Story vs Plot vs Narrative - Digital Hindsight #5

Learn the basic difference between Story, Plot and Narrative, some common problems among them, and how they apply to games.

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Sources:
-Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms (I think this one is better)
-Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms

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[HighLevelReviews]

Love it. These distinctions need to be more thoroughly explored and explained outside of academic settings and literary theory texts.

Anecdotally, I tend to notice people conflating narrative forms with plot points. It can be tricky for the more inventive forms but a beginner's guide of sorts is much needed. Good stuff!

[YoMamaBih]

Thanks for this. We need to hear your voice more often, you know, outside of the great Recapitation series.

[Chinnybon]

I remember trying to explain this to my English teacher when I was 16, but you are so much better at it than I was.

[cliffordpierrelouis]

This was a great video and very educational, your channel is one of the better ones I've stumbled upon in recent memory. Keep up the great work.

[jhodder]

originally subscribed for the recapitations, but I like the idea of hearing more about fixing narratives in games that didn't execute them well. You seem to know what you're talking about, and I look forward to hearing more.

Personally, I did like the story and plot of Final Fantasy 13, mainly because I thought the setting had a lot of potentials. If anything I didn't like the sequels for taking it in entirely different directions when the Fal'Cie and L'Cie had potential without all the time travel and pocket dimensions.

[ericmarsh]

It might be a tall order, but "What happened in Final Fantasy XI? (RECAPitation)" would be an amazing feat. Might have to be split into numerous videos to cover the various aspects of the story within the game, though.

Anywho, you produce awesome material and have wonderful insights! Kudos and thank you for your work!

[walenta]

I feel like this is the third unique story/plot distinction I’ve heard - first it was story as the characters’ journeys with the plot as a series of events, and then it was story as what happens with plot being how the story is presented (i.e., fabula and syuzhet). The latter is sort of similar to the distinction you make between story and narrative, I think, but not quite the same. Interesting, though

[timothyharwood]

Thank you for this video! I often have trouble explaining why I like certain fictions as much as do to my friends and others. The reason for this is some of my favorite works of fiction tend to have a plot that is seperate from the story through narrative with the narrative focused either mostly or solely on the progression of the story. This often has the effect of making most of the events of the story appear to be random, unrelated, and happen without apparent reason. The progression of these types of plots tends to happen outside what is directly explained via the direct narrative. Leaving the reader to look beyond the information that was given to piece together the true nature of the plot on their own accord. These types of fictions won't make sense unless you pay attention to every minute and unimportant detail that would otherwise go unnoticed and tend not to give any indication that you should. Often plotholes as they relate to the events of the story will fill each other when logically connected to a separate plothole of completely different and unrelated event a connection that you will often have to make yourself. Personally, I love this kind of thing and I love piecing together a seemingly broken plot or story just to be blown away by how well thought out and connected everything is even though it doesn't appear to be. The biggest problem with this kind of fiction is if you don't recognize the plot for being focused on that kind of "psuedo-narrative" then it will never make sense often leaving people to conclude that the story is aimless and pointless with real direction. I hope that this video will help people to understand my particular fondness for these types of fiction.

I apologize for any poor grammar or mixing of the terms story, plot, and narrative. To be honest it's 3:00 am and I'm using my phone but I wanted to leave a comment giving my thoughts as well as thank you for the video. Just out curiosity did that all make sense the way I explained it?

[Diademic]

thank you.. taking a digital narrative course and found this video very helpful.. cheers

[justrashaad]

@Oni Black Mage
I like Final Fantasy 13 and 13-2 despite its Narrative/Story/Plot problems. I like the ending of Final Fantasy: Lightning Returns, and the development of multiple characters in the game. Those are the three games that come to mind when I think of games with story that have some problems. A game I haven't played but have seen the story of is Tokyo Mirage Sessions, I like the story/narrative/plot despite the problems every critic says it has.

[orateusdijin]

WOW my literature teachers never went this in-depth with plot, story, or narrative. Thank you for giving me more hindsight, on this subject. Also, were you a writer before you started youtube; or not.

PS: could review galerians:ash, it a very weird horror game.

[Aristile]

Good video black mage. For this comment i'll use the terms you laid out in the vid as you defined them.

From my experience there's no such thing a "Perfect" story. Stories are made of individuals, and we do not have the 500+ years to sit through the backstory of each character from their birth until now. Because of this, almost every story will have some character or setting weak in plot at some point. Keep in mind, plot is a lot more subjective than narrative because not everyone is going to like every setting or character for personal reasons.

Remember Boba Fett in Star Wars? When Return of the Jedi came out, we had no clue why he was doing the things he was other than the super common and weak hand-wave of "He's a mercenary". Despite having one of the weakest plots of any character, he still gained a HUGE fan following because of how he was put into the narrative.

Narrative I find is much easier to get right. The part of the narrative concerning story consistency can almost be quantifiably measured instead of being subjective. So it's much easier to tell when a narrative is starting to fall on it's face.

In the Boba Fett Example, people LOVE him because of how he would move, how his posture and body language portrayed his attitude, how he fought and used his weapons, and how his visual design made him stand out.

The Nasuverse of type moon is another example of GREAT narrative, but sometimes downright horrible plots. Fate/Hollow Atraxia is absolutely criminal when it comes to this. It drops the ball all the time when it comes to character motivations, but the actual narrative that those characters are driving is so interesting and fun that you don't care.

The closest story I've ever seen to being perfect is "G-Senjou no Maou". Every question about the story that you could possibly ask will be answered if you play through all the routes, and you understand perfectly why everyone does what they do. From the big bad to the protagonist (who tells the story from first person). The only thing that stops it from being perfect is how one plot point of the ending is handled, but it's really just a nit pick. I strongly recommend this visual novel, it's a bit pricey for a VN at $20 (USA) on steam for the version with no voice acting, and $40 with voice acting (Japanese Voices Only, there is no English dub). I recommend giving this one a shot, it's a great 35+ hours of reading.

Edit: grammar

[EXHellfire]

Most people only use two terms, plot and lore. Plot being what happens and lore being what defines the stage for what happens. This works, too, though

[literaryartist]

I'm pulling out my hair here. So NARRATIVE ARC is the same as PLOT but Narrative is how its told? Plot is just the specific events? I'm getting a headache

[maclen]

I beg to differ with plot and narrative. I believe plot represents how something happens. For instance, if a king dies then what are the events leading up to his death? Did he die of old age or was he overthrown? If overthrown was it a single act or a conspiracy? Was he poisoned or stabbed to death. Plot deals with the details of the story and how the king died. Narrative deals with the emotional aspect that binds the plot to the story to gain some sort of response from the audience and to establish a somewhat perspective for the viewer. Each narrative form has its pros and cons and can tell the same story and plot points differently by removing a perspective or delving into one. It basically removes or expands the emotional state of the viewer such as a tunnel vision that can be manipulated by the creator. Just my thoughts though.

[SongoftheLute]

If you ever make a special video about ff13's narrative I would be really interested in watching it.

[mahoiwata]

I never knew the difference between story and plot and always used the two words interchangeably and I believe many do the same. However, I did know about the 3 aspects of what how and why. I think there are to others that do too, but don't know the actual word of it.

Still, It is a good video that give a short summary of the terms that is relatively clear. I think it would have been better if you used one game example to explain the different terms.

[windy]

Came here to know what exactly to cite is the issue with TLOU:PII's writing.
Where you get the definitions from?

[nataliaturner]

I'm not an expert, but I've been watching tons of tutorials on screenwriting/storytelling in general, and I disagree with how you've categorized them. As I've come to understand it, narrative=what(events), plot = how (causality), story=why (character motives).

[refundreplay]

I'd glanced over and seen you have a Xenogears video. Immediately subbed.