It is probably true to say that the least theorized aspect of narrative is Storyworld. Aristotle’s Poetics focused on Time (beginning, middle, end), Character (consistency of traits) and Action (the primary dramatic representation). In the ~2500 years since the Poetics, these are still dominant themes in narrative understanding, research and commentary, to which the 20th century added important new areas of exploration, such as cultural codes (e.g. semiotics, post-colonialism), audience reception and identity (e.g. feminism, queer studies).
Perhaps the reason that Storyworld has been so under-theorized is that it is literally the background — the settings, spaces, objects — amongst which characters enact their conflicts in their dramatic arcs or episodic moments. The storyworld is often ‘just’ the background, and these other elements are foregrounded in our attention. So, to think about Storyworld is literally to bring the background into the foreground of our focus and consideration. Also, it is far more important than that ‘just’ might imply.
To add some empirical evidence to the claim that Storyworld is vastly under-theorized compared to almost any other aspect of narrative, let’s look at the article frequency search results in the JSTOR academic database under some key terms:
Action: ~2,300,000
Character: ~1,800,000
Story: ~1,500,000
Narrative: ~782,000
Virtual Worlds: ~141,000
Feminism: ~121,000
Postcolonialism: ~68,000
Semiotics: ~37,000
Story World: 1232
Storyworld: 385
This gives a sense as to the relative interest in storyworld in a major arts and humanities academic database compared to other items often associated with narrative in general, and interactive narrative in particular (note, for example, that the comparison term ‘virtual worlds’ returns more hits than ‘feminism’! That’s a bit of a shocker). So while this is not the most sophisticated or rigorous method for measuring researcher interest in Storyworlds, it does paint in broad strokes rather accurately the relative uncovered terrain of Storyworld in narrative and media theories generally.
So while much content in the preceding online lectures have focused on temporal aspects of narrative — the sequencing of events (linear or multi-linear), Three Act structure, peaks and valleys of emotional tension, decision trees — or character conflicts that drive narrative progression — with Storyworld we have to set our sights firmly on the background and surrounds of narrative actions and events. All events happen somewhere, and space is rich in symbolic meanings, structures principles and details of narrative organization, and as most media are spatial in some way, connects to perceptual and material dimensions of mediated content.
Thus space is also not only represented in the narrative (e.g. a house, a spaceship, a cockpit, a barn, a restaurant, a police station), but the narrative media also has its own spatial configuration: a living room with a coffee table full of game controllers, a dark theater with recliner seats, a dining table with role playing gamers sitting around it, a mobile device accessed on a subway platform, a VR arcade, or just a comfy chair to sit in for reading a novel or comic book. This ‘media space for narrative’ is not the Storyworld per se, though it can be activated by a narrative (e.g. through Direct Address) or simply presumed to be their for the narrative to unfold in the first place.
Storyworld can refer to the specific Locations, Positions, Arrangements, Directions, Orientations and Movements of Environments in which Characters Live & Act. Storyworlds can be composed of the transitory spaces that surround characters at particular moments, or may be made up of multiple worlds that constitute a whole narrative universe. Also, sometimes the real-world situations of audiences can come into consideration, e.g. viewing distance of film goers, virtual reality head gear, controllers and UI interfaces, etc.
Space and Objects
It’s useful to distinguish between space and objects as primary vehicles for conveying Storyworld information. Without objects, Storyworlds would just be empty containers, which would make narrative settings fairly abstract entities. Similarly, a world of objects without their spatial surrounds also makes no sense. Let’s look at an interesting clip that speaks much about Storyworld through its presentation of Space and Objects in a key scene — the moment in Snowden when Edward Snowden smuggles out of high security IT space the government data that has sparked so much public controversy (click on image to view.
The space is structured along a general division or contrast which we could define as High Security Space vs. Free Public Space. The threshold of transition between these two narrative zones is the security checkpoint. In Storyworlds, objects make up ‘inventories’ while spaces are defined as specific locations.
There is what we might call a ‘triple object’ which is the goal of traversing from one space to the other:
Object 1: the ‘data’
Object 2: the USB thumb drive with the data
Object 3: the Rubik’s Cube hiding the USB drive with the data
This is a rather rich object! But narratives are full of rich objects. To give another example of an important narrative object: light sabers (of Star Wars fame). For most people familiar with Star Wars films, the light saber is a simple object.
Ah, but if you are a Star Wars fan, your understanding of light sabers is more complex or nuanced — as a die hard fan, you know that light sabers contain inside them Kyber crystals or even Kunda stones which are their power sources, and which exist in a variety of (fictional, of course) geologic variations so as to impart different colors and even Jedi powers to their wielder. The more encompassing Star Wars Storyworld makes these ‘simple’ objects far more complex, the more you know about it (or, the more you Google it!).
Thus, a storyworld is not just the setting for narrative acts, but the narrative generally reveals more details about the storyworld, assuming it is developed enough (have you ever noticed how much more complex storyworlds become, the more seasons a show is on air? or, um, is streamable?, since most of what we watch these days in not technically ‘aired’ on radio waves as in the ‘old days’ of television). Narrative guides our understanding of the storyworld even as the storyworld enables our perception of the narrative.
Storyworld primarily enable key plot aspects — deserts are great for meth labs or burying bodies (in Breaking Bad), swamp planets are great for Jedi training (in Return of the Jedi), the mall is a great place for being a teenager and attacking trans-dimensional aliens (in Stranger Things), highways are great for female bonding road trips (in Thelma and Louise) etc.
And of course, today we have new narrative formats that have emerged from East Asia (Tokyo, Seoul and China), such as VR Arcades and Escape Rooms, where narratives are experienced and played collectively in novel physical form factors created especially for exploring the narrative.
Space and Scale
Space itself, of course, is also scalar or has scale dimensions that impact narrative. Star Wars films always occur in ‘the Galaxy’ for example — note that our galaxy has a name, The Milky Way. Quiz time: what’s the name of the galaxy in Star Wars? I mean, it’s always just referred to as ‘the Galaxy.’
So there is scale in the Storyworld — a planet has its galaxy as a city might have its country or any hamlet has its Middle Earth. But actual geographical scale might easily come into play in today’s digital narratives, since an augmented reality app like Pokemon Go! makes use of GPS data and satellite networks to integrate actual physical space and networked information systems into your personal narrative experience.
Storyworld & Dimensionality
Some theorists have parsed out ‘dimensions’ of Storyworld based on how particular media might articulate it:
0D: purely temporal, e.g. radio plays & audio books
1D: moving lines of text e.g. news banner or ticker-style text
2D: printed page and image
2D + Time: film and games
3D: e.g. signs and markers at historical sites
4D: live performance
“What distinguishes the cultural genre of computer games from other such as novels and movies, in addition to its obvious cybernetic differences, is it preoccupation with space.”
“As spatial practice, computer games are both representations of space (a formal system of relations) and representational spaces (symbolic imagery with primarily aesthetic purpose).”
– Espen Arseth, Allegories of Space
Levels of Narrative Space
When designing or analyzing space in narratives, we can distinguish between:
1)Spatial Frames: The immediate surroundings of the characters, e.g. salon, bedroom, hierarchically organized by relations of containment, with boundaries either clear-cut or fuzzy. These are constantly varying.
2)Setting: A relatively stable socio-cultural-historical context.
3)Story Space: The space relative to the plot, as mapped by characters’ actions and thoughts. This includes all spatial frames plus locations mentioned but not occurring in the story.
4)Storyworld: the story space completed by the audience’s imagination.
5)Narrative Universe: This element adds in all counterfactual worlds, e.g. characters’ beliefs, wishes, fears, speculations, hypothetical thinking, dreams, fantasies…
Above, “storyworld” is used as a term in just one level out of five possible narrative space configurations, since theorists are typically far from unanimous in their use of key terms.
Story Maps
Maplike experiences and media are often part of narratives, either explicitly or implicitly. Very complex narratives composed of multiple and intersection storylines typically differentiate their plot lines, e.g. by unfolding the action across vast distances through characters spread out across many locations.
The philosophers Deleuze and Guattari distinguished between what they called Smooth and Striated Space. In essence, they envisioned some spatial constructions as being subdivided or carved up into discrete zones, while other spaces are more smooth and continuous.
Tours and Maps
Linde and Labove distinguished between Tours and Maps. A Tour provides more of a first-person perspective on a narrative space as we traverse through it and build it up out of the features it presents over time, whereas a Map gives us an all-at-once grasp of narrative space typically from a more omniscient or birds-eye perspective surveying the whole scene.
Cognitive Maps
Think about the route you take to go to the store, the gym, school or work. Now, think of a story you know well, and imagine yourself traveling from one part of the storyworld to the other. Chances are high that in the latter scenario, there are far more gaps than in the first! However, in both case you are making use of your own mental or cognitive map, either of real or narrative spaces.
Cognitive maps are how lost dogs can find their way back home, how we get where we’re going (when not using the GPS!), and how audiences make sense of story spaces. Cognitive Maps were first theorized in 1948 in the context of rat experiments which tried to get at how these poor lab animals made their way around their proverbial mazes.
Cognitive Maps serve five important functions:
1)They make it possible to give directions to strangers.
2) They enable rehearsal of spatial behavior (e.g. as with a rider who mentally goes through an obstacle course before a jumping competition).
3) They are used as mnemonic devices (e.g. the loci technique of memorization).
4) They structure and store knowledge
5) They can function as a “Fields of Dreams” to the imagination (e.g. we all have our own fantasy image of what Bora Bora might be like, if we’ve never been there).
Cogntive Maps are inherently sketchy, which might explain why maps of Middle Earth in Tolkein books look so sketchy!
They “are necessarily incomplete and schematized; they can never achieve exact correspondence with the territory they represent”
– Bjornson, 1981: 53
Mapping Strategies
Strategies for conveying map-like storyworld to audiences can include:
- Abstract: using formal geographical or directional elements, geometry, actual maps, symbols.
- Iconic: making use of pictures, resemblances, symbols.
- Mapping character movements through space.
- Mapping key plot points and story beats.
Intradiegetic and Extradiegetic Maps
Recall that the diegesis refers to everything that is part of or within the narrative itself. Thus, a map that is intradiegetic is part of the storyworld, whereas an extradiegetic mapping is part of the audience’s narrative experience and the space in which they engage the narrative. Some stories feature maps as part of the plot (e.g. the role of a treasure map) or mise-en-scène.
But we are also familiar with maps that are created for readers, viewers or fans as part of furthering their enthusiasm or general interest in the storyworld of narratives they enjoy. Sometimes extradiegetic maps are placed in the opening pages of books, before the narrative begins, but at the same time such maps are integral to the book as a print medium and thus important to a reader’s experience of the story’s universe. Games often use maps as part of the UI (user interface) and thus these explicit maps that are key to spatial navigation in the virtual world are defined as intradiegetic.
Multimodal novels — i.e., ‘books’ that are rich in media beyond just text — often include maps as one type of visual element. Such hybrid narrative media present plenty of design opportunities to blur the lines between what might be considered intra- or extra-diegetic, since the play of media forms is also part of the narrative construction.
Strategic Space vs. Mimetic/Emotional Space
Interactive storyworlds often have aspects that vary across what some authors have called Emotional versus Strategic design considerations, while others may use the term Mimetic instead of Emotional (there is always variation in theoretic concepts, since most authors don’t 100% agree with each other).
The concept here is that Mimetic or Emotional spatial design presents places that we can identify with either on an emotional level (e.g. scary mansion, nostalgic wood cottage, exciting discotheque) — and these spaces are mimetic, because they represent places that can identify from either our real or narrative-based experiences — whereas other spatial design has more to do with winning or losing, or surviving, or finding a way out, or discovering the loot, with this latter set of qualities defined as being Strategic considerations rather than emotional or representational in nature.
Detective stories can be particularly interesting in the mixing together of strategic and emotional spaces, since usually there is a romantic interest plot intertwined with mapping out all of the crime scenes, clues and whereabouts of key characters. Detectives usually must seduce (or be seduced) while also solving the driving narrative puzzle, and thus combine intimate and workplace spatial constructs.
Spatial Strategies
Theorists have developed some concepts relating to the traversal of space in tandem with plot development:
Point Narratives: telling a story from a single point in space.
Sequential Narratives: linear arrangements of narrative content along trails or paths.
Areal Narratives: Extend over large areas and involving long periods of time.
Hybridizations of the Above.
Perspectival vs. Aperspectival: some narratives support illusion, immersion and naturalistic representations, whereas others actively seek to undermine any kind of spatial continuum (this is one of the defining distinctions between montage and continuity styles of editing and shooting).
Parallel Storyworlds: sometimes narratives unfold in multiple spaces simultaneously, and either ‘switches tracks’ (for example, cutting between the two storylines) or even running them both simultaneously as in the example below, where there is a ‘real world’ conversation on the phone running in parallel and simultaneously with a fantasy doodling universe.
Fixed vs. Moving Point of View: if you watch a lot of independent or low budget foreign films, you may have noticed that one way directors keep the costs down is to fix the camera on a tripod, and unfold the action in front of it almost in the same way you would arrange actors on a stage. POV, whether stable or moving, is a key aspect of defining spaces in storyworlds.
Thematic Contrasts
Storyworlds often embody strong contraries where some kind of antithesis is played out in the spatial design. We often structure key aspects of social reality, in both real and fictional worlds, along opposites such as:
Left / Right (right way, wrong way)
High / Low (gods vs. human, rich vs. poor)
Near / Far (comfortable, dangerous)
Open / Closed (living vs. dead)
Movement / Immobility
Freedom / Slavery (e.g. humans vs. animals)
Boundaries, Zones, Rules — the hero usually crosses boundaries, and space is defined as Within or Beyond the limits.
Association Switches
However, sometimes the meanings of these thematic opposites are reversible. For example, if we take the contrast Inside/Outside, we can see that these might mean opposite things in the design of story spaces:
Inside = Protection
Outside = DangerInside = Confinement
Outside = FreedomInside = Personal
Outside = Social
In this Metallica music video, note all the thematic roles that being Inside or Outside relate to in the psychology of the protagonist and his storyworld:
Space and Thematic Associations
Almost any kind of place in a storyworld will have certain ‘archetypal’ associations:
Castle = Power
Mountaintops = Communication with divinity
Open areas = Danger
Closed Areas = Security
Colonized vs. Uncolonized (oppressors vs. rebels)
Urban vs. Rural (see above!)
Real vs. Fantasy World (in the mind, or another dimension)
There are No Empty Spaces in Cyberspace
Online, there are no derelict spaces — there are only sites and connections. In the real world, there are all kinds of spaces which are uninhabited, overgrown, gone derelict, abandoned, etc. The internet, however, has no ‘blank zones’ as it is definable as a kind of space in which there is no dead or absent space (except for maybe unused storage space on server hard drives).
Rule-Based Spaces
Some spaces are defined explicitly as a set of rules — the space is the rule set, in other words. These rules define, imply and enforce strict conditions, behaviors, boundaries, goals, motivations, character dynamics (e.g. team vs. team). Any sporting field or court is a good example of rule-based space, which of course connects such spaces to the gamified storyworlds of interactive narratives.
Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens is a popular source for theorists of rule spaces.
Huizinga’s magic circle
In the fields of gaming concepts and game design there’s a very important author for reference: I’m talking about Johan Huizinga and in this post I want to discuss a very important concept: the idea of the “magic circle”.
Johan Huizinga (1872–1945) was a Dutch historian and one of the founders of modern cultural history. In his book “Homo Ludens” (1938) he discusses the possibility that playing is the primary formative element in human culture.
In this book, the author presents the idea of the “magic circle”. As described by Adams and Rollings (2009, page 8), Huizinga did not use the term as a generic name for the concept: his text refers to the actual playground, or a physical space for playing.
Inside the magic circle, real-world events have special meanings, as in the example below (ADAMS & ROLLINGS, 2009, page 8):
These ideas are essential to study and understand the gaming universe around the players and the impacts of the game culture in the mediatic scene and how important it can be for the contemporary world. (source)
There is typically a lot that is not reconciled between such rules and the fictions that are supported by them. For example, if I asked you how long a light saber’s battery supply can last, you won’t know, because they always just turn on when you need them to. In comics, Spider Man often talks to people through thick glass windows who could not possibly actually hear his jokes. Rules and Fiction each have their own domains which are not fully covered by each other.
Franchises = Instant Storyworld Immersion!
An interesting aspect of narrative franchises is that with each new installment, the storyworld is already in place from the previous offerings, and so creators can presume much in terms of pre-existing narrative context, and perhaps use the narrative as an opportunity to deepen the storyworld.
Franchises = Transmedia!
Narrative franchises also construct narrative simultaneously across many different media, so that a comic is a toy is a movie is a game etc. The storyworld is designed for each medium in such a way that it both respects and capitalizes on the unique affordances of each medium, while also presenting forms of aesthetic continuity across formats.
Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally, each medium makes its own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story.
– Henry Jenkins, “Transmedia 202”
With narrative storyworlds designed across a transmedia terrain of such diverse affordances and experiential qualities, one needs to distinguish between Medium Free vs. Medium Specific narrative elements.
Medium Free Elements would include characters, events, settings, time, space and causality (e.g. magic, real physics, super powers, science, alien science) which are consistent across different media.
Interactivity is Not Medium Free but is Transmedial: video games, improv theater, hypertext fiction, role-playing games, oral stories etc. have specific affordances or ways of providing types of interactive behaviors.
Medium Specific Elements would include aspects such as the gutter (for print), frames (photography, video, film), panels (comics), shot and cut (film/video), UI (games, webtoons) and so on.
Fictionality
According to Zipfel, fictionality (what we consider to be a fiction versus a ‘real’ narrative) is defined in relation to certain criteria, all of which have repercussions for storyworld design.
1) A World Criterion: to pass as fictional, the storyworld has to have invented elements.
2) A Cognitive Criterion: audiences must engage in forms of make-believe.
3) An Institutional Criterion: cultural practices and representational conventions (any society has set up many specific contexts for narratives to occur).
Putting it all together!
Whew! That’s a lot of facets of storyworld covered above! In the game walkthrough below, enjoy the world of Remember. If you analyze it in depth enough, you will find many of the ideas above well illustrated in its amazing fictional universe, as the little robot explores its storyworld trying to solve puzzles in order just to get around.
Related Articles
Narrative in Analog & Digital Media
Narrative Continuity vs Poetic Montage
The Structure of Narrative Time
The Fourth Wall & Direct Address
Fact, Fiction & Narrative Contestation
Character Interactions and Narrative Progression
Agency in Interactive Narrative
Sources
Ideas and images above were selected from a range of key texts including:
The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media
Narrating Space/Spatializing Narrative
Interactive Narratives and Transmedia Storytelling
Narrative Theory: Core Concepts and Critical Debates
Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory
