Abstract
When a non-interactive story is reread, the experience may change, even though the text remains the same. But what if the text is potentially different in each reading session, as is the case in an interactive story – how does rereading change in the context of interactive stories? In our earlier empirical studies of rereading we found that, surprisingly, readers of interactive stories reported that they do not feel that they are rereading until after they reach an understanding of the story, even if the story is unchanged between readings. To explain this, we propose a model of rereading in interactive stories in which readers are initially rereading to reach some form of closure. After achieving this goal, readers do feel that they are rereading, focusing on their understanding of the story as invariant. We demonstrate this model by using it to explain why inexperienced readers of Mateas and Stern’s Façade initially reread to explore the story, but quickly shift to “playing with the system”, and do not continue to reread for long.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Galef, D.: Observations on rereading. In: Galef, D. (ed.) Second Thoughts: a Focus on Rereading, pp. 17–33. Wayne State University Press (1998)
Mitchell, A., McGee, K.: Limits of rereadability in procedural interactive stories. In: Proc. CHI 2011, pp. 1939–1948. ACM Press (2011)
Mitchell, A., McGee, K.: The paradox of rereading in hypertext fiction. In: Proc. Hypertext 2012, pp. 103–112. ACM Press (2012)
Calinescu, M.: Rereading. Yale University Press (1993)
Aarseth, E.J.: Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. The Johns Hopkins University Press (1997)
Bernstein, M.: Patterns of hypertext. In: Proc. Hypertext 1998, pp. 21–29. ACM Press (1998)
Bernstein, M.: On hypertext narrative. In: Proc. Hypertext 2009, pp. 5–14. ACM Press (2009)
Bernstein, M., Joyce, M., Levine, D.: Contours of constructive hypertexts. In: Proc. Hypertext 1992, pp. 161–170. ACM (1992)
Selig, R.L.: The endless reading of fiction: Stuart Moulthrop’s hypertext novel ”Victory Garden”. Contemporary Literature 41(4), 642–660 (2000)
Peacock, A.: Towards an aesthetic of ’the interactive’. Digital Creativity 12(4), 237–246 (2001)
Harpold, T.: Links and their vicissitudes: Essays on hypertext. PhD thesis, University of Pennsylvania (1994)
Douglas, J.Y.: The End of Books - or Books Without End? Reading Interactive Narratives. University of Michigan Press (2001)
Mateas, M.: A preliminary poetics for interactive drama and games. Digital Creativity 12(3), 140–152 (2001)
Murray, J.H.: Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. The MIT Press (1998)
Mitchell, A.: Motivations for Rereading in Interactive Stories: A Preliminary Investigation. In: Aylett, R., Lim, M.Y., Louchart, S., Petta, P., Riedl, M. (eds.) ICIDS 2010. LNCS, vol. 6432, pp. 232–235. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
Mitchell, A., McGee, K.: Rereading in Interactive Stories: Constraints on Agency and Procedural Variation. In: Si, M., Thue, D., André, E., Lester, J.C., Tanenbaum, J., Zammitto, V. (eds.) ICIDS 2011. LNCS, vol. 7069, pp. 37–42. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)
Mateas, M., Stern, A.: Procedural authorship: A case-study of the interactive drama Façade. In: Proc. Digital Arts and Culture, DAC 2005 (2005)
Magerko, B., Laird, J.E., Assanie, M., Kerfoot, A., Stokes, D.: AI characters and directors for interactive computer games. In: 16th Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference, pp. 877–883 (2004)
Riedl, M., Young, R.: From linear story generation to branching story graphs. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 26(3), 23–31 (2006)
Nelson, M.J., Mateas, M.: Another look at search-based drama management. In: Proc. AAMAS 2008, pp. 1293–1298 (2008)
Dow, S., Mehta, M., Harmon, E., MacIntyre, B., Mateas, M.: Presence and engagement in an interactive drama. In: Proc. CHI 2007, pp. 1475–1484. ACM Press (2007)
Knickmeyer, R.L., Mateas, M.: Preliminary evaluation of the interactive drama Facade. In: CHI 2005 Extended Abstracts, pp. 1549–1552. ACM Press (2005)
Milam, D., Seif El-Nasr, M., Wakkary, R.: Looking at the Interactive Narrative Experience through the Eyes of the Participants. In: Spierling, U., Szilas, N. (eds.) ICIDS 2008. LNCS, vol. 5334, pp. 96–107. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)
Magerko, B.: Evaluating preemptive story direction in the interactive drama architecture. Journal of Game Development 2(3), 25–52 (2007)
Ginsburg, H.P.: Entering the Child’s Mind: The Clinical Interview in Psychological Research and Practice. Cambridge University Press (1997)
Carroll, N.: Narrative closure. Philosophical Studies 135, 1–15 (2007)
Ryan, M.L.: From narrative games to playable stories: Towards a poetics of interactive narrative. Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies 1, 43–59 (2009)
Gerrig, R.J.: Suspense in the absence of uncertainty. Journal of Memory and Language 28(6), 633–648 (1989)
Leavitt, J., Christenfeld, N.: Story spoilers don’t spoil stories. Psychological Science 22(9), 1152–1154 (2011)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Mitchell, A., McGee, K. (2012). Reading Again for the First Time: A Model of Rereading in Interactive Stories. In: Oyarzun, D., Peinado, F., Young, R.M., Elizalde, A., Méndez, G. (eds) Interactive Storytelling. ICIDS 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7648. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34851-8_20
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34851-8_20
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-34850-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-34851-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)