What a Story is

Most people have no concept what a story is. They think they know, and what they think are the most bland cliches: characterization, sequence of events, climax, blah blah blah.

A better context of the thing called ‘story’ (which every game developer thinks they have a destiny to make) should be thought of as a ‘game’. That’s right. Think of a story as a game. Narrative comes from the Latin word narrarre which means ‘to recount’. What is being recounted? Events? Characters? No! A game.

What every game needs is a set of rules. Sports has those rules firmly in place. When an athlete does something amazing, stories are the ‘recount’ of what happened. And notice how sports loves going into the character history of the athlete?

The reason why ‘characters’ are referenced so much as the pivotal role behind stories is because characterization are the ‘rules’ for those people. A female character should act like a female. An old man should act like an old man. A character who is blind should act blind. These characters must obey their characterization. What if you read a story where an old man was doing athletic feats of a young Olympian? The story wouldn’t make any sense. You would declare that the person has no idea how to tell a story.

One thing an audience will never allow is for the storyteller to break the story’s rules. If a bomb is going to go off and only the correct wire can be cut to deactivate the bomb or else it explodes, the audience will cry foul if all lines are cut and the bomb doesn’t go off. If a character is intelligent, the audience will cry foul if the character acts stupidly. If a character is courageous, the audience will cry foul if the character acts cowardly.

To the storyteller, a character is a sort of rules that must be played. Just as with a chessboard, each piece moves differently. And with a story, each character has their own unique characterization, and the storyteller must play the pieces convincingly.

In fictional storytelling, the storyteller not only makes the game, he plays it in the most interesting way possible. This is where great stories come from. Why is Horatio Hornblower popular? One of the reasons is because the ‘game’ is the rules of the 18th Century British Navy. Why is Gone with the Wind popular? It is a ‘game’ that takes place within America’s Civil War and uses those historical rules along with the character rules.

When non-fiction stories are told, note that the proper ‘set-up’ to the story is to describe the rules of the world before the recount takes place. Stories are ‘games’.

But because a book or a television show or a movie has no interaction with the audience, the audience is forced only to observe. A good story would have the audience at the edge of his seat as if he was at an epic sports game.

This is why story telling is more difficult for the science fiction and fantasy writer. With science fiction, the author is operating within the rules of this known universe. There is some room to maneuver by using wildly theoretical notions such as ‘hyperspace’ in order to make a space opera possible. But the author is not allowed to break the rules of the universe.

Fantasy writing is a little different. Instead of using the rules of the known universe, you must define the rules for a new universe. If people use magic, what is the cost? Magic just can’t be infinitely free because you couldn’t have much of a story. It’d be a broken game and no story would be possible.

The way how professionals make stories is that they spend a massive amount of time conjuring up the rules of the game (including the characters, the setting). And then, when writing them, they have the main protagonist (or several of them) play that game. The story you are reading are the protagonists playing the author’s game. Think of your favorite book, movie, or TV show, and you will find a cloud of ‘rules’ that are the hands holding the puppet strings.

I want to illustrate this with a real world example everyone can relate. Do you remember the Star Trek: TNG episode of “Best of Both Worlds Part I”? (Every geek is screaming at their computer screen, “YES!”) I’m using the example not because it is a good episode of TNG but because it is one of the best hours of television ever made. This is a perfectly written hour of TV.

The reason why the story is so effective is because of how obediently the story writer (Michael Piller) was to the rules of the game. The rules of the universe (Star Trek in this case) were effectively followed. The rules of the characters (i.e. characterization) were followed. Everything feels very tight. And, like any good game, the stakes are very high. Should the protagonists lose, this time not only will their starship blow up but all of Earth and the Federation. The stakes being high makes for a more interesting game.

I want you to watch this clip from that episode. Notice all the numbers being thrown around? Note how it feels like so many pieces on a chessboard are being moved around? Note how the characters are acting totally in character and the Borg are acting… like the Borg (which many fans complain the Borg’s character stopped being adhered to in future Star Trek episodes).

There is a precision being played out, in the clip above, like a finely tuned clock. The reason why Horatio Hornblower is so entertaining, why its ship to ship battles were so incredible to read, it is because they obeyed very heavily to the 18th century frigates. It was not ‘creative’ in the way we think of ‘creative’ (i.e. doing whatever we want).

Best of Both Worlds Part I is so well done that the writer checkmated himself. He actually had no idea how to continue the story. Piller left the Star Trek TNG crew after that but they made sure to bring him back (probably because they had no idea how to follow up such an episode).

Let’s try a movie.

This is Back to the Future. Why is this story so entertaining? It obeys more rules than your typical movie would. For example, the 1955 setting has to look like 1955 and people have to act, talk, and behave in that fashion. Marty Mcfly and Doc Brown have very different characters, and they stick to them. But most importantly, the rules of the ‘game’ are explained in advance and throughout the movie.

A great example: the deLorean can only travel through time using a massive amount of energy and going 88 miles per hour. The cost of that energy had Doc Brown stealing plutonium from Libyan terrorists (which resulted in him getting shot). But there is no plutonium in 1955. So the first movie heavily revolved around getting the deLorean to channel the lightning that was going to hit the clock tower. In the second movie, the rule of ‘energy requirement’ was removed with ‘Mr. Fusion’ technology from the future. However, in the third movie, the central problem is getting the deLorean, stuck in 1885 and having no gas, to reach 88 miles per hour.

You can see how these ‘rules’ of the universe, of the characters, of the time travel invention itself, allowed a sort of ‘game’ to be played by the protagonists. And it is this ‘game’, the audience is watching, is what we call the ‘story’.

So when I see game developers who want to ‘make stories’, I know they are unable to not only make a game but make a story as well (because you cannot make a story without conjuring the game that houses the story). They should either be fired, or they need to go get a real job.

Game developers, like Will Wright, become confused when they see players of their games recount their events as elaborate stories. Certainly, this should mean narratives are the purpose of gaming, right? But what is not considered is that gaming is the purpose of narrative. A narrative is nothing more than a ‘replay’ of a game. Think of Starcraft 2 fans watching a replay or a ‘pro’ game. There is a ‘narrative’ going on, but the game is the frame for everything.

When I hear a game developer trying to make their game into a ‘story’, I think of this 90s Pull-Up commercial…

Game developers are pulling up their underwear and looking up to Hollywood (and whoever else) saying, “Look at the characters I put in the game! Look at the plot I put in the game! Mommy, WOW! I’m a big kid now!”