Branching narrative
From The Learning Engineer's Knowledgebase
Branching narrative is a form of text display and reading that is affected solely by the decisions of the reader. At multiple junctions while reading, a user makes a decision on what to pursue in a story. As a result, the story unfolds in different ways based on the reader's decisions. The narrative is considered branching as it resembles a tree that branches out into multiple independent branches from a single trunk.
Definition
A branching narrative is an interactive text where the text branches off into multiple directions based on decisions made by the reader at each branch location. The ending of the narrative for one reader can thus be different than another reader's ending. Branching narrative often makes use of computer databases and hypertext to create branching decision points for readers.
Branching narrative is also called a branching tree of text. Branching narrative is considered a nonlinear form of reading text, as the result can change with each reading of the material.
Additional Information
Branching narratives are often used in adventure or choose-your-own-outcome games where the player controls the decisions involved in the story. At each junction or decision node, the reader will make a decision, which forces the story to go down that particular branch to the next node. After four or five decisions, different readers could be quite distant from one another on the narrative tree.
One common difficulty in developing branching narrative in comparison to linear narrative is that each of the narrative's possible branches needs to be written ahead of time and planned out before the product is used. This often requires the author to plan for multiple endings to the story (represented as nodes), as well as numerous intermediary decision nodes and events for the reader to make decisions. Each node must have a piece of text, as the whole branching narrative is ideally part of a seamless story. Thus, writing a branching narrative can take far longer than writing a traditional linear story.
Branching narrative is often characterized by its higher level of interactivity on part of the reader while they are experiencing the story in comparison to traditional texts. The reader actively makes decisions related to the story, which will affect how the story continues. This increased interactivity can promote higher levels of investment in the story on part of the reader and can increase interest and engagement as the reader discovers that their decisions matter. In addition, readers have increased value in re-reading a branching narrative, as they can achieve a different outcome each time they read it if they make different decisions.
Technology has improved the ability for authors to write branching narratives and include them in educational experiences and apps. In fact, an entire genre of videogames exists through the telling of branching and non-linear stories, often called visual novels or interactive fiction. Many of the principles in these types of branching games have been applied to educational media and products. Software like Twine and Quest are open source tools for composing interactive fiction and branching narratives.
In educational contexts, learners not only benefit from the higher levels of engagement by reading branching narratives, but they can also create their own branching narratives as a part of a learning activity. In fields where creative thinking and writing are desired, the use of branching narrative can be a highly engaging learning activity for learner compositions.
Branching narrative can be compared to technologies that use procedural generation to create text based on decisions. Instead of having each node supplied with predetermined text, a generative or procedural approach actively creates new text based on a computer algorithm or set of instructions.
Tips and Tricks
- Consider how a multiple-ending story could be useful for communicating content and helping people learn, especially if they can choose the paths that the story takes. Using branching narrative in your educational product could increase the interactivity and interest in text materials, especially story-based texts.
- Brainstorm all of the possible endings that you would want your story to have, as well as all of the variations on each of those endings. A branching narrative does not have to be an exponentially increasing tree, but will need to have multiple endings. Considering how many endings and how many midpoint decisions that the reader will directly influence how long it takes to write the story for each node.
- Branching narratives take substantially longer to plan and write than conventional narrative text. Consider the extra effort that would be required to write branching narratives if you are going to use them in your project.
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