Interactive Narrative, Plot Types, and Interpersonal Relations Response

Interactive narratives begin with the choice of a type of a story for which there are three types: the epic plot, epistemic plot, and the dramatic plot.  Interactive narratives deal with the "player" interacting with the story in a manner to control the outcome or determine certain obstacles during the duration of the story.  All aspects of the user's actions in an interactive narrative should progress the plot.  The objective of an interactive narrative is to make the interactive movements the rule or focus and the passive movements (the long periods of passive watching) the exceptions.

The epic plot focuses on the exploits of a solitary hero and the physical actions of the story.  No evolution of personal relations is evident in this type of story.  The epic plot has long been a favorite of game designers; and the technology of 3D graphic engines has made it possible to eficiently simulate movement as an embodied experience, creating spatial immersion.

Dramatic narratives focus on evolving the networks of human relations.  The action of the plot is mental rather than physical, dealing with acts of verbal communication and emotional narrative immersion.  Dramatic narratives present a closed pattern of exposition, complication, and resolution (the Freytag Triangle).  The dramatic plot is the most difficult of the three story types to make interactive because it deals with the evolution of interpersonal relations along with he goals of the character at the same time, in which they must be constantly redefined.

 In the nineteenth century a third kind of narrative arose.  Epistemic narratives, driven by the desire to know, were featured primarily in mystery stories.  This type of story runs second to the epic plot in interactive compatibility.  It usually casts the player in the role of detective, combining the events being investigated with a variable story created by the actions of the player.  Temporal immersion is created through epistemic narratives, which constists of three parts: curiosity and surprise (which dominate the mystery aspect of the story) and finally supense which controls the thriller stories.  In an epistemic plot the player remains focused on the mystery until he finds the solution.