04028-4

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