Combat narratology - Strategies for the resolution of narrative crisis in participatory fiction

Abstract

In this thesis I investigate the structure and system of emergent narratives in multiplayer participatory fiction with a view to resolving the perceived tension between the vision of the writer and the agency of the players to perform actions that are unexpected, and which may produce a narrative crisis that threatens the coherence of the experience. The nascent field of larp studies has an uneasy relationship with storytelling, and the terminology connected to it. Much of the literature exists as pre-theory (yet underpinned by more than twenty years of praxis)The original contribution of this work is two-fold. I produce an object model which describes the (chaotic) narrative system, and I offer a method for interrogating the system in order to derive an understanding of its state.Using a combination of autoethnography, systems modelling, and object-oriented analysis as well as discourse analysis, I present a series of case studies in which I consider the role of the writer in participatory fiction, and I survey the processes of creating and participating in larps.I develop an extended narratological model which describes the distinction between plot (planned events), story (emergent), and narrative (events described after they have occurred.) I describe an approach to larp narrative design as a form of ontological engineering which I present as a framework and a method to support cultural practice. I describe the experience of participation and use the inherent subjectivity of this experience to illustrate the complexity and variables of a larp narrative system during runtime. I draw on this evidence to create an object-based model of the system. I identify underlying patterns and tropes in narrativization and suggest that there is a degree of observable narrative predictability. I offer a four-step process for interrogating the chaotic narrative system in order to derive a probable state and direction of the story in real time and using this to coherently resolve narrative crises. I describe this process as Combat Narratology - the study of emergent narrative and its structure, performed under pressure in real time