Narrative Theory Series

Designing Games & Interactive Stories

Another entity one may or many not include as a character is the Narrator. Just WHO is telling the Story after all? Are they a character? Or, are they just the lens-eye of an omniscient traveling camera and telepathic microphone array? The narrator can be invisible and implicit, barely rising to character-status, just simply structuring everything for us to experience, or they might emerge as a very strong presence in the narrative, as with the short film Voice Over.

Our ability to understand the meaning of a narrative relies heavily on having a perspective on the narrative, and that is the role played by the narrator. A narrative without a narrator function is like a stage with the curtains closed. There may be some narrative going on behind them, but we really need those drapes opened to experience it. In film, someone needs to light the set, turn the camera on, get the lens in focus etc. in order to start providing us with establishing shots, close-ups, medium shots and so on, out of which we will construct the film’s meaning.

Narrators have a more definitive sense of voice in literary narratives, since the language will reveal much about the narratorial perspective. The narrator is created by the author, and is also not the actual author, just as a camera is not a film director.

Traditionally, narrators have been defined as either first or third person:

A first person narrator is a type of narrator that tells the story from their own perspective, using the pronoun “I.” A third person narrator is a type of narrator that tells the story from an external perspective, using pronouns such as “he,” “she,” or “they.”

Within third person narratives, there are three main types of narrators: objective, limited, and omniscient.

Objective narrator: An objective narrator is a type of third person narrator that does not have access to the thoughts or feelings of any of the characters. The story is told from an external perspective, and the narrator simply reports on the events and actions of the characters.

Limited narrator: A limited narrator is a type of third person narrator that has access to the thoughts and feelings of a specific character, but not any of the other characters. The story is told from the perspective of that character, and the narrator is limited in their understanding of the events and actions of the other characters.

Omniscient narrator: An omniscient narrator is a type of third person narrator that has access to the thoughts and feelings of all of the characters and has a comprehensive understanding of the events and actions of the story. The narrator is able to provide insight and perspective on all aspects of the story.

Gerard Genette’s concept of focalization refers to the perspective from which a story is told, or the way in which the events of the story are presented to the reader or audience. Genette theorized that there are several different types of focalization, including:

Zero focalization: This is a type of focalization in which the story is told from an objective, external perspective, with no access to the thoughts or feelings of any of the characters.

Internal focalization: This is a type of focalization in which the story is told from the perspective of a specific character, with access to their thoughts and feelings.

External focalization: This is a type of focalization in which the story is told from an external perspective, with no access to the thoughts or feelings of any of the characters.

Mixed focalization: This is a type of focalization in which the story is told from both an internal and external perspective, switching between the two.

By considering the different types of focalization, writers can choose the most effective perspective for telling their story and creating a meaningful and impactful narrative.

Point of view (POV) and Genette’s concept of focalization are both related to the perspective from which a story is told. However, there are some key differences between the two concepts.

POV refers to the perspective from which the story is told, and it is often used to describe the narrator of a story. The main types of POV are first person, in which the story is told from the perspective of a character using the pronoun “I,” and third person, in which the story is told from an external perspective using pronouns such as “he,” “she,” or “they.”

Genette’s concept of focalization, on the other hand, refers specifically to the way in which the events of the story are presented to the reader or audience. Genette theorized that there are several different types of focalization, including zero focalization, internal focalization, external focalization, and mixed focalization. These types of focalization describe the level of access the narrator has to the thoughts and feelings of the characters and the extent to which they can provide insight and perspective on the events of the story.

Overall, while both POV and focalization are concerned with the perspective from which the story is told, POV refers specifically to the narrator of the story, while focalization refers to the way in which the events of the story are presented to the reader or audience.

Robert McKee’s concept of curiosity and concern suggests that these two elements work together to create tension and engage the reader or audience in a story. According to McKee, curiosity is the desire to know more about something, while concern is the emotional investment or involvement in the outcome of a situation.

McKee argues that when these two elements are combined in a story, they can produce three main types of tension: irony, suspense, and mystery.

Irony: Irony is created when the reader or audience is aware of something that the characters are not, creating a discrepancy between what is expected to happen and what actually happens. This creates tension by creating a sense of dissonance between what the reader or audience knows and what the characters know.

Suspense: Suspense is created when the reader or audience is aware of a potential threat or danger to the characters, and is concerned about their safety or well-being. This creates tension by creating a sense of uncertainty about what will happen next.

Mystery: Mystery is created when the reader or audience is curious about something that is not immediately revealed or explained, and is motivated to learn more. This creates tension by leaving the reader or audience with unanswered questions and a desire to know more.

By manipulating audience knowledge through the lenses of curiosity and concern, writers can shape the interpretive positions of their audience as they try to understand any particular moments of the narrative.

Genette’s concept of layers of address refers to the multiple levels at which communication occurs within a narrative. These layers involve the level of action (character versus character), the level of fictional mediation and discourse (narrator and narratee), and the level of nonfictional communication (author and reader).

Level of action: The level of action refers to the communication that occurs between the characters within the story. This includes dialogue, gestures, and other forms of communication that take place within the fictional world of the story.

Level of fictional mediation and discourse: The level of fictional mediation and discourse refers to the communication that occurs between the narrator and the narratee within the story. The narrator is the voice or perspective that tells the story, while the narratee is the intended audience or recipient of the story.

Level of nonfictional communication: The level of nonfictional communication refers to the communication that occurs between the author and the reader. This includes the way that the author presents the story and the way that the reader interprets and understands it.

The concept of layers of address suggests that communication within a narrative occurs on multiple levels, and that understanding these layers can be important in interpreting and analyzing a story and our experience of it.

This sounds very complicated perhaps, but it’s easy to ground it the opening scene in Godard’s A Woman is a Woman (Une femme est une femme) in which Anna Karina takes a moment to wink directly at the audience during this brief café scene:

ONCE:

UPON A TIME:

Coffee, very white.

A coffee, green.

What time is it?

It’s too hot. Gotta run.

Let’s use this moment to explain this concept of layers of address.

In this opening scene, the character Angela enters a café and asks for a white coffee. The character Émile then asks for a green coffee. Before finishing her coffee, Angela suddenly realizes she’s running late and has to go, winking at the camera on her way out of the café.

Here’s how the three layers of address are working in this scene:

There are the actors in their film world, inside a café, doing things and speaking to each other, which equate to the level of action.

There are real people being paid as actors to act in a film, and there is a director and his film crew with cameras, microphones, lighting equipment as well as editing and post-production spaces to cut the film together. Plus there’s us, in our chairs with remote controls. This is the level of nonfictional communication.

There is also an imagined audience — a group of film goers who like sophisticated films– and a clever filmmaker using various techniques associated with French New Wave aesthetics and style, playing games with us. This is the level of fictional mediation and discourse.

Each of these layers are present in the film moment. The first is easy enough to identify– characters of the film world inside a Parisian café. The second one is also obvious, because there will of course be real people creating the film in the first place and watching it. The third category is the trickiest. First, there is a ‘game’ being played here, when the actress winks at us. There’s a lot of meaning packed into this wink. The wink says:

We are having fun with this film, we are being real and fake at the same time.

We think our audience will appreciate this kind of game, because you are sophisticated French people watching a film by a famous auteur director.

We also played this game in another way just a moment ago, when “white coffee” (coffee with cream) was contrasted to “green coffee” (which doesn’t exist, since this is decades before matcha lattes). We are assuming an audience that likes and expects film games like these from directors such as this.

Oh and by the way, I’m just a regular human actress momentarily playing this role for some income, just as you are sitting there in your chair, having paid for a ticket to spend some time in the theater with this film.

This third layer is different from the other two, and might even be described as a gaming layer, or game-type layer, present in all fictional narratives. It is a zone of narrative discourse where one can reveal, and play with, the apparent rules of the game, in this case the rules of creating a fictional universe to begin with!

This is distinct from the idea of incorporating game mechanics into a narrative, since this is more like a social game in media making and reception that defines the rules for creating imaginary worlds.

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Bibliography & Further Reading

• A Game Design Vocabulary: Exploring the Foundational Principles Behind Good Game Design by Anna Anthropy and Naomi Clark
• A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster
• Advanced Game Design: A Systems Approach by Michael Sellers
• An Introduction to Game Studies by Frans Mayra
• Basics of Game Design by Michael Moore
• Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made by Jason Schreier
• Board Game Design Advice: From the Best in the World vol 1 by Gabe Barrett
• Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design: an Encyclopedia Of Mechanisms by Geoffrey Engelstein and Isaac Shalev
• Character Development and Storytelling for Games by Lee Sheldon
• Chris Crawford on Game Design by Chris Crawford
• Clockwork Game Design by Keith Burgun
• Elements of Game Design by Robert Zubek
• Film Art by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson
• Fundamentals of Game Design by Ernest Adams
• Fundamentals of Puzzle and Casual Game Design by Ernest Adams
• Game Design Foundations by Brenda Romero
• Game Design Workshop by Tracy Fullerton
• Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans
• Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames edited by Chris Bateman
• Games, Design and Play: A detailed approach to iterative game design by Colleen Macklin and John Sharp
• Interactive Narratives and Transmedia Storytelling, by Kelly McErlean
• Introduction to Game Systems Design by Dax Gazaway
• Kobold Guide to Board Game Design by Mike Selinker, David Howell, et al
• Kobold’s Guide to Worldbuilding edited by Janna Silverstein
• Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design, 2nd Edition by Scott Rogers
• Narrating Space / Spatializing Narrative: Where Narrative Theory and Geography Meet by Marie-Laure Ryan, Kenneth Foote, et al.
• Narrative Theory: A Critical Introduction by Kent Puckett
• Narrative Theory: Core Concepts and Critical Debates by David Herman, James Phelan, et al.
• Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, Fourth Edition by Mieke Bal
• Practical Game Design by Adam Kramarzewski and Ennio De Nucci
• Procedural Storytelling in Game Design by Tanya X. Short and Tarn Adams
• Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing by Wendy Despain
• Rules of Play by Salen and Zimmerman
• Storyworlds Across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology (Frontiers of Narrative) by Marie-Laure Ryan, Jan-Noël Thon, et al
• Tabletop Game Design for Video Game Designers by Ethan Ham
• The Art of Game Design, 3rd Edition by Jesse Schell
• The Board Game Designer’s Guide: The Easy 4 Step Process to Create Amazing Games That People Can’t Stop Playing by Joe Slack
• The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative by H. Porter Abbott
• The Grasshopper, by Bernard Suits
• The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media, by by Marie-Laure Ryan, Lori Emerson and Benjamin J. Robertson
• The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies by Bernard Perron and Mark J.P. Wolf
• The Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory by David Herman
• The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design by Flint Dille & John Zuur Platten
• Unboxed: Board Game Experience and Design by Gordon Calleja
• Video Game Storytelling: What Every Developer Needs to Know about Narrative Techniques by Evan Skolnick
• Writing for Video Game Genres: From FPS to RPG edited by Wendy Despain
• Writing for Video Games by Steve Ince
• 100 Principles of Game Design by DESPAIN

Acknowledgement

This online courseware was co-authored with OpenAI technology in order to produce a clear, succinct writing style that will be accessible to the widest range of readers from a variety of backgrounds.

POV & Focalization was originally published in Sound & Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.