Ernest Adams' Dramatic Novelty in Games and Stories

[mmadsen]

In Dramatic Novelty in Games and Stories, Ernest Adams cites this bit from an episode of Red Dwarf:

RIMMER: So there we were at 2:30 in the morning; I was beginning to wish I had never come to cadet training school. To the south lay water - there was no way we could cross that. To the east and west two armies squeezed us in a pincer. The only way was north; I had to go for it and pray the gods were smiling on me. I picked up the dice and threw two sixes. Caldecott couldn't believe it. My go again; another two sixes!

[some time later]

RIMMER: So a six and a three and he came back with a three and a two.

LISTER: Rimmer, can't you tell the story is not gripping me? I'm in a state of non-grippedness, I am completely smegging ungripped. Shut the smeg up.

RIMMER: Don't you want to hear the Risk story?

LISTER: That's what I've been saying for the last fifteen minutes.

RIMMER: But I thought that was because I hadn't got to the really interesting bit.

LISTER: What really interesting bit?

RIMMER: Ah well, that was about two hours later, after he'd thrown a three and a two and I'd thrown a four and a one. I picked up the dice...

LISTER: Hang on Rimmer, hang on... the really interesting bit is exactly the same as the dull bit.

RIMMER: You don't know what I did with the dice though, do you? For all you know, I could have jammed them up his nostrils, head-butted him on the nose and they could have blasted out of his ears. That would've been quite interesting.

LISTER: OK, Rimmer. What did you do with the dice?

RIMMER: I threw a five and a two.

LISTER: And that's the really interesting bit?

RIMMER: Well, it was interesting to me, it got me into Irkutsk.​

I'm pretty sure I've been cornered by Rimmer at the local game store.

 

[mmadsen]

Adams' point:

Two lines in this exchange actually say something quite meaningful about games and stories. Lister says, "the really interesting bit is exactly the same as the dull bit" and later Rimmer says, "well, it was interesting to me, it got me into Irkutsk." Lister is bored to tears with Rimmer's endless story about Risk, and of course to an outside observer, Risk is a dreadfully repetitious game. Rimmer finds it interesting because he was personally involved.
[...]
This repetition is bearable - even exciting - to the players of the game because they are personally involved and every move affects their progress towards victory or defeat.

The reader of a story, on the other hand, is entertained by ongoing novelty. A story should never contain two identical events. Rather, things should happen that the reader didn't anticipate. Characters should express their personalities through their words and actions. This can happen in a big way (melodrama) or in a subtle way (drama). Even if a story takes place between only two characters in one room, it can still contain novelty, as the characters converse and reveal things about themselves, their pasts, and their relationships with each other and third parties. (See the J.D. Salinger short story, "Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut," for a classic example.) Many stage plays, especially modern ones in which there is little change of scenery, work on exactly this principle.​

 

[mearls]

And that also nicely explains the "Here's why my character is so cool..." conversations you run into all the time in game stores, at cons, and so forth.

 

[Mark]

A story should never contain two identical events. Rather, things should happen that the reader didn't anticipate.

Never say, "Never." A second event, identical to a first, might be the least anticipated thing a reader could encounter.

 

[jmucchiello]

Never say, "Never." A second event, identical to a first, might be the least anticipated thing a reader could encounter.

I knew someone would point that out.