“Narrative Multitasking”

If I am wrong, someone please correct me, but I’ve spent some time pondering soem things I haven’t found much mention of in the literature discussing narrative formation.  I’ve taken to the term “narrative multitasking” as at least a preliminary step to defining narrative phenomena that seem endemic to modern expressive cultures:

1. The ability to tell a story simultaneously across multiple media forms.  This isn’t remarkable in itself, except that these simultaneous retellings often alter elements of the narrative to fit the expressive capabilities of the different modes used.  Sometimes, this means simply emphasizing different aspects of the narrative, depending on whether the mode used is written, visual, or playable.  The distinctions between films and novels have been given a lot of attention now that it’s quite common for movies to be adapted from books (and vice versa).  Games have presented a different problem because the aesthetics, rhetoric, and semiotics of gaming have yet to be firmly established.  Just to taste the potential complexities, read Consalvo and Dutton’s article from Gamestudies (2006), or Stephen Malliet’s article from the same issue.   
2. Narratives are now also responsible for accomodating expectations from their audience that are new and constantly shifting. 

The easy contemporary example of this is the Harry Potter franchise.  It’s misleading to suggest that Rowling is a literary phenomenon just because the books have sold well.  She’s also reaped the benefits of multimedia licenses that have adapted HP into both film and videogames.  The kicker is that the stories told in all three presenations are often never the same.  The compromises made when adapting the story from book to film with both Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix have been a topic of heated debate in HP fandom.  Parts of the GoF film depart so radically from the book (virtually the entirety of the Bartie Crouch, Jr. subplot) that fans questioned how some of the other plot points would be resolved.  My first impression on seeing OotP in the theater last year was to wonder how the films would handle Harry’s coming-of-age saga.  What he learns about his father from Snape’s memory in the Pensieve is a pivotal moment in Harry’s narrative; yet it was incredibly easy to miss in the film version, so much so as to seem thoroughly unimportant.  The moment did not take place within the Pensieve (instead, Harry seemed to reverse the Occlumency spell cast by Snape — something which, frankly, ticked me off), and filmgoers who had not read the book might have been left scratching their head about the scene. 

Then, look at the an example of the visuals from the Chamber of Secrets game:

 (Figure 1, The Weasley Home)

The thoroughly cartoonish treatment overexposes some of the childlike qualities associated with the earlier books in the series, those considered more in line with the constraints of children’s literature.  To be sure, EA is clearly marketing with a very Saturday-morning-cartoons appeal to a target audience they’ve identified mostly as children.   Yet, this emphasis and its operative constraints contrast rather sharply with the emphasis on questions about death and malevolent spirituality prevalent in the book version.  Furthermore, Figure 1 turns the Weasley home into something of a themepark ride as opposed to the symbol of classism, socio-economic hardship, and yet closeknit bonds shared by the family.  Thematically, the books emphasize very adult themes, while the games have usually emphasized the adventure, thus becoming more about entertainment and escape than hard-hitting commentary. 

Even more complicated versions of this dichotomy involve stories like Beowulf.  Last Fall, I taught the Seamus Heaney translation to some first-year students at the University of Evansville just a couple of weeks before the Robert Zemeckis animated film was released in theaters.  Clicking the link and visiting the official Warner Bros. homepage for the film reveal something of the “cheesy sword and sorcery” meme (to borrow a line from a friend and colleague that edits The Black Gate).  The background music from the webpage sounds like it was ripped straight from the Conan movies from the 1980s.  This image comes from the game release:

 

(Figure 2)

Stunning, yes.  Too bad the game scored rather pitifully across most game-media outlets.  It was universally panned for sloppy controls and bad or derivative gameplay.  The reviews were disparaging enough that I’ve avoided it up to this point. 

The trick is that our society seems to accept rather seamlessly these simultaneous retellings of stories.  Henry Jenkins has noted in an interview with Game Informer (I don’t have the publication date available offhand) that young people now expect this phenomenon, that compelling stories are told across multiple media outlets.  What’s the consequence of this?

The most obvious is a redefinition of literacy that shifts from a base within verbal culture to one that combines verbal, visual, and ludic principles, though not always within a single, unified expression, but one diffused through different media, demanding an audience to multitask.  Granted, this has been ongoing for quite a while.  But literacy is inextricably linked to technology in our culture, much like everything else is.  And a piece of technology’s development, implementation, and lifespan often outpace its critical consideration far in advance.  I confront this issue with my students already, and it’s one that I’m working into plans to teach introduction to literature for the coming Fall term at the University of Sothern Indiana.  The nature of the World Cultures cycle is shifting at UE, as well, and I might be able to propose a First-Year Seminar that tackles issues of digital culture.  For my literature course, I’m working in more than the traditional poetry, fiction, and drama that most lit students receive from such an Introductory course.  I’ve also ordered V for Vendetta for my reading list, and I’m brainstorming ways to include at least a day or two concerning videogames.  Luckily, the course will come after the release of both Grand Theft Auto IV and Metal Gear Solid 4, both of which employ strong narrative threads as part of the gameplay experience.  I hope to not just offer my students a fundamentals course on poetic and dramatic tools, but to examine these other visual and interactive forms to see how they are both similar and different from the literature they’ve been taught (with mixed success) all their lives.  If “literature” is about creating a critical awareness of one’s surrounding, then the concept will need to expand beyond an expensive and often barely read Norton Anthology (yes, I am using one of those, too). 

In the writing classroom, I’m confronting the growing realization that some level of multitasking and interactivity are needed, as well — more so than the standard lecture and discussion universities are still built around.  My PS3 will make it into the classroom next semester with me, somehow.  And as I’ve noted in earlier posts, I’ve tested using blogs as a collaborative tool in my teaching this semester for both Writing Workshop (Kentucky Wesleyan College) and World Cultures 120: Emergence of the Modern World (Evansville).  The most immediate success I’ve had is the ability to run discussions beyond classroom-based discourse and that students suddenly take their writing far more seriously when they know it may attract an actual audience.  I will expand my use of this to most of my courses for the Fall, and I might try to incorporate some sort of wiki technology, as well. 

But, I need suggestions, too.  If you have any, let me hear them, please!