Making the World Better Through Narrative
Everything has a narrative of sorts or a back story to go along with it. If the mind cannot guess right away from what it is viewing it will come up with it's own narrative to make sense of what it is seeing. Everything has a story whether it is interesting or not. You can always learn something from any type of tale, but it is up to you to identify what to learn.
In the Bruner Narrative Construction reading, it states: "For to be worth telling, a tale must be about how an implicit canonical script has been breached, violated, or deviated from in a manner to do violence to what Hayden White calls the "legitimacy" of the canonical script." I disagree with White's consensus on when a tale is worth telling. Yes the tales that do not deviate from say plain daily life, will not be as interesting from those that have a character do something unexpected and different. But not all tales have to be interesting, some can be boring and plain but they can teach a lesson or show children for example how things should be done. For example: you show a tale where someone looks both ways before crossing the street and then crosses safely. This shows a child how to cross a street. Yes it could be more interesting if you show that and then show someone who did not and gets hit by a car. But that is not always needed to tell a tale or teach someone something through story telling or a narrative.
When someone tells a story, they usually want to attract their audience in someway through a shock value, whether it be happy, devastating, strange, etc. This makes the narrative more interesting and grabs an audience's attention because they will start to wonder and speculate as to what will happen next. If the audience's attention is grabbed, they will usually continue to listen more to the story to find out if their predictions are correct or they just want to know what happens next.
But when teaching how to do something, say in a classroom, the narrative that is being told will not necessary have the attention grabber usually used in the entertainment world of cinema. Growing up, almost everyone has had a class they thought to be dull and uninteresting but had to pay attention if they wanted to pass the test. This was for the fact, the teacher used plain narratives to explain how to do something. But the teacher was still able to through to their students despite the tale not having been 'breached, violated, or deviated from in a manner to do violence.'
Narratives will always be more exciting if they are how White describes when they should be told. But White is wrong in the fact a tale is not always worth telling because you can always learn something from an uninteresting narrative.
Another point I wanted to bring up, is from the reading, Game Design as Narrative Architecture by Henry Jenkins. The author goes into describing how story is not always needed to have a successful game. I would have to agree with him, because I believe story is an added mechanic per say to make the game seem more interesting or to make the player possibly relate to the game better.
Having a story of sorts represented through the environment the character is interacting in, will make it more interesting and can possible help the player better understand the character they are playing. On the other hand, a simple game like 'Piano Tiles,' doesn't need a narrative to make the game interesting and fun. It is all about getting the most black tiles in a row without pressing any white.
Story can hurt or help a game. If done right and in the correct context, the game can become amazingly fun and make the player feel like they've stepped into a fantasy world. This is where White's notion on when to tell a tale would be pertinent. People who play games with a story telling aspect want interesting stores, ones that are 'breached, violated, or deviated from in a manner to do violence.' Those who play games, play games to usually escape reality. And more often than not, want something they wouldn't necessarily hear or see. If you insert a narrative that is boring and plain into a game, it is highly unlikely your game will attract a lot of players and become highly successful. But by inserting a narrative that has a 'shock' factor in the correct context of a game, will make a game that much more exciting and fun to play.
