Single/multiple threads - have you been watching Boomtown lately? It shows a story through the eyes of several people. Showing such a thing is very hard to do in film, but a natural for VR fiction. In VR fiction just the one sequence would play out, but the viewer would be able to start over to watch it again and again from different points of view.
Linear/nonlinear - a conventional film or book is a linear narrative. If you visit a piece of VR fiction like a ghost, able to wander about invisibly watching events unfold, yet unable to affect the course then that is a linear story. If you can interact with the story, usually by directing one or more characters within the story, then that becomes nonlinear -- the story branches out into many possibilities.
Deterministic/nondeterministic - if you have written every action into the story and know exactly how it will come out -- even if it is nonlinear and have mapped out all the possible actions and written out their consequences -- then that is a deterministic story. If you use chance and randomness, or inbuilt logic to respond naturally to the interacting user, and guide the story then that is nondeterministic.
You can combine degrees of any of these -- from a totally controlled story which has a single viewpoint like a film that plays out exactly the same way each time, to a completely chaotic experiment where the artist creates a world of artificial lifeforms which are affected by visitors and simply sets it running and growing. There are infinite other possibilities in between.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2003-03-11 06:55 pm (UTC)You can combine degrees of any of these -- from a totally controlled story which has a single viewpoint like a film that plays out exactly the same way each time, to a completely chaotic experiment where the artist creates a world of artificial lifeforms which are affected by visitors and simply sets it running and growing. There are infinite other possibilities in between.