Narrative Theory Series

Designing Games & Interactive Stories

Fact & Fiction

The distinction between Fiction and nonfiction is not always a very straightforward distinction because Narrative techniques are used in both categories. Both involve Story and Discourse, but nonfiction has an additional quality: reference. Reference is ultimately a philosophical concept because it relates to ‘the real world’ and if you know anything about philosophy, that’s not really an obvious concept at all!

A quite excellent (and funny : ) filmic meditation on the difference between fiction and nonfiction in narrative is presented in the film The Invention of Lying. In this storyworld, humans are only capable of telling the truth, i.e. they can only be completely literal, factual and objective. Then, one character experiences a kind of on-the-spot brain mutation which allows him to tell lies, or in other words, create fictions! As you can imagine, this ability to lie (tell fictions) in a world of literalistic humans can end up being a kind of superpower. The brain mutated character experiments with his power over other people through lying/fictional storytelling and ends up abusing this power, creating his own religion and other predictable shenanigans.

The storyworld of nonfiction narratives have this added element of ‘the real world’ which may be the world as we experience it, or historical worlds from long ago which we would not have experienced but which presumably would have many of the typical features of reality that we are already familiar with from our everyday lives. Fiction, by contrast, has at its disposal the full gamut of techniques to draw upon for creative expression and is completely not constrained by reality in the way that fact-based narrative is.

While both fiction and nonfiction are forms of narrative, nonfiction is more highly constrained in its available creative devices because, for example, historians cannot tell us what people are thinking as there is no objective access to internal thought worlds. Usually there is some paratextual (outside but near the text) element telling us whether something is supposed to be nonfiction or not, e.g. a tagline “based on a true story” or “a history of…” etc. though this can also be exploited as with the Fargo Netflix series which tells us it depicts true stories when in fact it does not!

There are hybrid forms such as docudrama or historical fiction, where the narrative is more or less entirely fictional with respect to character dialogue and actions but where the overall setting, plot and the characters themselves are based on real entities and events. Usually we prefer to know how to interpret a narrative, either as fiction or nonfiction, because it’s hard to satisfactorily blend both. Fiction has layered structures of implied author and narrator, whereas with history, by contrast, the author is the implied author is the narrator (in other words, these distinctions tend to be collapsed in nonfiction).

Fiction is not necessarily ‘untrue’ but its truth is at the level of meaning rather than fact. We of course find forms of truth in fiction, but they are truths of human character, general life-likeness, drawing out consequences of actions etc. They are truths we can live by, in a sense, because we live in a pseudo-fictionalized virtual world of everyday meanings. We are the characters of our lives, telling stories about ourselves and others, to ourselves, all the time. To live is always to be already semi-virtualized because of how thoroughly narrativized our experiences are.

True-factual events require ‘emplotment’ to turn them into history, because they are not narratives unless shaped as such by an authorial hand. Authors of either nonfiction or fiction rely on ‘reality effects’ (Barthes is the theorist here) to imbue their stories with details that try to convince us of the ‘reality’ of the events, to make them more vivid, concrete, believable, impactful etc. Facts never ‘speak for themselve’ but become elements in someone’s storytelling.

Ultimately our minds easily oscillate between factual and fictional worlds. Usually we require information somewhere — in the text, or in a paratext — that gives us clues as to how we should be interpreting the narrative at any given moment. A great hybrid example that mixes fictional and nonfiction approaches is with National Geographic’s Mars series, which is part documentary, part fiction. As viewers we are never really confused by this because the overall cinematic style tells us how to interpret the different sections, because we can easily handle the switching between the Elon Musk talking head moments and the actors in the future who are hanging out on Mars.

Narrative Contra Narrative

Many theorists have pondered the relationship between narratives and arguments (are they the same or different, and how so?). One possible answer is that arguments convince us of truth, while narratives convince us of lifelikeness. Also, narrative is more about passions and emotions compared to argument’s appeal to logic or reason (abstraction).

With narrative contestation, there’s an agon between narrative, not just within it, as in My Narrative is Right! Your Narrative is Wrong! Contested narrative techniques can also be used to make narratives reflexive (also called self-reflexive), which means referring to the mechanisms by which the narration itself is created. Cameos do this reflexive thing, too — you bring in the comic book author or film director into the narrative to be seen, in order to comment on the make believe that is unfolding, and they are immersing themselves in at the same time as they are poking a hole in the illusion.

Every political election is based on contested narratives, because whoever’s story you believe the most is going to be the one you vote for, so politics is all about ‘the narrative.’ So is marketing and advertising — should you pay for that VPN service? You will if the commercial’s narrative has totally freaked you out about the safety of your family!

Related Articles

Origins of Narrative

Narrative in Analog & Digital Media

Interactivity in Narrative

Narrative Continuity vs Poetic Montage

Defining Narrative

Narrative Perception

The Narrative Matrix

The Structure of Narrative Time

Characters

Character Types

Narrative Identity

Visual Design of Characters

Conflict in Narrative

The Narrative Arc

Narrative Structure

Narrative Bifurcation

Dialogue

Humor

Storyworlds

Storyworlds & Characters

Facets of Storyworlds

Storyworld in Literary Theory

POV & Focalization

The Fourth Wall & Direct Address

Narratorial Devices

Themes & Tropes

Multiperspectivalism

Rhetoric & Normalization

The Limits of Narrative

Meaning & Interpretation

Intertextuality

Space Time Causality Medium

Character Interactions and Narrative Progression

Focalization

Agency in Interactive Narrative

Remediation

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.

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