"Strong" vs "loose" narratives

In this post I want to sketch out the distinction between "strong" and "loose" narratives. It's a pretty simple distinction, but one that is often overlooked. In later posts, I'll make use of this distinction to make some points about interactive storytelling.

In a strong narrative, everything that happens in the sequence of events have a purpose that contributes to the overall details of the story. The overall story is there to create a satisfying experience for the viewer, reader, or game player (from here on I'll just use 'viewer').

The overall story details will involve elements like the following. There will be challenges put in front of the protagonists, that they will overcome. The tension may ratchet up, until the climax of the story, and there will be a resolution. The protagonist will likely experience some growth. There may be certain themes. The overall story may present unexpected surprises. There will likely be mysteries that are raised earlier in the story, that get answered later on, which serve draw the viewer (etc) through the story.

I'm not saying that all of these have to be present for the narrative to be strong. I'm saying that a strong narrative supports the overall story details, whatever they are for a particular story.

A strong narrative is a set of events, put in a deliberate sequence, in order to produce a strong set of the overall story details (a strong climax, a satisfying resolution, etc). Events that occur build on what came earlier. A strong narrative won't include superfluous events, that don't help contribute to the overall story details.

[EDIT, Oct 2022: to expand on it not including superfluous events, part of a strong narrative is what details are left out. The narrative might include the protagonist getting some groceries at the shop, and then arriving home with their shopping, to find a stranger in their house. The narrative doesn't include them waiting for the bus with their groceries, getting on the bus, riding along in the bus, then getting off the bus at their stop, then walking home. Because, for this particular story, such details are not relevant to the narrative, and they're sorts of details that the viewer/reader can infer have happened.

So it's common for there to be spatiotemporal gaps between segments of the narrative. In a movie, when a scene ends and there's a cut, it's common for there to be spatial and temporal gap between that scene and the events of the next one.]

A problem for the protagonist may arise in one scene, and the events in the next scene may exacerbate those problems. Earlier scenes may have painted a certain picture of the protagonist's predicament, and a later scene may turn those appearances on their head. The sequence of events will be constructed to make the story's mysteries compelling.

In strong narratives, "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts", because the parts are designed to contribute to the overall details of the story.

In loose narratives, on the other hand, there may be little or no overall story details for the sequence of events to contribute to. It's just: this happened, then this other thing happened, then something else, and so on.

The events will likely be connected -- perhaps by occurring in temporal sequence, following what happens to a protagonist, like what they did and where they went. But there won't be much to the overall story details, and thus not much for the sequence of events to contribute towards.

Everyday life is like a loose narrative. A sequence of stuff happens, but there's not the dramatic arc and so forth found in a strong narrative.

Of course, this isn't really a binary of only "very strong" narratives and "very loose" narratives. It's a spectrum, with stronger narratives at one end and looser narratives at the other end.

I believe that, generally speaking, people tend to prefer stronger narratives. There's always exceptions of course, but I think that in the majority of cases, if all else is equal, people will find a stronger narrative more compelling than a looser narrative. And if people find strong narratives more compelling, then in that sense I think it is fair to say that, generally speaking, a stronger narrative is a better narrative.

And this doesn't seem to be merely a matter of people's personal preferences or opinions. Evolution seems to have given us brains that desire and enjoy strong narratives. Brains that are suited to consuming information in the form of strong narratives.