Article:

Narrative and the Split Condition of Digital Textuality

With computer games and avant-garde literary experiments, digital textuality has conquered both mass audiences and academic readers interested in theorizing digital art, but it has not yet reached the middle of the cultural spectrum, namely the educated public who reads primarily for pleasure, but is capable of artistic discrimination. This essay explores the possibility of curing this split condition by strengthening the narrativity of digital texts. After examining the conception of narrative that prevails at both ends of the spectrum, I investigate three types of interactive narrative that have been able to reach beyond the traditional audience of computer games and experimental literature: embedded stories, represented by Myst and mystery-solving games, emergent stories, represented by The Sims, and texts with a somewhat prescripted, but variable story, represented by Façade, Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern’s project in interactive drama. For each type of text, I suggest how to make the structure more appealing to a reader who engages with the text out of narrative interest, and is more interested in paidia—free play—than in ludus—playing by strict rules for the sake of winning or losing.