Narrative
Stories should distill the most potent shades of reality and allow the souls experiencing them to become immersed.
Not all those who wander are lost - J.R.R Tolkien
After reading hundreds of books, and owning enough that my living room could officially be designated a library, I believe I've been able to tap into what makes a good narrative.
On and off throughout the last year I have been writing a book which is due to be finished this winter. This first book, titled Fate Weavers, is intended to be the first in a series. I use a combination of classic story telling punctuated by poetry to tell the story of the protagonist, a 17 year old who is forced out of his comfortable life and must rise to the challenges of the new world he finds himself in. The book fuses classic young adult fiction tropes of ancient mysterious powers with gritty real life scenarios and will hopefully have the reader laughing and crying all within the same breath.
In my experience, the key to an engaging story is to take the fiercest emotions and aspects of real life and disguise them with immersive metaphor. For instance, my book is a coming of age story that many young adults find themselves in. My character, Xhavior, suffers from a condition in which he 'Phases' out of consciousness. What starts as an inconvenient classroom distraction becomes a valuable way to see the Weave, the threads of raw cosmic power used by Weavers in Kamasylvae (The dimension which he is unwittingly pulled into). Phasing is ultimately a metaphor for disassociation as a result of Xhaviours anxiety, concepts which most young adults are familiar with and as such will be able to connect with the main character. In continuous metaphor the book essentially lays out how a young man is pulled out of his comfort zone and forced by cosmic forces into adulthood, in the end romantisizing that stage of life which we all experience and helping the reader rise to the challenges it brings. The first poem, which foreshadows this story arc is pictured to the right and is the first thing the reader sees when opening the book.
Having played video games since as young as i can remember, I've always been a fan of how they take narrative from being something you read to something you experience in the most literal sense of the word. I've outlined below some of my favourite games regarding narrative and what i think they do so well.
Halo 3 for me has always been the pinacle of linear story telling. Carefully crafted levels guiding the player to feel exactly what the developers intended at exactly the right time in exactly the right way! It personifies personal responsibility in the most epic of fashions as you smash through foes the very concepts of which are drawn from extensive literature. The games ending is the ultimate culmination of this as you single handedly (almost) destroy the Halo ring and epicly launch your Warthog into the hanger of the ship. A moment unforgetable for the generation of players who experienced it.
Cyberpunk, which unfortunately took off to a rough start, made a stellar recovery with the addition of its Phantom Liberty DLC. The immersion of this game is like no other i have ever played, blurring the line between game and cinema. It takes the simple narrative of starting from nothing and committing to climbing the ladder by any means necessary but forces the player to actually decide if they're comfortable with any means necessary every single chance it gets. All the while the symbolic angel and demon on the shoulder in the form of Johnny Silverhand tries to push the player in a certain direction. Truly a masterclass in immersive, gritty story telling.
Baldur's gate is for me somewhat of a masterclass in the narrative department. Each character uniquely complex with their own compelling backstory and the player can choose to experience any and all of them. The entire mood of the game can take on a completly different tole dependent upon who the character chooses to play and how they choose to play them. All of that choice packaged with hundreds of possible and entirely believable outcomes truly makes the player feel as though they are writing their own narrative.