Title: Aristotle’s Storytelling Framework for Interactive Products
Context: Remember that time in college that you read of Aristotle’s “Poetics”? Yeah me neither. But here is a pretty good – and contextually relevant – crash course for you.
Synopsis: Just about every good story you’ve ever read, heard or indeed, told, follows a universal human archetype for communicating shared meaning and context between people who may have little to no perceivable relationship either culturally, geographically or temporally. Yet the amazing thing is that stories, when told effectively, transcend these obstacles and lose none of their power in transmission. Maybe we are all just hardwired to assimilate data that has been constructed in a particular way. Fortunately, at least for professional purposes, neurobiology is rarely our concern. No, what we need to understand is the process for developing these compelling narratives that project an ultimately plausible vision in an engaging fashion so as to draw people towards the acceptance of that vision. Once you’ve got that down, the rest is gravy.
Best Bit: “As soon as you have defined the plot you start working on the characters. These are the personalities that play a central role in the story. These can be people, animals or even objects. The primary characters are the ‘heroes of the story whose actions determine the plot of the story.’”
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