Narratology is the study of narrative structure and function. It seeks to understand the basic components of stories, how they are arranged and structured, the different media used to tell stories, the various purposes stories serve, and how stories evolve over time and place. The document defines narratology as including narrative arcs, universal causal patterns called narremes that advance the story, and themes that provide meaning beyond just representing events. Narratology is important for game design as it allows games to model storytelling conventions from other media and provide gamers with a narrative to follow through the game.

1. Narratology

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3. The Oxford definition of Narratology
• The branch of knowledge or criticism that
deals with the structure and function of
narrative and its themes, conventions, and
symbols.

4. My definition
• Narratology is driven by the realization that
our lives and stories don’t fit into that
traditional pyramid of beginning, middle, and
end dramatic structure.

5. • On one end of the narrative spectrum lies a
mere representational sequence of events
that may or may not have a beginning, middle,
and end (an Arc). At the opposite end lies
Story, with an Arc, an indivisible and universal
structural pattern called a Narreme, and
meaning over and beyond the mere
representational (a Theme).

6. • Story = Arc+Narreme+Theme
• 1.Narremes—individual causal patterns of events, universally
understood across cultures, that advance a story through its Arc.
Narremes are like skeletons. Without them, our narratives
collapse into mere heaps of events!
• 2.Arc—the three (or sometimes five) quickening and slowing
phases of a story usually referred to as Beginning/Middle/End or
Beginning/Rising Action/Climax/Falling Action/Ending. Arc is the
broad container within which all other components of a
narrative flow.

7. Narratology seeks to discover:
• What the basic components (forms) are of stories,
• How those basic components are arranged (structure),
• The various media that are used to create and deliver
stories,
• The uses that different individuals, groups, institutions,
societies, and cultures have for stories (functions), and
• The ways that stories and the meanings that stories
express change over time and from place to place
(history and evolution).

8. • Narratology is storytelling rhetoric; a game from this point of view analyses it as a narrative
format. The closer the game narrative gets to a film or book narrative the higher quality it
is.For games that want to tell a story, this comparison is useful and important. If designers are
modelling the conventions after other media, should games be analysed in the same fashion?

9. In summary:
I have found that Narratology is very important
to the gaming industry because it gives the
game a narrative in which to follow which will
keep the gamer more involved because if they
don’t have a narrative to follow then it will make
no sense, furthermore it is used to develop a
relationship with their avatar