Strange Patterns: Structure and Post-structure in Interactive Digital Narratives

Abstract

Structure is key to interactive narrative authoring. It can be perceived at the micro, meso, and macro levels of navigation, and when presented as common patterns creates a toolbox from which authors can build their stories. This structuralist approach to authoring appeals to the engineer's mindset, but post-structuralists would argue that no patterns are fundamental or universal. As Interactive Digital Narratives become more gamelike they turn into Strange Hypertexts, with playful mechanics deeply aligned with their narrative goals. This ludonarrative aspect of IDNs is exactly the sort of shift in perspective that post-structuralism warned us about and suggests that patterns might limit authors rather than empowering them. This chapter reviews the reported patterns in hypertext and interactive narrative, and explores how patterns could continue to be important for authoring in a strange and post-structural world.

Seven Hypertexts

“…A focus on poetics distinguishes the literary context within the scope of hypertext research, this includes subjects such as the identification of structural patterns [23,129], the rhetorical usage of links [124], discussions of closure [60], or consideration of rereading/rewinding [138]. It also opens up new concerns, such as the form and value of criticism and the pitfalls of a new literary economy [29], or the process of remediation of old media into new [34, p.45].…”

“…At a superficial level what unites all seven hypertexts is that they embrace non-regularity in information structures. They are nonlinear, non-hierarchical, and when they do embrace patterns they do so in a way that is non-exclusive, and open to constant change and revision [129]. This has its roots in Nelson's Computer Lib/Dream 27 See: https://zettelkasten.de/communications-with-zettelkastens/.…”