Syllabus

Interactive storytelling begins with the rich experience of storytelling and adds the element of audience interaction. For hundreds of years, audiences have been involved in the telling of stories but because of the advent of new technologies there has been a growing interest in the field of interactive storytelling. We will look at computer and video games, blogs, interactive theater, role-playing games and depictions of interactive storytelling in books, movies and television to analyze the quality of the audience experience and discuss the value of interactivity on the art of storytelling. We will develop methods for analyzing interactive story by first studying traditional (linear) narrative structure and comparing it with interactive story structure such as branching narratives, loops and games. Classroom exercises will be given to help develop a set of tools to understand how stories are built, discover where the decision points are and what sorts of choices the "interactor" would find meaningful.

WRITING ASSIGNMENTS:

All papers will be written in draft form first. The first two papers will be done in two stages—a draft and then a final version. The final paper/project will be put together in four steps. Complete descriptions of each paper will be handed out during class.
1. 1. Using some guidelines from Aristotle’s Poetics, write a Holodeck experience you would like to be a part of. This should be 2 to 3-pages long. You create the rules for the Holodeck, but you can use the rules from Star Trek as your guide. Place yourself wherever you’d like—in outer space or in your room here in Hanover. Whatever you choose for the location, don’t change who you are. Keep your personality and use your own interests as the starting point for the paper. Begin by setting up the story. Describe the world. What does the world look like? Who is in it? Where and when are you? What is the conflict? Next talk about how you resolve the conflict keeping in mind that this is a Holodeck and you are in control of the experience.
2.2. Research Paper: You will write your research paper like a computer science paper in which you are offering a new use or method for interactive storytelling. To do this, you must understand where the current state of the art and technology are, how it is being used, and what areas need further development. Then you need to lay out your idea. How is your idea different? How does it build on what others have done? What are the applications and benefits of your idea? What are the flaws?

You can approach this from a number of directions. For example, you could focus on the technicology and develop a new technology for interactive storytelling. You could focus on the educational aspects and develop a new educational tool. If you prefer, you could focus on interactive storytelling as a means of social interaction and develop a new interface or a new way to make the interaction more robust and meaningful. You could also focus on applications around entertainment. Choose just one area, do research about how interactive storytelling has been used in this area up until now and then talk about where you plan to take it.

Other writing assignments:

Aristotle’s Poetics for Interactive Storytellers
Class Exquisite corpse writing project
Ray Bradbury re-write as interactive story
Ongoing blog and vblog
Role playing exercises
Personal Storytelling

Grading:
Paper 1: 20%
Research Paper: 30%:
Final Paper/Presentation: 30%
Other Writing 10%
Class Participation 10%

Books:
Tierno Aristotle’s Poetics for Screenwriters
Crawford Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling
Miller Digital Storytelling: Creator’s Guide