Episode 02: Narrative Structures & a working definition of Story

Before we can even begin to discuss simulation interactive narratives we require a way to discuss story. The chart below is a mashup of popular western story structures in one graph. Namely Frank Dainel’s 8 sequence structure taught at USC, Syd Field and the Blake Synder’s Save the Cat work. Download it here.

I share it here in hopes to define a common language and framework to discuss story. This chart has proven immensely helpful for me in my writing and development work. I post it here to provide a working definition of story such that everyone will know what it means and also how to adapt it to their own work and methodology. This is prerequisite information.

ACTS

Act were first written about in 350 BC in Aristotles ‘The Poetics”. In this work he mentions a basic definition of stories having a beginning, middle and end

“A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be. An end, on the contrary, is that which itself naturally follows some other thing, either by necessity, or as a rule, but has nothing following it. A middle is that which follows something as some other thing follows it. A well constructed plot, therefore, must neither begin nor end at haphazard, but conform to these principles. (Poetics VII)”

This is the first known reference to a story having three acts. It’s here for completeness but this knowledge is so common it’s not all that helpful today.

Sequences

This is where things get more interesting. Sequences are smaller parts which make up the acts. Sequences come from the early days of cinema where the technical limitation of projectors forced a reel change every 10 min or so.

As a result, storytellers broke up their stories in order to allow for graceful breaks between reels.

See diagram above for an example of story elements per sequence.