Interactive storytelling: Fictional realism

This post is about the notion of "fictional realism", which I am using to mean a fictional account that is nonetheless meant to 1) accurately portray the time and place where it is set, and, optionally, to 2) focus more on this portrayal, than on presenting a story to the reader/viewer.

Examples of fictional realism include the TV shows "The Wire" and "The Sopranos", the movie "Casino", the novel "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich", and the game "Attentat 1942" (Steam page). Most of these examples have a fairly strong storytelling focus, so don't fit the optional second criteria.

A work of fictional realism may be intended to convey the same kinds of details that a non-fiction work may convey, but to do so using fictional characters (or fictionalised versions of real people), in fictional situations (or fictionalised versions of real situations).

 

"Interactive storytelling" can be used for fictional realism. One of my interests is in using interactive storytelling for exploring a strong form of fictional realism, meeting the second criteria described above (focus more on the portrayal of what life was like, than on presenting a story to the reader/viewer), that presents what it'd be like to be a specific character in a specific situation. So that the player can learn about the player character, about what they do, how they do it, and how they react to situations. Like worker on a sailing ship in the 17th century spice trade. What was their work like? How did they perceive their job (exciting? a journey of exploration?). What were their relationships with the various other sorts of people on the ship?

Interaction could help place the player in the character's shoes, to help immerse them in the character's world. I'd like to use interaction to let the player experience what it's like to be that character. There is the dictum 'show, don't tell'. I want 'experience, don't show or tell'.

I have some ideas about how the interactive storytelling could work, such as to achieve this, though I won't get into such details in this post.

Fictional realism can be used in an educational context. Or be an enriching kind of entertainment. By giving the player interactivity, and letting them experience what it's like to be that character, we hope we can make a compelling way to experience fictional realism.

 

I think that behavior-psychology congruence is a core requirement for fictional realism, and I'll explore this in a future post. In brief, I want the player to control the character such that the character acts in a realistic way.

 

I've also written about the notion of 'strong storytelling', which we can think of as effective or good storytelling. Strong storytelling has a strong focus on plot, and moving the plot forwards. Thus it will tend to cut-out details that aren't relevant to the plot. Thus it would cut out the sorts of details I'm interested in, in fictional realism. The sort of 'day in the life' details.

Compared to strong storytelling, fictional realism is more like real-life. Real-life tends not to be like a story. In stories, all the details are there to serve the overall goals of the story, like its climax, conclusion, and themes. In real life, things happen, but it's just one thing after the other, and they aren't there to result in some climax and conclusion.  

There is, however, no reason why a work of fictional realism couldn't have a plot. It could. It's just that the fictional realism details will dilute the story details, thus making it a weaker form of storytelling.

Strong storytelling and fictional realism are just different forms, each with their own pros and cons.