Argax Project

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Conclusion

We now have a working model of narrative sufficient for my purposes here. A narrative is more than just a series of events. Instead, it involves action, characters, setting, manner, and medium.

The action should be both unified and complete. Character and setting are essential material for this action, because "one cannot account for events without recognizing the existence of things causing or being affected by those events" (Chatman 1978, p.34).

This story-world and its events are then presented or narrated from a certain point of view. And this presentation is encoded in some medium. Whether told live in spoken words or encoded in a static artifact to be viewed later, the medium affects and constrains the transmission of the story.

A narrative becomes interactive when it offers the audience some means of affecting one of these aspects. This interaction will offer the user a sense of agency when the formal and material causes involved are balanced.

Works Cited

ToDo