Abstract
The paper accommodates Espen Aarseth’s concept of virtuality and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s concept of suspension of disbelief to the context of modern story forms. The primary focus will be on the videogame. The premise is that suspending disbelief at narrative improbabilities is a skill required to construct narrative coherence. Constructing narrative coherence of stories that contain virtual elements entails supplementary suspension of disbelief at virtual improbabilities, suspension of virtual disbelief. Since increasing the degree of virtuality often increases the requisite traversal effort, virtuality can be said to set increased demands on story traversal as well. This results in the dilemma of virtual balance: while virtuality has the potential to strengthen diegesis, it on the other hand sets heightened demands on story traversal and narrative coherence. The concluding argument is that these heightened demands may be turned into rhetorical tools.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aarseth, E.: Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore (1997)
Aarseth, E.: Doors and Perception: Fiction vs. Simulation in Games. In: Intermédialités: Histoire et Théorie des Arts, des Lettres et des Techniques/Intermediality: History and Theory of the Arts, Literature and Technologies, Erudit, Montreal, vol. 9, pp. 35–44 (2007)
Benveniste, E.: Problems in General Linguistics (Trans. Meek, M.E.). University of Miami, Coral Gables (1973)
Bogost, I.: Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. The MIT Press, Cambridge (2007)
Burch, N.: Life to Those Shadows. BFI Publishing, London (1990)
Calleja, G.: In-Game: From Immersion to Incorporation. MIT Press, Cambridge (2011)
Chatman, S.: Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Cornell University Press, New York (1978/1980)
Coleridge, S.T.: Biographia Literaria. In: Gamer, M., Porter, D. (eds.) Lyrical Ballads 1798 and 1800. Broadview Press, Peterborough (1817/2008)
Coleridge, S.T.: Notes on the Tempest. In: Greenough, W., et al. (eds.) The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Harper & Brothers, New York (1854)
Crawford, C.: The Art of Computer Game Design. Electronic version (1982), http://pdf.textfiles.com/books/cgd-crawford.pdf
Darley, A.: Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres. Routledge, New York (2000/2006)
Dyer, J.: Repetition of Text in Interactive Fiction. In: Jackson-Mead, K., Robinson Wheeler, J. (eds.) IF Theory Reader, pp. 317–323. Transcript on Press, Boston (2011)
Eytan, E.: Time Tech and Tales: The Fall and Rise of the Popularity of Narration in Games Seen through Monkey Island 2 and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. In: Well-Played, vol. 1(3), pp. 1–20. ETC Press, Halifax (2009)
Fernández-Vara, C.: The Tribulations of Adventure Games: Integrating Story Into Simulation Through Performance. Doctoral Thesis. Georgia Institute of Technology (2009)
Fernández-Vara, C.: From ‘Open Mailbox’ to Context Mechanics: Shifting Levels of Abstraction in Adventure Games. In: Proceedings of Foundations of Digital Games. ACM, New York (2011)
Fogle, R.: Coleridge on Dramatic Illusion. In: The Tulane Drama Review, vol. 4(4), pp. 33–44. MIT Press, Cambridge (1960)
Fortugno, N.: Losing Your Grip: Futility and Dramatic Necessity in Shadow of the Colossus. In: Davidson, D., et al. (eds.) Well-Played 1.0: Videogames, Value and Meaning, pp. 159–176. ETC Press, Halifax (2009)
Genette, G.: Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method (Trans. Lewin, J.). Cornell University Press, Ithaca (1980)
Genette, G.: Narrative Discourse Revisited (Trans. Lewin, J.). Cornell University Press, Ithaca (1988)
Gibson, W.: Neuromancer. Ace Books, New York (1984/1986)
Guinness World Records Corporate. Internet Record Database (2012), http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records-9000/most-lines-of-dialogue-in-a-single-player-role-playing-game/
Howells, S.: Watching a Game, Playing a Movie: When Media Collide. In: King, G., Krzywinska, T. (eds.) ScreenPlay: Cinema/Videogames/Interfaces. Wallflower Press, New York (2002)
Kirkpatrick, G.: Aesthetic Theory And the Video Game. Manchester University Press, Manchester (2011)
Kücklich, J.: The Playability of Texts Vs. The Readability of Games: Towards A Holistic Theory of Fictionality. In: Level Up Conference Proceedings. DiGRA, Utrecht (2003)
Laramée, F.: Game Design Perspectives. Charles River Media, Hingham (2002)
Laudal, T.: One Global Community–Many Virtual Worlds. Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture 3(3) (1995)
Laurel, B.: Computers as Theatre. Addison-Wesley, New York (1991/1993)
Lévy, P.: Qu’est-ce que le Virtuel? La Découverte, Paris (1995)
McLuhan, M.: Understanding Media. MIT Press, Cambridge (1964/1994)
Murray, J.: Hamlet on the Holodeck. MIT Press, Cambridge (1997)
Nechvatal, J.: Immersive Ideals/Critical Distances: A Study of the Affinity Between Artistic Ideologies Based in Virtual Reality and Previous Immersive Idioms. Doctoral Thesis. University of Wales College (1999)
Perlin, K.: Can There Be a Form between a Game and a Story? In: Wardrip-Fruin, N., Harrigan, P. (eds.) First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, pp. 12–18. MIT Press, Cambridge (2004)
Pimentel, K., Teixeira, K.: Virtual Reality: Through the New Looking Glass. Inter/Windcrest/McGraw Hill (1993)
Ryan, M.: Cyberspace, Virtuality, and the Text. In: Ryan, M.-L. (ed.) Cyberspace Textuality: Computer Technology and Literary Theory, pp. 78–107. Indiana University Press, Bloomington (1999)
Salen, K., Zimmerman, E.: Rules of Play. MIT Press, Cambridge (2003)
Short, E.: NPC Conversation Systems. In: Jackson-Mead, K., Robinson Wheeler, J. (eds.) IF Theory Reader, pp. 331–358. Transcript on Press, Boston (2011)
Tavinor, G.: Art of Videogames. Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken (2009)
Tolkien, J.R.R.: On Fairy-Stories. In: Tree and Leaf. HarperCollins, London (2001)
Van Looy, J.: Self-Imagining, a Comparative Media Perspective. Eludamos. Journal for Computer Game Culture 3(1), 57–68 (2009)
Zagal, J.: Heavy Rain – How I Learned to Trust the Designer. In: Davidson, D., et al. (eds.) Well-Played 3.0: Videogames, Value and Meaning, pp. 6–14. ETC Press, Halifax (2010)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Karhulahti, VM. (2012). Suspending Virtual Disbelief: A Perspective on Narrative Coherence. In: Oyarzun, D., Peinado, F., Young, R.M., Elizalde, A., Méndez, G. (eds) Interactive Storytelling. ICIDS 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7648. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34851-8_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34851-8_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-34850-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-34851-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)