Narrative Theory Series
Narrative Continuity vs Poetic Montage
Designing Games & Interactive Stories
Consider the following sequence of sentences (example ‘stolen’ from film scholar David Bordwell):
A man tosses and turns, unable to sleep. A mirror breaks. A telephone rings.
Now consider this sequence:
A man has a fight with his boss; he tosses and turns that night, unable to sleep. In the morning, he is still so angry that he smashes the mirror while shaving. Then the telephone rings; his boss has called to apologize.
There’s lots that can be said about the two different versions of the story above. Such as…
The second version:
provides more context
arranges the events into an ordered sequence
gives reasons for the things happening
places the events in the same space
has a beginning and an end
clearly gives us two different people
makes more sense of the events
While the first version:
is a collection of fragments
lacks connecting tissue that relates the events and objects
might be an experimental story (of the kind very few people might read or pay for, beyond English or Theatre majors)
Many narrative theorists argue that the most minimal definition of narrative is that it represents events, though many (like Bordwell) argue that those events need to be presented with causal linkages between them. One of the advantages of siding with a film theorist like Bordwell is that cinema can do reality testing on theories due to its unique media ontology. of having a physical relationship to reality, which words on a page do not.
A great ‘test’ of narrative theory is to compare montage to continuity editing. Montage can also convey a series of events, but very often with montage sequences, the events do not have narrative coherence. Bordwell’s first series of short sentences above is essentially a textual montage, composed of images juxtaposed against each other.
Bordwell’s conceptual experiment above at the start of this article is useful but somewhat artificial. Here are some haikus culled from the poetry archive (Ezra Pound and Jack Kerouac):
The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.
Or how about:
Birds singing
in the dark
— Rainy dawn.
What a brief poetic form such as haiku can convey rather concretely is that narrative effects can arise rather spontaneously or ‘naturally’ through juxtaposition alone. Text is a linear medium, and so something that comes second in a linear sequence feels as though it comes later though that doesn’t have to really be the case.
Another tension that haiku clearly highlights (again, because of its extreme minimalism as an artform) is that sometimes relatively static things or ‘entities’ (images of something) are presented where there is no clear action (e.g. faces, petals, dawn). Thus, many narrative theorists argue that narrative requires more than the representation of events, but also requires entities (the things undergoing those events). Usually those entities we call characters, but in poetry they can be any kind of object.
Film is an ideal place to explore this continuum between a logic of causation versus a logic of juxtaposition, since the same narrative film may employ both logics as part of its development. Juxtaposition logic, i.e. montage, is often found in certain specialized story moments, such as flashback sequences, compressing time, drug-induced hallucinations, dreams and nightmares, memories, title sequences, demon possession or alien abduction and so on.
A good montage opening title sequence, for example, prepares us for the ensuing narrative, by introducing characters, locales, moods, themes and serving as a kind of transitional space and time between everyday reality and the narrative universe. Title sequences in a sense let us ‘pre-dream’ the narrative world before it starts.
The Logic of Juxtaposition was famously explored by the early Soviet montage theorists through experiments like the Kuleshov Effect film, which involved studying the audience’s changes in interpretation that came about via juxtaposing an expressionless face in a sequence with images of food, a dead girl or woman lying on a couch, which produced emotions of hunger, sadness or lust, respectively.
Related Articles
Narrative in Analog & Digital Media
The Structure of Narrative Time
The Fourth Wall & Direct Address
Fact, Fiction & Narrative Contestation
Character Interactions and Narrative Progression
Agency in Interactive Narrative
Bibliography & Further Reading
- A Game Design Vocabulary: Exploring the Foundational Principles Behind Good Game Design by Anna Anthropy and Naomi Clark
- A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster
- Advanced Game Design: A Systems Approach by Michael Sellers
- An Introduction to Game Studies by Frans Mayra
- Basics of Game Design by Michael Moore
- Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made by Jason Schreier
- Board Game Design Advice: From the Best in the World vol 1 by Gabe Barrett
- Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design: an Encyclopedia Of Mechanisms by Geoffrey Engelstein and Isaac Shalev
- Character Development and Storytelling for Games by Lee Sheldon
- Chris Crawford on Game Design by Chris Crawford
- Clockwork Game Design by Keith Burgun
- Elements of Game Design by Robert Zubek
- Film Art by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson
- Fundamentals of Game Design by Ernest Adams
- Fundamentals of Puzzle and Casual Game Design by Ernest Adams
- Game Design Foundations by Brenda Romero
- Game Design Workshop by Tracy Fullerton
- Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans
- Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames edited by Chris Bateman
- Games, Design and Play: A detailed approach to iterative game design by Colleen Macklin and John Sharp
- Interactive Narratives and Transmedia Storytelling, by Kelly McErlean
- Introduction to Game Systems Design by Dax Gazaway
- Kobold Guide to Board Game Design by Mike Selinker, David Howell, et al
- Kobold’s Guide to Worldbuilding edited by Janna Silverstein
- Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design, 2nd Edition by Scott Rogers
- Narrating Space / Spatializing Narrative: Where Narrative Theory and Geography Meet by Marie-Laure Ryan, Kenneth Foote, et al.
- Narrative Theory: A Critical Introduction by Kent Puckett
- Narrative Theory: Core Concepts and Critical Debates by David Herman, James Phelan, et al.
- Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, Fourth Edition by Mieke Bal
- Practical Game Design by Adam Kramarzewski and Ennio De Nucci
- Procedural Storytelling in Game Design by Tanya X. Short and Tarn Adams
- Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing by Wendy Despain
- Rules of Play by Salen and Zimmerman
- Storyworlds Across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology (Frontiers of Narrative) by Marie-Laure Ryan, Jan-Noël Thon, et al
- Tabletop Game Design for Video Game Designers by Ethan Ham
- The Art of Game Design, 3rd Edition by Jesse Schell
- The Board Game Designer’s Guide: The Easy 4 Step Process to Create Amazing Games That People Can’t Stop Playing by Joe Slack
- The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative by H. Porter Abbott
- The Grasshopper, by Bernard Suits
- The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media, by by Marie-Laure Ryan, Lori Emerson and Benjamin J. Robertson
- The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies by Bernard Perron and Mark J.P. Wolf
- The Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory by David Herman
- The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design by Flint Dille & John Zuur Platten
- Unboxed: Board Game Experience and Design by Gordon Calleja
- Video Game Storytelling: What Every Developer Needs to Know about Narrative Techniques by Evan Skolnick
- Writing for Video Game Genres: From FPS to RPG edited by Wendy Despain
- Writing for Video Games by Steve Ince
- 100 Principles of Game Design by DESPAIN
