1. Marie Laure Ryan, 2004
Summary by Suzanne Stebbings

2.  Marie-Laure Ryan
 Literary scholar & critic
 Scholar in residence, University of Colorado
 Themes: narratology, fiction and cyber-
culture
 Latest venture Encyclopaedia of Digital
Textuality – due out 2012

4. Narrative - historical perspective
 The four ages of narrative
 Durability of narrative
Definitions
 Digital text
 Narrative
The literary context
Aspects of digital narrative
 Variable discourse
 Variable points of view
 Variable plot
Where next?

5. Restricted
Oral Unique
audience
Less
Able to be
Chirographic copied
restricted
audience
Broad
Print Replicable
audience
Replicable Global
Digital and editable audience

6. Evanescent Durable

7.  Algorithm driven
 Reactive and interactive
 Perfomantial aspect
 Multiple sensory and semiotic channels
 Networking capabilities
 Volatile signs
 Modularity

8. ‘Narrative is a type of meaning, or mental
image generated in response to certain stimuli.
A narrative text is an artefact designed to bring
this meaning to mind.’

9.  Epistemological crisis – challenging text as a
‘given’ – classical text is blind to ‘the
complexity of the problem of truth’
 Aesthetic crisis – desire to break out of the
limitations imposed by print – the ‘dream of
the text that keeps on giving’

10.  Variable discourse
 Variable point of view
 Variable plot

11.  Hypertext – ‘multiple pathways through a
document’
 The jigsaw metaphor and incomplete
narrative meaning
 Success of hypertext dependent on the
author’s skill in placing it in a ‘unique textual
idea which gives meaning to the activity’

12.  Interactive television
 Interactive film
 Variable points of view in print
 Interactive digital environment

13.  Interactive fiction – limitations
 First person shooter – monotonous diversity
 Simulation – the ‘god game’

14. Stereotyped The Anti narrative
narratives of middle experimental
ground?
popular culture text

16.  Murray, Janet (1997). ‘Hamlet on the Holodeck: the future of narrative in
cyberspace’, New York: Free P.
 Ryan, Marie Laure (2009). ‘From narrative games to playable stories toward a
poetics of interactive narrative’, StoryWorlds: A journal of narrative studies, vol 1,
43-59
 Murray, Janet (2004). ‘From game story to cyberdrama’,
http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?start=10&q=Janet+Murray&hl=en&as_sdt=
1,5
 http:www.jawbone.tv/articles/item/485-sufferosa-neo-noir-interactive-film-
tackles-cult-of-beauty.html
 Choose a different ending (2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFVkzYDNJqo
 http:www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2011/aug/04/twixt-trailer-francis-ford-
coppola
 Motte, Warren F. (1986). ‘Oulipo: A primer of potential literature’, University of
Nebraska Press
 Atkinson, Sarah (2007). ‘Crossed Lines: the creation of a multiform, multi-screen
interactive film’, Nebula 4.3 79-99
 http:www.clickz.com/clickz/column/1697492/interactive-tv-ads-real-life-
examples