Throughout my life, I have been impressed by grand sweeping narratives. I am not moved by the sheer scale or grandiosity of such works, nor am I impressed by the inner life depicted by these works. I have never fully subscribed to such a narrative, always faltering and not keeping up, and I have only myself to blame.
What impresses me about large-scale narratives are their attention to detail. To the untrained masses and even to the few scrutinizing vanguards, the construction of what is essentially an alternate world and history is solid. However incomplete it may be, however narrow its scope, the structure and interplay are solidly defined and built.
To explain a bit further... I have spent a great deal of time recently with the BioWare model. Right now, I'm going through Mass Effect a second time (having only recently completed both the first and second installments). Before that, I played through Alpha Protocol twice (it isn't strictly BioWare, but it is the model), and as poor an experience as many will claim it is, its narrative provokes compelling choices and provides significant consequences for them. Long ago, I completed Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and the narrative there was more engaging than any of the movies from that franchise.
You'll note that I am citing games as opposed to books, television series, and the like. I suppose I am a gamer at heart, and I believe that games are an unparalleled medium for storytelling because of the ability to make choices. But in order to make choices in a narrative, you need a character that is not strictly defined (so that the choices are yours to make, not those of the character) and a context that is completely delineated (so decisions carry weight and meaning).
I want to create frameworks for narratives and the compelling stories they would support, but I do not have only one vision or one project in mind. So instead of just trying to hammer out one world, I hope to investigate the process of defining entities, any entity imaginable (from units like people to amalgams like nations, races (think aliens), and factions (composed of different units or even amalgams)). I hope to create a process that will provoke the clarity of circumspection which allows for the thorough construction of narratives.
My intentions are as follows:
- To explore the processes of delineating context and content
- To experiment with those processes and generate compelling content
- To take any results forward into models for procedural generation of context and content
- To use final product models in as of yet undisclosed projects
When constructing a narrative, many things need to be defined: people, places, groups, agendas, power structures, resources, dynamics, extra physics (or magic) that create new dynamics, etc.
My goal is to gather enough working experience to entirely define cities, nations, worlds, universes, or even people, with a minimal input of variables, and be able to understand what those variables would produce.
A model capable of such would be a powerful tool in creating thoroughly constructed worlds for narratives, creating and managing personalities without extensive ground work, and perhaps other purposes I have not yet foreseen.
I welcome any comments or concerns. I would not be surprised if I come to depend on them. I look forward to working with you.
-Cheers
CS
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