21L989 (G) (12 graduate credits) 
Interactive and Non-Linear Narrative: Theory and Practice

Dr. Janet H. Murray

jhmurray@mit.edu

This course is offered for both graduate and undergraduate credit. Students meet together, but graduate students have extra assignments.

Although student stories created with extensive programming or sophisticated graphic design are welcome, the course does not require or provide these skills. Assignments are aimed at mastering digital storytelling skills through simple web projects that emphasize interactive story structure.

The course consists of one hour-long lecture (Thurs. 4 pm) and one two-hour seminar meeting per week. (Tuesday 3-5 pm) in Room E53-220. Attendance is mandatory and counts toward the grade. (Non-MIT students taking the course under the auspices of the Advanced Study Program (ASP) attend the same Thursday 4pm lecture session as the other students, but meet for seminar on Thursday evenings 6-8 pm, room to be announced.)

The one-hour lecture sessions will focus on principles of design for interactive narrative and the two-hour seminar meetings will focus on discussions of student work. Students will have web-based assignments every week and will present their work and exchange constructive criticism in a workshop environment. The course is aimed at nurturing individual talents while expanding the representational powers of a new creative medium.

Principal text:

Janet H. Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace (1997).

Other required readings:

Alan Ayckbourn, The Norman Conquests (1988)

Vannevar Bush, "As We May Think" (1945)

Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale (1928;1968)

Jane Wagner, The Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe (1986)

Supplementary and graduate readings:

Joseph Bates, "The Role of Emotion in Believable Agents" (1994)

P. David Lebling, Marc S. Blanc, Timothy A. Anderson., "Zork:A Computerized Fantasy Game". (1979)

Margaret Boden, Artificial Intelligence and Natural Man (1977)

Jorge Luis Borges, "The Garden of Forking Paths" (1941)

Robert Colby, Artificial Paranoia (1975)

Lenny Foner, "Entertaining Agents" (1997)

George Landow, Hypertext 2.0 (1997)

Brenda Laurel, Computers as Theater (1993)

Milorad Pavic, The Dictionary of the Khasars (1988)

Roger Schank and R.P. Abelson. Scripts, Plans, Goals, and Understanding. (1977)

Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy - (1759-67)

Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (1995)

Joseph Weizenbaum, "Eliza-- A Computer Program for the Study of Natural Language Communication between Man and Machine" (1966)

 

Weekly assignments/class participation	20%
Projects I and II	60%
Interactive character contest	20%

Project II can be a new work or a substantial revision/extension of one of the earlier weekly assignments, the interactive character assignment, or Project I.

 

Week	Date	Topic	Read/View	Hand In	In Class Lab
1	T 2/3	Media, Representation, and Story Telling	HOH 1, 2 (Sterne, Tristram Shandy, Books 1 and 2)		HTML intro  HOH resource page
	R 2/5	Properties of Digital Media: Encyclopedic and Spatial	HOH 3
2	T  2/10	Segmentation	Research Web-based Stories (Landow, p. 1-32)	Linked page with commentary on good and bad segmentation	Segmentation Lab Form Groups for Segmentation Assignment
	R 2/12	Labyrinths and Mazes	HOH Ch 5, p. 126-140 only V. Bush, "How we may think" (Borges, "Garden..")
3	no class (Monday  schedule)	Segmentation, Linking, and Navigation	Wagner, Search for Intelligent life (alternate: Pavic,Khasars)
	no class  (group meetings)				student group meetings
4	T 2/24	Segmentation, Linking, and Navigation		Group Segmentation Assignment on Search	Critique of Search exercises
	R 2/26	Immersion	HOH Ch 4
5	T 3/3	Threshold Objects	HOH Ch 5 (all) Research in web stories, games, etc.	Examples of Threshold Objects	Critique of Threshold Objects
	R 3/5	Agency and Transformation	HOH Ch 6 (Turkle, Life, Chapter 7)	Statement of Project One
6	T 3/10	Workshop Project I		Project One Preliminary Screens	Critique of Project One Prelims
	R 3/12	Workshop Project I continued			Critique of Project One Prelims Continued
7	T 3/17	Project I Revisions		Project I Revisions	Present revisions
	R 3/19	Project I Revisions		Project I Final Version Due	Present Revisions
v a c a	t i o n	w e e k	v a c a t i o n	w e e k	v a c a t i o n
8	T 3/31	Properties of Digital Media: Procedural and Participatory	HOH, Ch 7 Propp review HOH Ch 3 (Schank) (Zork essay)	Proppian analysis of a formulaic story genre	Discuss Propp Assignments Learn ELIZA authoring environment
	R 4/2	Procedural Character Creation	HOH, Ch 8 Review HOH Ch 3 Talk to Eliza Prevue Character Maker Program (Weizenbaum, Boden, Colby, Foner, Mauldin, Bates)	Conversation with Eliza
9	T 4/7	Converse with Draft Characters		DRAFT CHARACTER DUE (20 key words)	Converse with one another's Characters
	R 4/9	Eliza Continued
10	T 4/14	4th Annual Eliza Contest	: -- )	FINAL CHARACTER DUE (40 key words, pictures added)	: -- )
	R 4/16	The Future of Digital Narrative	HOH, ch 9,10 (Norman Conquests, optional)
11	T 4/21	Holiday	Meet with JHM this week	Statement of Final Project Due by 4/21	Meet with JHM this week
	R 4/23	Project Review
12	T 4/28	Present Final Project Prelim		Project Prelims Due	Final Project Prelim Critique
	R 4/30	Final Project Prelim Critique			Final Project Prelim Critique
13	T 5/5	Present Final Proj. Full Drafts		Final Project Full Draft Due	Final Project Full Draft Critique
	R 5/7	Critique Full Drafts	Peer Critiques		Final Project Full Draft Critique
14	T 5/12 Th 5/14	No Class; possibly reschedule ...		Final Project Due no later than May 19