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From Issue 1:
Classical Interactive Storytelling By Linda Seger & Carolyn Miller While most scriptwriters have yet to tackle interactive storytelling, they are all aware that it has become increasingly important. How the old relates to the new is the subject of a ‘dialogue’ between Linda Seger and Carolyn Miller, two people ideally suited to demonstrate the differences and similarities between the two types of storytelling. Introduction The storyteller's art is not a static one. It evolves and changes and is continually influenced by other factors - including the evolution of a new storytelling medium. Even if the influence is indirect, a new form of storytelling can have a liberating effect on the more-established ones. This is happening now in screenplay writing: with the birth of video and computer games, CD-ROMs, the Internet and other interactive media, screenwriters are experimenting with their craft and new kinds of films are emerging. At the same time, writers working with these newly-evolving ‘mediums’ are groping to find ways of using them effectively in order to give audiences the satisfaction they crave. Linda: Screenwriting, as an art form, is just over a hundred years old. It has gone through creative surges and changes throughout this past century, evolving the craft and art of writing for the screen. Just as painting moved from realism to new forms such as Cubism and beyond, and music moved from recognizable harmonies to Stravinsky and Varese and beyond, screenwriting is exploring new ways of telling a story. Carolyn: Long before films, of course, storytellers had been plying their craft and experimenting with it. The storyteller's art probably began soon after the birth of language, with a group of stone-age people sitting around the campfire swapping stories about the hunt or about the constellations in the night sky. Storytelling began as an oral form and, as such, it's still with us. Even the most avant-garde stand-up comedian is following in this ancient tradition. New forms of storytelling emerged with theatre, printed books, comic books, film, radio and television. Each time a new storytelling vehicle is born, its early practitioners struggle to find a way to harness it. This is what writers in interactive media are wrestling with now. It can be exhilarating... and it can be agonizing. As I go through my own creative battles in this new arena, I am also aware of the experimentation that's going on in other fields, especially film. Linda: However, so much experimentation doesn't work. Why? Because it's not building on what has been learned in the past. Just as an architect doesn't throw out the walls and roof in order to experiment with new ways of creating a building, so a writer can't succeed by throwing out structure and conflict and relationships. New forms emerge from experimentation with existing building blocks and sometimes by creating new building blocks, and thus continue to find new workable combinations. CONT. in Issue 1. © Linda Seger & Carolyn Miller Dr Linda Seger is an international script consultant, seminar leader and author of numerous books on screenwriting, including Making a Good Script Great, Making a Good Writer Great, Creating Unforgettable Characters, The Art of Adaptation, When Women Call the Shots and From Script to Screen. She teaches all over the world and has begun team-teaching with Carolyn Miller on subjects related to this article. E-mail lsseger@aol.com fax +001 310 398 7541. Carolyn Miller is an Emmy nominated scriptwriter with special expertise in writing and designing interactive projects. Credits include the interactive version of Toy Story as well as numerous other interactive games and dramas. She is on the WGA New Media Committee and is a featured writer in the Interactive Writer’s Handbook. Like Linda she teaches all over the world. www.CarolynMiller.com A version of this article was recently published in Creative Screenwriting.
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