Sometimes a "Story" Isn't a Story at All: Blog #5

Focusing on the section entitled “Computer Scientists as Storytellers” in Chapter 2 of Janet Murray’s book, Hamlet on the Holodeck; I am almost disturbed by the prospect of stories no longer truly being stories. Yes, the interactive quality is interesting in its use as a videogame. I do want to be able to “sense” flying in "Placeholder," but I am leery of being so completely inured in a story through the tactile that I am able to change the outcome (Murray 61).

Towards the end of the section, Murray describes what a movie might be like in the year 2097 with all the various techno gadgets included that she describes previously in the section. She envisions a Holodeck like quality, but I do not see the outcome as that. In the Holodeck Janeway is playing a character in a set story. She steps into a role. She can feel all the things the character would feel, but she doesn’t have effect on the story itself. Murray’s “holodeck” is different: “We would be able to move the images,” “We would meet characters within this world who would sense our presence and converse with us,” “We would enter the story, and the plot would change according to our actions” (Murray 63). This description is not really of a story so much as of a virtual reality. Stories have specific beginnings, middles, and endings which require only the specific characters given. If some random Joe Schmoe steps into the story and does not take up the role of one of these specified characters, then it is no longer a story. What happens is the same as me walking into a historic romance novel dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and my women’s equality attitude; this spells disaster, not interactive story.

Somehow, I am irritated by the possibility of my film experience denigrating into Murray’s vision. I don’t want to tell the story; I want to be told the story. If I wanted to be in control of what was happening in a virtual setting, then I wouldn’t watch a movie or read a book I would play an open-ended RPG. I take no issue with adding tactile experiences to a set story. I feel that is the same as surround sound in the movie theater. I don’t even mind feeling as though I am really in the setting. 3-D glasses attempted to do the same thing. I simply do not feel Murray is still describing a story when the story changes based on my existence within its boundaries. I want to be immersed, but I do not want to be in control. Movies, books, and videogames for pleasure are traditionally used as escapism. I cannot escape if I am still required to make decisions.

These are separate types of entertainment. When I want to choose where to go and what to do in a setting outside the one I live in, I play a video game. When I want to simply experience or imagine, I read or watch fiction. Personally, I do not think these things can commingle and maintain the title of story or game. Murray's vision is something new and should be categorized as such.

The closest thing I can compare this to from my personal experience is the Role Playing option in World of Warcraft. You can choose to create a character on one of their RP servers. The idea is that everyone on the server wishes to Role-Play constantly and they get irritated if you break out of character, because it ruins the experience for others.

Hannah Marney got me try this with her. She has a love of text-based RPGs, so this option created images for her to associate with her role-playing. I could never get the hang of it, specifically because of the reasons I outlined above. She felt like she was writing her own story and enjoyed doing so. It was as if it still unfolded without her prior knowledge, accept she knew what she intended to do herself; however, since she played with other living “characters,” what was going to happen remained unknown.

I did not particularly care for this type of “storytelling.” I was required to come up with witty things to say, actions to emote, and a personality to act out. I had to write an entire life for a person that would never exist for anyone else. There was no way for me to compare my perception of my character to someone else’s perception of my character, since mine was the only one that existed or mattered. The procedural nature of the character design allowed me to say “No, my character would never do that,” and so she never did.

This is so different from discussing how someone else views Shakespeare’s Hamlet as a character. Anyone who has read Hamlet knows what Hamlet did, knows what Hamlet thought about doing, and watched his inner turmoil change him. He was not a flat character. My WoW character is flat. Perhaps that is the major issue. If you step into a story world and are not a character in the story, you are flat and 2-D no matter how many tactiles you have to tell your brain otherwise. Murray herself describes something similar when she discusses playing in the ALIVE program at MIT. She cannot fully accept the virtual reality of the situation in the “magic mirror” because she sees herself in the mirror, in her own “ordinary clothes” (Murray 62). It required being able to watch someone else interacting with the ALIVE characters for the virtual reality to really work. The voyeur aspect is a major part of any good story. People want to be in the story as someone else, or not at all.


Murray, Janet H. Hamlet on the Holodeck. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1997.