Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling (8 page)

The second paragraph of the opening quotation includes these bloopers:

Interactivity is a continuing increase in participation.
This statement is flat-out nonsense. Is a “continuing increase in participation” like dancing faster and faster? Or better and better? Or singing louder and louder? If you figure out what it means, please tell me.

It’s a bidirectional communication conduit.
As written, this sentence is silly; a length of copper wire in your telephone wiring is a bidirectional communication conduit. If you indulge the sloppy English, however, you can glean some indication that interactivity involves bidirectional communication, and this is indeed correct.

It’s a response to a response.
Not quite. The response itself is not the interaction; the interaction comprises the entire chain of responses and counter-responses.

It’s “full-duplex.”
This statement is misleading; the correct term would be “duplex.” Any duplex communication is bidirectional and so meets the intent of the metaphor. Full-duplex communication permits simultaneous transmission in both directions, rather like two people talking at the same time. Half-duplex communication requires one side to shut up while the other side talks. Hence, half-duplex communication is just as sufficient for interactivity as full-duplex.

Interaction is a relationship.
This statement is so stark, so lacking in further explanation or specification of the nature of the relationship, that it can be accepted only as a poetic expression; it certainly conveys nothing of any utility.

It’s good sex. It’s bad conversation.
It’s true that both sex and conversation are interactions, but assigning values of good and bad to them confuses the matter with irrelevant distinctions.

It’s indeterminate behavior, and it’s redundant result.
This is drivel. It says nothing—but it sure sounds erudite, doesn’t it?

It’s many things, none of which can be done alone.
The first clause might be improved with a tad more specificity, but the second clause does have some value. It says that interaction requires two agents, and that requirement shows up in my own definition.

Interaction is a process that dictates communications. It can also be a communication that dictates process.
As a writer, I am offended by the sacrifice of clarity to cuteness. The use of the verb “dictates” is particularly unfortunate, as it’s unclear whether the subject provides the content of the direct object or merely militates the action the direct object specifies. Why is the first sentence absolute and the second sentence tentative? And what relationship between process and communication do these sentences imply? I sure can’t tell.

It provides options, necessitates a change in pace, and changes you as you change it.
It’s true that options are a factor in one step of the process of interaction, but the first clause gives no idea of how those options fit into the bigger picture. This first clause sounds to me rather like the statement “A computer has wires.” Yeah, right—so what? The second clause falls outside the pale of relevant comment. What pace is the author talking about here? Why is the pace changed? Does it increase or decrease? Just what does this clause say? The third clause is equally pointless. Interactivity changes you, but every experience changes you. Staring at the wall changes you. Falling on your face changes you. Reading dreck changes you.

I have taken up your time trashing this piece because it represents a school of thought that I regard with alarm and disdain. This school approaches interactive storytelling in much the same manner that a married man regards his mistress: as a plaything, a toy not to be taken seriously. The hallmark of this school is long-winded phrasing and polysyllabic terminology that pretends to erudition through obscurity. Sloppy reasoning, slovenly wording, and the subordination of logic to cleverness are intellectual crimes.

So, with the hope of appearing dreckless, I offer this definition of interactivity:

A cyclic process between two or more active agents in which each agent alternately listens, thinks, and speaks.

In this definition, the terms “listen,” “think,” and “speak” must be taken metaphorically. A computer doesn’t listen in the strict sense of the term, but it does listen to its mouse and keyboard, metaphorically speaking. It may not speak, but it does something operationally similar when it displays output on its screen. And, of course, a computer never thinks in the true sense of the word, but it does process data, or calculate. I suppose I could have used the terms “accepts input,” “processes input,” and “outputs results,” but those terms are just as narrow-mindedly computerish as the earlier description’s terms are narrow-mindedly humanistic. With this proviso for the broader sense of the terms “listen,” “think,” and “speak,” the definition is a clear statement of exactly what constitutes interactivity.

The value of this definition lies in its reference to conversation, a well-known form of interaction. Our experiences with conversation offer useful guidance in software design. Obviously, the overall quality of a conversation depends on the particular quality with which each step (listening, thinking, and speaking) is carried out. Even more important is the way those three qualities combine. Many people assume that maximizing the quality of each step is all that’s required to achieve the maximum quality of interactivity, but the truth is a bit more subtle.

Consider: The overall quality of a conversation doesn’t depend on the isolated qualities of each step—each step must be executed well if the conversation is to succeed. Can you recall conversations in which your interlocutors weren’t listening to your words? In such cases, no matter how refined their thinking or eloquent their speaking, the conversations were an utter loss because without good listening, the interaction is ruined. In the same fashion, I’m sure you can recall conversations with people who were just too stupid to understand your point— and these conversations were just as frustrating and pointless as the previous type. Last, you can also recall conversations with a tongue-tied, inarticulate clod who simply couldn’t rub two words together to save his life. Again, the conversations were failures because without quality in that third step—speaking—the quality of the first two steps didn’t matter.

Therefore, Lesson #7 presents a fundamental and rarely appreciated rule of good interactivity.

My definition rejects a number of phenomena mistakenly held to be interactive. For example, reaction, no matter how intense, is not the same as interaction. If you’re watching a great movie, and your heart is pounding with excitement and your fingers trembling with emotion, you’re still not interacting with the movie because it’s not listening to what you are saying, nor is it thinking about anything. It is only speaking. It speaks well and powerfully—that’s good! But it is not interacting.

Not so! The viewer engages in active interpretation of the movie and, therefore, is not in a passive role.

This argument confuses the active/passive dichotomy with the interactive/reactive dichotomy. Reaction still has action inside it, but that doesn’t make it interaction. The audience can actively think, but that doesn’t change the fact that the movie
isn’t
thinking. The relationship between the movie and the audience is fundamentally one-sided: The movie does all the speaking, and the audience does all the listening and thinking. The audience does not
act on
the movie; it merely
reacts to
the movie.

“Interaction” requires that the “action” be “inter” (between or among) the agents. If the action all goes in one direction, it’s not “inter”; it’s “re.”

I belabor this point because so many people balk at it. Perhaps they are influenced by the current status of “interactivity” as the latest buzzword and the implication that interactivity is somehow “New! Better! Hot! Cool!” My declaration that movies are not interactive becomes, by implication, an assertion that
they are “Old! Worse! Tepid!”—a suggestion that any knowledgeable person would reject. Hence, people reject the notion that movies aren’t interaction.

Let me set this matter straight: I am not denigrating movies. I like movies. Some of my best friends are movies. I take a movie out to lunch every year on D.W. Griffith’s birthday. Cinema is a highly developed medium that does its job very well. But we must render unto Caesar; every medium has its strengths and weaknesses. Movies aren’t interactive, and interactive storytelling will never have the highly polished internal structure that movies have. They are two different media.

All great artists have some special insight that gives their work profundity. A brilliant composer has an inner ear that can judge the feel of music. A painter has an eye for form, shape, and color. A deep insight into the language gives a top-notch writer the ability to come up with the perfect phrase. In the same way, the interactive artist needs a special kind of insight, an artistic acuity few others share. I call that acuity
second-person insight
. It’s the ability to think primarily in terms of how an expression will be perceived by the audience.

But every artist worries about how an expression will be perceived by the audience!

True, but this isn’t an artist’s primary concern. An expository artist’s main task is to get the expression right in the first place. A writer prepares a first draft and then attempts to reread it from the reader’s point of view. In other words, the primary emphasis is on the expression itself, and only secondary emphasis is on the audience’s perception. An artist whose work isn’t understood by the masses doesn’t seek the nearest tree with noose in hand. Whether it’s a play, a painting, a movie, a novel, or a poem, if people don’t understand it, that’s their problem, not the artist’s.

This is true for fine artists, but entertainers cater to the tastes of their audiences. What difference is there between the second-person insight you talk about and the sensitivity to the audience intrinsic to any good entertainer?