Creating interactive fiction as a medium of digital storytelling: a creative investigation of computer-based narrative construction

Abstract

The dawn of the internet brought about a multitude of possibilities in the realm of storytelling. This meant utilizing digital-centric platforms to create stories that would enable the end-user to interact with them on digital interfaces. In the same vein, the advent of digital platforms opened more doors for creators to find interesting and innovative ways to create stories that broke the mold and provided new avenues of interpretation and exploration. Interactive fiction is one aspect of digital storytelling that gained momentum by opening channels for interactivity. The research explores interactive fiction storytelling through the lens of computer-based software program tools Twine, Ren’Py and hosted website domain to determine how the core tenets of interactive storytelling influence the experiences of both the user and creator, and to what degree. The core tenets to be explored in the research are divided into two areas: end-user specific tenets – Immersion, Integration, Interactivity, Impact - and author/creator tenets – Narrative Structure, Authoring Tools, Output Media, and Interface. I derived the end-user specific tenets from digital storytelling specialist Simon Heyes who laid out the core principles of digital storytelling. I extrapolated the author/creator tenets from SeokKyoo Kim, SungHyun Moon and SangYong Han who are specialists in the area of computer-based narrative construction systems and structures. These tenets form the framework of the research. The premise of this research is adopting a creative practice approach to delve into the creative investigation of computer-based narrative construction by creating interactive fiction as a medium of digital storytelling.