#29 The Drive of Narration

 This post is concerned with the potential of narrations to be captivating, such that you can't wait to see what's next.

Narration Drive

What do I mean by narration drive? Well, the drive (or drives) of a narration is that which makes the audience want to follow that particular telling of a narrative. This might be rooted in they way of telling (so this part is about storytelling) or in the content that is told (what the narrative is about). Below you find a previously seen graphic illustrating some of the terminological differences:

But now, what makes a telling or a narrative driving?

In my understanding, much of this has to do with what I call the experience cycle of human being. What you find below is a simplified synthesis of several game studies papers, twitch/youtube videos of story creators, blog posts and own thoughts.

Input / Trigger

As a narrative is told, steadily, bits of input (signs, movements) are given to the audience (the player). Upon perceiving them, they are interpreted on possibly several layers (see post #9) and now serve as a trigger to go on in the experience cycle.

Guidelines:

• make the incoming flow interesting: pacing, contrasting meaningful things
  
• every time a situation/conflict/arc is solved, open up another
• funnel the audience from unit to unit
  

Addenda:

• characters/agents are important because they can function as causes - film art  
• build "characters with spines", give them a highest drive - andrew stanton
  

Learning, Knowledge

The informations is classified and integrated - learned - into existent mental models. It may well be the basis for a new complex of knowledge, such that e.g. the story "The Lord of the Rings" is demarked separately and can be recalled as one unit. Humans are able to imagine alternatives to what they already know - that way Tolkien was able to think of a fictional world in the first place. The in my view biggest propellers of curiosity and involvement are related to knowledge and summarized in the following

Guidelines:

• obvious gaps of knowledge, things the audience wishes to know
• informations that are meaningful to the storyworld, e.g. challenging a character's beliefs
• carefully think about where the audience directs its attention: here the story should be told
  

 Quotes:

• "A spectator comes prepared to make sense of a narrative film." - film art 
  
• "it's this well-organized absence of information that draws us in" - andrew stanton
• construct holes, missing spots, that are implicitly promised to be resolved
• exploration is a rather un-guided form of resolving gaps

Motivations and Goals

This is the part that is at the heart of this post. Conceptually, here the drive, the acceleration of the wheel, the aquisition of energy for action is happening.
From the perspective of this section the others provide material for being driven and created special kinds of drives: flow continuation, meaningfulness, curiosity/wanting to understand. But abstracting those motivations, we can see that all of them are grounded by a common principle: Identifying a (imaginary or past) state of affairs, valueing it high - desiring it.
The last ingredient is uncertainty. If we'd know for sure and in which way a desire will be fulfilled, the it becomes pretty boring. But having an unknown variable, some gap to fill, makes it much more interesting, motivating.

Guidelines:

• engage the audience, provide material to stimulate the audience's imagination
• make the audience care about/value the story contents and/or the story progression
  

 Quotes:

• "the audience wants to work on understanding the story but it doesn't want to know that" - andrew stanton
• desires can be "seen as propositional attitudes towards conceivable states of affairs" - Wikipedia
  
• create "doubt in the outcome" - andrew stanton
• "we feel driven to know how the action develops, how the characters react and how it all comes out at the end" - film art
• "Drama is anticipation mingled with uncertaity" -- william archer, via andrew stanton

-- ~ * ~ --

So, this shall be it for now. I know, I know, the part on agency is missing. It is missing because it is worth an article on its own, especially in the context of video games. For now we'll have to content ourselves with this overview, which by the way fits to many media, I think. In general - a lot of my thoughts actually stem from philosophical, psychological (among others) ways of thought, simply applied to video games.

Further Reading / Inspiration

• Andrew Stenton: The clues to a great story Link. I'd advise everyone interested in storytelling to watch this TEDtalk

• Bordwell, Thompson, Smith: Film Art, Chapter 3: Narrative Form. Even though concerned with the film medium, Film Art continues to deliver excellent material for my posts on narration.
  

• Wikipedia: Desire. Link. I should probably write an article of praise about Wikipedia some time. Even though it has its problems.
  

• Alexandra To et al. Modeling and Designing for Key Elements of Curiosity: Risking Failure, Valuing Questions. Link. Inspired the first version of the wheel of experience.
  

• Katarina Gyllenbäck. Narrative Construction. Link. Another major inspiration for terms and ideas used in the wheel of experience.
  

• Daniel Hessler. Game Design. Introductory course at the University of Bayreuth. Probably the main source of concepts and synthesizations for the wheel.
  

And many more... (this multitude of sources is the case for many posts, but I wanted to highlight it here specifically, since developing these thoughts really was a convoluted process).

A Skyrim Quest - Of Sheep and Flowers

I'll practically explore the concept of narrative drive in today's quest. Which is about magic sheep in a cave's glade, or at least that is the initial idea I've had.

Phase 1. Upon asking an innkeep about news, they tell the player of a monk in the tavern, who apparently has some problem with his tenple.

New sidequest: "Of Sheep and Flowers"
New objective: "Talk to the monk"

Phase 2. The monk sits in the tavern, devastated and muttering to himself. Upon talking to him, he first seems to have little hope, when he starts telling you: He is no monk but a keeper. There is a religious cave (not temple!) nearby which has been corrupted by a force he couldn't identify.

Decision: 1) "Speak on." 2) "I've heard enough of this religious nonsense"

When option 2) is chosen the keeper is offended and ends the dialogue. The player can retry infinitely often.

When option 1) is chosen, the keeper's spirits rise (he apparently hadn't someone encouraging him that often). He tells the player he himself would defeat the corruption but he isn't allowed to fight in religious places. However he will accompany the player through the cave. He asks whether the player accepts the quest.

Decision: 1) "Well, let's do this." 2) "This is too strange a job even for me"

When option 2) is chosen the dialogue ends. The player can retry infinitely often.

Otherwise, the keeper says he'll wait at the cave entrance and the dialogue ends.

Replace objective: "Meet the keeper at the cave entrance"

Phase 3. At the cave entrance a wall painting of flowers can be seen, next to it the keeper is standing. The location's name is "Cave of Flowers". Upon speaking to the keeper, he uneasily tells the player to not wonder about certain "oddities" they might see inside. The keeper becomes follower of the player.

Replace objective: "Investigate how to cleanse the cave"

Phase 4. Entering the cave, a lot of flowers and beautiful lightings coming from shafts in the stone can be seen. There are several shrines and places with benches arranged in circles. Closer investigation reveals draugr graves in the walls.

In one of those locations, a sheep is standing amidst a lot of flowers. It doesn't walk, doesn't eat and doesn't look around. The keeper tries to explain that this is one manifestation of the corruption: Flowers having been turned into sheep. Sounding devastated again, he speaks that the flowers don't know how to sustain themselves in a sheepish body and'll therefore die soon if the corruption is not eliminated.

Phase 5. Draugr actively start emerging from their graves and the lighing becomes darker, the number of sheep rises. The keeper says the draugr are part of the corruption aswell.

Phase 6. The pair reaches the innermost glade, being a new section called "Glade of Flowers", with the highest number of sheep. In it, a group of Talos-priests and common fighters is practicing some ritual. The group calls the keeper heretic, betrayer and start attacking. The keeper won't fight.

Replace objective: "Kill the Talos worshippers"

Phase 7. The group has been defeated. The sheep haven't turned back to flowers though. Discussing the events, the player-avatar is confronted with a

Decision: 1) "Kill the ship, before they die of hunger" 2) "Let's search the attackers"

If the player searches the leader, he'll find a notice detailing the groups hideout. Talking with the notice in his inventory to the keeper, will lead to him deciding to attack that hideout.

Replace objective: "Purge the Talos-hideout"

Phase 8. Keeper and player walk to the nearby hideout and fight through it. The end boss is a higher Talos priest, who carries a spell book with him. The spell transforms flowers into sheep and back. The keeper takes the book. He thanks the player for helping him and tells him to come back to the cave in a few days.

Replace objective: "Visit the keeper in a few days"

Phase 9. The player meets the keeper in the now sheep-free cave. He receives thankful words, gold and the spellbook from the keeper.

Quest end.

Ideas for Feedback

• What thoughts/tips come to your mind concerning the topic and design of "narrative drive"?
  

• Do you think the amount of to-be-crafted assets (locations, characters, models, mechanics, ..) for this quest is appropriate?
  

Conclusion

I don't think I have written a longer post yet - considering both text length and writing time. Also, I feel that there is still some polish and improvement of theory possible. But oh well, it is in the nature of such things to be quite difficult to grasp as worded concepts. Maybe future me will have a clearer view on this.

Until then, have a good time!