Part i
People are talking. Dialogue is the very essence of human communication. One personality comes across another one. Each of them is the medium of subjective reality. The collision of those realities serves as a jumping-off point for the meeting with Another. And above all, it allows one to get to know yourself.
Dramaturgy compiles statements of dialogue participants and extracts new concepts from their interaction. Selected speech lines are a narrative tool. As a sacrifice for storytelling, a dramaturgist has to cut all the rudimentary parts of a dialogue: mundanity, banality. This ‘speech montaging’ is archivable in linear narratives (such as on the movie screen or theater stage), having a power of control over the time.
In the case of Character-based Interactive Storytelling (CBIS), the main idea behind this genre is an audience interaction. For this reason, time is not under the author’s sway. First purpose of Interactive Narratives is giving to an audience (later on will be defined as an actant[1]) freedom of being co-creator. In that type of narrative, dialogue will look more like real time conversation, containing multivariance of probable outcomes. Сonsequently, an actant is unable to conceive the whole meaning of the dramaturgy, while being a part of it. Dramaturgist in CBIS plays the gamemaster role. As a sophisticated provocateur, he/she skillfully places psychological ‘traps’. For him/her the dialogue is a method, helping to imagine the whole picture with outlined possible scenarios, as well as the story’s dilemma.
Dialogue.Communication.
Proceeding from P.Grice[2] maxims we will try to define a dependency between the dialogue creation in CBIS and cooperative principles brought from speech communication theory.
Maxim of quality
Supermaxim
Try to make your contribution one that is true.
Submaxims
Do not say what you believe is false.
Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
The character is a function of fictional CBIS. Which means that any disinformation will be considered as a positive action, if that one does cooperate with the story development.
Playing its role, the character can lie, talk without taking into account some important facts or vapour about imaginary events. In this case, the subjectivity of story characters becomes the sum and substance of their temper. In other words, in dramaturgy, an obstinate following the maxim of quality (in an attempt to make the action life-like) can turn the dialogue with an actant to a robotized exchange of practical information.
Maxim of quantity
Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange).
Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
As well as the maxim of quality, the principle of quantity will depend on the story’s dramaturgy. Conflict in the story itself and main challenges, prepared for an actant, already conclude this maxim.
Sullen, untalkative character as surely as the chatty one, are the narrative part. Let’s imagine the meeting with the first character type, where the initial challenge for an actant will be getting information. if that challenge (the mission on the current level) was set correctly, then an actant will be trying to get a confession from the character, in order to receive the correct answer. In such a dialogue an actant is endowed with the chance to show his communication skills.
Another example of feedback, when the character is so talkative, that won't let an actant get a word in. This case can also work as a trigger: an actant will be trying to avoid communication with such a character or find a way to calm him down.
In both cases, the maxim of information quantity can be used by a dramaturgist as a psychological motivation for an actant to take a part of the storytelling.
Maxim of relation (or relevance)
Be relevant.
Certainly, the possibility of free real time conversation itself will provoke an actant to commit sabotage. Asking questions which are not related to the main story theme will destroy the dialogue’s dramaturgy. As well as such a conversation can continue endlessly, the author’s concept with its super-objective stops functioning within uncontrolled interaction. Here elaborative questions come to rescue. They become the most important part of the dialogue dynamics. A character will continue its speech with a counter-question (touching the most important conflict of the current action) whatever the answer for the actant’s question is.
Besides, an actant in CBIS is the protagonist, an immediate participant of the story. He is offered a role that he needs to keep during the whole performance. This role should be exhibited at the beginning of a story (before an actant starts an interaction) and continued until the end of the storytelling. In addition, a personal task or an actant, which was set correctly, will anticipate his meeting with a character. In other words, an actant should know his mission before going into an action. In this case, an actant is able to understand a character’s share and make a choice based on his personal point of view.
Maxim of manner
Supermaxim
Be perspicuous.
Submaxims
Avoid obscurity of expression.
Avoid ambiguity.
Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
Be orderly.
Maxim of manner can be indicated as a chronometer. Displaying the flow of time is essential for the dialogue based storytelling. Dialogue needs to be finalized as an action, whether an actant has received the sought information or not. In addition, time countdown is crucial for the sense of presence.
Through the agency of one central concept (which is the base for character’s role in the story) in dialogue can be established conventional author’s time control. Under existing conditions, the maxim of manner can find an application as the call for active action.
Maxim of manner contradicts the ability to improvise during a dialogue and the natural way of speaking. The character speech will look much more convincing by recalling something, what was not said before, illuminated by a sudden idea. Ambiguity and obscurity of expression can puzzle or intrigue an actant. As any kind of puzzle, unspoken words will fuel the actant’s interest in the story conflict.