August 22, 2018
Title: Research on interactive narrative structure of e-books
：Wang Yu
: Multimedia/Digital Publishing
From the perspective of story grammar, combined with interactive narrative theory, the interactive narrative structure of e-books is studied. By investigating more than 200 interactive e-book apps on mobile devices, we analyzed and summarized four types of e-book interactive narrative structures – side branch structure, track switching structure, radial structure and tree structure, and analyzed their respective advantages through case analysis. and applicable fields, and pointed out that the current e-book narrative structure is simple, the interaction level is shallow, and the narrative system is relatively closed.
Interactive narrative; interactive e-book; book app
Different media symbols and forms have significant differences in narrative (Story) capabilities. Werner Wolf ranked the narrative capabilities of the three main media symbols and forms, from high to low: language, image ,music. As an important carrier of language symbols, books have long been the main narrative media product. With the development of computer technology, a new media product form – e-book has emerged based on traditional books. Although e-books and traditional paper books have similarities, the differences between them may be even greater. Comparatively speaking, although e-books so far rely on computer technology to integrate multimedia content and are more convenient to carry and read, they are not the best carrier for text or images in terms of format, texture, color, etc. (For example, Amazon Reader can only Appears in black and white color). The unique advantage of e-books is their interactivity, which traditional paper books cannot provide. The widespread use of mobile smart terminals equipped with IOS and Android systems () has brought about a wave of mobile digital reading. This article will start from the perspective of story grammar, explore the narrative structure used in interactive e-books on smart mobile devices, and analyze its applicable narrative scenarios.
1. Interaction and narrative
In e-book research, "interactivity" is a very common and yet vague concept, often used as a defining feature to distinguish e-books from traditional paper books. The interactivity of e-books, which is different from traditional paper books, is reflected in the fact that e-book devices can adjust the output accordingly according to user input, such as adjusting brightness, fonts, etc. according to user needs. A truly interactive storytelling system involves user choice and a feedback loop established by both parties. Chris Crawford (Chris) believes that interactivity refers to "a cyclical process that occurs between two or more active subjects, in which all parties alternately listen, think and speak, forming some form of dialogue." .
Narrative is the composition process of fragmented content, and the interactive behavior in the narrative process is the process in which users intervene in the development of story fragments, change the status, order, and direction of the content, thereby completing the narrative process. When interaction and narrative are combined, the dynamic process of interactive narrative is produced, in which users traverse the story world while interacting with e-book content and systems. Due to different intervention behaviors, each user may get a completely different story from others and gain an experience that other users do not have. This is where the advantage of interactive storytelling lies.
2. Storytelling based on plot
In the 1960s, the study of story grammar (Story) began to take shape. Story grammar is a formal rule system that describes the rules of story structure and is one of the important tools for analyzing narrative structure.
In this field, the story grammar theory proposed by Jean Mandler (Jean) and Nancy Johnson (Nancy) is more representative. According to the plot development of the story, they divide it into terminal nodes (nodes) to represent a state or an event. The states represented by these nodes can be internal (such as the character's mental state) or external (such as the environmental state). In the same way, events can also be divided into external events, including characters' activities and changes in the external world, and internal events, including thoughts, plans, perceptions, etc. The nodes of the story are connected by three kinds of relationships, namely: AND, which means that each item appears at the same time; THEN, which means that a group of events have a sequential relationship in time; and CAUSE, which means that the first The event is the cause of the second event.
Multiple end nodes will each return to a certain basic node. The basic nodes in story grammar generally include five types: story environment, events, reactions, behaviors (solutions), and results. After being connected in series, they are shown in Figure 1. Certain events occur in the story environment, and the story characters react to the events in simple or complex ways, and take corresponding actions in response to the events, and finally produce results in the story world.
In e-book interactive narratives, in order not to damage the narrative logic, interaction is often combined with the two basic nodes of "reaction" and "behavior (solution)". The story world and events are mostly pre-designed, and the story invites users to participate in the plot of reactions to events and resolution of events. For example, in the interactive e-book application "Lifeline" series, the protagonist Tyler () is an astronaut who survived a tragic space accident. At this time, he can only contact readers through a communicator. Readers will help him find a way out of danger in space. Depending on the reader's behavior, Taylor may experience different endings such as freezing to death, being infected by an alien virus, or successfully escaping from trouble.
3. Interactive narrative structure of e-book applications
According to the plot node division of story grammar, narrative can be divided into various structures. Marie-Laure Ryan believes that the structure of interactive narratives can be divided into two different types: affecting discourse and affecting plot. After further classification and combination, there are a total of 7 structural forms. Among them, interactive narrative structures that affect discourse include network structure (), side branch structure (-), sea anemone structure (sea-), and track switching structure (track); interactive structures that affect plot include tree structure (tree) and flow chart There are three types of structure (flow chart) and maze structure (maze). Figure 2 shows the most basic narrative schema. The horizontal axis represents the timeline of story progression, plot temporality is represented by arrow lines, and solid dots represent plot events.
In August 2017, this article investigated more than 200 interactive e-book applications under the book category of the Apple App Store (), and judged their narrative structures. It concluded that the main interactive narrative structure currently used in interactive e-books is the side branch structure, Orbit switching structures, radial structures and tree structures. During the screening process of interactive e-book applications, this article excluded novel platform applications that aggregate many texts. In addition, from a narrative perspective, non-plot interactive e-books, such as reference books and coloring books, are also excluded. In terms of language selection, only Chinese and English e-books were selected for analysis.
3.1 Side branch structure
This is the most common and widely used interactive e-book structure, as shown in Figure 3a. Under this structure, the narrative content itself is linear, and each story node (represented by a black solid circle) is preset and cannot be changed. However, as the narrative progresses, the system will provide users with some branching plots, external materials or selective activities (indicated by hollow circles), such as sound, animation, video, virtual reality (AR), games, etc. to add to the narrative. dimensions and interest in reading. Stories with this structure are usually shorter. The Millie () series developed by Magpops Company () is a typical example of using this architecture. This is a daily life story of a puppy (Figure 3b). Readers advance the story through the arrows below. At the same time, each page has interactive options. Readers can feed the puppy, dress it up, play small games, etc., but these are forked. It does not affect or change the content of the story.
Interactive e-books using this architecture are mostly children's books, often based on pictures, with a large amount of multimedia materials added to the side branches. The main themes include various fairy tales, picture books, Hollywood animated movies, etc. One of the more representative ones in China is the original bilingual picture book series launched by Kimi Kids, a subsidiary of Kuaiyidian Company.
Among interactive books for adults, this structure is mainly used in thriller and detective-themed books. Ai Classic Production Company ( ) has developed a series of interactive novel applications with thriller themes, all of which are classic works by famous writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Wilde, and Dickens. For example, "The Ghost Book" was developed based on Oscar Wilde's short story "The Canterville Ghost". The developers added side branches to the original novel. In the novel of more than 20,000 words, the creator incorporated a total of 78 pieces of original music, 70 animations, and 82 illustrations, and the narrative is very lush.
3.2 Track switching structure
The track switching structure represents the juxtaposition of nodes, which often implies a multi-perspective narrative approach, telling the intertwining of different fate lines. All tracks follow a common time flow, and each track represents a story line and crosses at some nodes, or overlaps on the story line – indicating that there are characters participating in node events or sharing a certain story line, as shown in Figure 4 Show.
Among traditional narrative works, "A Song of Ice and Fire" written by George RR Martin (RR) adopts a structure similar to track switching, and its plot is a pattern of intertwined lines. The author uses a multi-scene, multi-person restricted perspective, also known as point of view (POV). Each character's perspective is restrictive and non-omniscient. In the field of interactive narrative, the e-book "Arcadia" () produced by the British independent publishing house Faber is a typical representative of the parallel structure of the track. The story covers 3 world spaces, with a total of 10 character story clues, including teachers, students, young girls, gangsters, professors, assistants, scientists, police, managers, and oligarchs. The story tells the story of a 15-year-old girl, Rosie, who went to the basement of an Oxford University professor to find her cat and entered another world to explore. Readers advance the narrative and discover the truth by reading each character's story. All nodes of each character are transparent and visible, and readers can freely choose the reading track. The narrative track is shown in Figure 5.
3.3 Radial structure
The radial structure of the narrative is also called a database story by Lev Manovich, as shown in Figure 6. At the same time, he believes that stories and databases are contradictory because narratives include implicit sequences determined by chronology and cause-and-effect relationships, whereas databases store a series of content entities that can be viewed by users in various orders.
Take the Game of Thrones e-book developed by Harper Collins as an example. He extracted 40 important plots from 5 original books to tell the main plot. Its structure is similar to that of a website, in a radial shape, allowing the reader to hold a magnifying glass and scrutinize a certain part of the narrative. Users can view the plots of each book separately, or read related plots according to themes such as love, conspiracy, war, magic, family, etc. After entering the specific plot, readers can further view maps, characters and family-related information. Readers continue to delve deeper into the database, obtain more and more documents and information on a certain topic, and learn more about the story as they enter deeper nodes. If the reader feels that too much time has been spent at the end, he or she can always return to the main menu. In this structure, readers can move freely among various story nodes. Compared with the narrative-based structure, the radial structure has a stronger narrative space, emphasizes details and relevant information, and is more suitable for in-depth understanding and understanding of a certain narrative. The need for detailed exploration.
3.4 Tree structure
The tree structure has a wide range of applications and has better expressive power for longer stories. As shown in Figure 7, the vertical dimension represents the order in which events occur, the horizontal dimension represents the splitting of the story world into different parallel worlds, and the solid black circles represent the node events of the story. The tree structure has two different narrative structures: closed and open.
3.4.1 Closed tree structure
Closed tree structures are often used in video games, such as adventure games, puzzle games, etc. Its narrative system provides users with choices at each basic node. Users can choose to activate the corresponding bifurcated routes to determine the direction of the plot. While user behavior has an impact on story development, it is a menu-like, limited choice. Overall, users still follow a pre-set story trajectory. The characteristic of the tree structure is the diversity of endings, and it is often combined with the side branch structure to create an excellent entertainment experience; the disadvantage is that the geometric growth of bifurcations can easily make the story development too complex and difficult to control, or produce many Trivial and meaningless branches make readers need to repeat previous readings to reach the "real" ending.
To address this problem, tree structures are often combined with flowchart structures to control branching. Take the interactive book application "Heavy Metal – The SciFi" as an example. The book won the 2015 "Future Book Award" from the British industry publication "The Bookseller". This is a science fiction adventure story in which the reader becomes the protagonist and fights against alien invaders. Readers can make bifurcated plots that decide different directions at nodes, and can also increase their experience points and skills through battles. Its narrative advantage lies in combining the structure of the flow chart, see Figure 8a. The flowchart structure allows branches to be merged, effectively limiting the excessive proliferation of forks. For example, in Figure 8b, the user used bullets and threw away the spear in the earlier narrative plot, and cannot use it again when encountering the next scene. In this way, while avoiding too many branches, it also follows narrative logic.
3.4.2 Open tree structure
In this structure, all nodes are not preset but generated by the user. Roots () is an interactive e-book with user-generated stories. It adopts an open tree structure and provides 20 layers of narrative space for each story. Users can add no more than 150 words of content at any layer. After the first user creates a new story, subsequent users can continue to add branches to the story; the story can have countless parallel worlds. Each participant can advance and improve the story step by step like a round robin. The benefit of this narrative approach is that it stimulates creativity and competition by involving users in the creative process. One of the branches of the story "Flying Puppy" (A) has reached the 20th floor. The story can proceed smoothly at the beginning, but the content starting from the 9th floor becomes meaningless emoticons and words added by the user. character. Similarly, as early as 2007, Penguin Press conducted an experimental project on Wikipedia – "Millions of Penguins" ( ), which planned to allow all Internet users to jointly create a novel on the Wikipedia platform. In this project, the story had multiple branches. Due to factors such as user competition, the unified text eventually evolved into irrelevant fragments of content. The results of the experimental novel were not ideal.
There is currently no mature system that can fully rely on interaction to create high-quality stories. In fact, the real obstacles to creating stories interactively are not technical, but logical and artistic. User freedom is incompatible with grammatical rules and narrative logic. This reflects a "paradox" of interactive narrative creation: on the one hand, the author seeks control over the direction of the narrative to achieve a satisfactory structure; on the other hand, participating users need autonomy to perform and react without the author. limits. Although users pursue freedom of choice, more choices are not always better. In fact, they need to reach a reasonable level in terms of quantity and quality. Too many plot choices, or plot choices that have no function or meaning, can quickly lead the narrative to meaninglessness. For example, in an interactive e-book, the reader encounters a monster along with the plot. At this time, the e-book provides two options: "escape" and "fight", which are enough to cover most possibilities of facing this situation. And if the system provides or allows users to freely add many irrelevant options, such as "touch pockets", "chat", "tell a joke" and other options, it will become cumbersome and confusing. Interactive applications must give users a reasonable degree of choice.
4 Conclusion
To sum up, current e-book applications usually adopt four interactive narrative structures. In general, the interactive level of e-book narratives so far is shallow, the narrative system is relatively closed, and narratives with linear structures still account for the vast majority. However, this also means that there is still a lot of room and potential for the development of interactive narratives in e-books. As Andrew Glassner ( ) said: “We haven’t even scratched the surface of the possibilities of interactive storytelling.”