Over break I played Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, and oh my god, am I forever changed as a person. This was the first story game I have ever played and has caused quite the spark of inspiration in me. My dad and I ended up talking about the game for nearly three hours over the phone and he asked me a question that opened a can of worms (although, I don’t think he meant to). He asked me: for someone who reads books and is familiar with stories in that form, along with movies, what was it like to play the game as another form of storytelling? And as I thought about it and explained to him the differences and the awesome and compelling feelings you have when consuming these different forms of media, I realized I might as well share my thoughts with the greater population that is the NMSU campus.
Storytelling is a crucial part of our society and cultures, going back to the beginning of time stories were our main form of history, myth, and legend, and started way before any kind of written communication developed. Because storytelling is so deeply ingrained into our history as human beings, it’s no wonder why we have such a fascination and craving for stories.
Whether your storytelling preference is movies/TV, books, video games, or some combination of them, you are looking to be captivated. And by the end of some stories, we get to say they have changed us as a person forever. These mediums provide us with that captivation and are delivered to the audience in different ways. This is what we will cover along with what makes a story impactful to all audiences.
MOVIES
Firstly, let’s talk about movies (and likewise television). So, movies in their nature have the audience as a passive observer. And you might be thinking, “but you observe stories in every medium,” and while this is true, with movies this is your one and only role. You do not, for example, get to choose dialogue or paint the world the characters are living in. In this sense, directors have one of the hardest jobs: to keep you engaged. And there are plenty if not bountiful examples of the success of this task. To do this successfully, directors have chosen what the characters look like, say, do, and where they go. Along with choices of visual and audio elements to build the world the characters are living in.
I think this is what makes film analysis such a fun hobby to pick up. Your role as a movie-watcher only goes so far. But once you pick up on elements of movies, you start to see not only the decisions the director makes but why they make them. And in this, you get the story behind the story. It’s a dissection game.
But is this what makes movies and further, the story it is telling, memorable? I would argue no, as much fun as it is to understand film, it’s not what makes you think about the story in the middle of the night, haunting you. With movies, I think it’s the characters and the director and actors ability to make them so real that they stay with you. I don’t think a movie needs to be sad to be engaging or memorable. I think if the characters feel real and the world feels real then the story will become memorable and impactful.
And what do I mean by “real”? I think “real” means seeing your reality in the story even if there are spaceships or zombies or time travel. I think the story should get you thinking about what you would do in a similar situation or about someone you love. It’s ultimately about being able to connect back to reality through the story. That’s what makes the characters real. That’s what makes the story real.
I think when it comes to movies specifically, with help from visual and audio choices, the directors, actors, and the team of special effects people making a fake situation real in our minds is the thing that a movie can really deliver. That is the goal.
BOOKS
When it comes to books, the audience is already more engaged in the decision-making process of the world and story. Books have a unique feature in allowing the audience to create and picture the story themselves. The author no doubt has a large task at hand in creating descriptions that the reader can build off of, but ultimately each reader has their own map of the world, pictures of characters, and settings, to name a few examples, that is unique to them as an individual.
When I read it’s like I’m watching my own movie in my head. I can picture what the characters are wearing, and how their standing, and I can place them in a setting that I create myself rather than a director. I can have them walk down corridors and hallways and I can see their expressions and actions very clearly. This phenomenon is what makes reading so unique as a storytelling device from an audience perspective. The characters become real to the reader as they continue through the story because the reader is actively making decisions about the characters and the world.
Books are very intimate as a storytelling medium. It’s just you and the pages. Everyone will come out of the book with different pictures of the world and characters which is an experience you can’t get anywhere else. And because you have a hand in creating the story, you become more invested and connected to the story. It’s your own world and story in a way, even if you are still an observer in the story. This is one of the defining unique characteristics of books.
You are also allowed more time in the world and with the characters. Depending on how long it takes you to read, the story lingers in the back of your mind all the time. It’s like the book (even though unassuming while just sitting at the bottom of your backpack or back of your bookcase) it calls out to you. You start turning everything over in your hands trying to guess what might be next in the story, what setting or new character you might get to imagine next.
As you become more familiar with books, you can start to think about the meaning of the lines between the lines and what those start to mean for the story. At that point, you can really start to see the deeper meanings and all the technical sides of storytelling and play the dissection game in this medium of storytelling.
But again, it’s the audience’s contribution to the story that makes books an easier mode of making the story so real to the audience.
GAMES
Then when it comes to video games, it is the most (in my opinion) immersive. Games are a crossover between books and movies. It uses elements of both to create the most audience-driven medium of storytelling. You get the visuals and audio that movies can offer and then you have the decision-making power that books bring. Most games allow you to choose the story: some of the dialogue and where the characters go. What stuck out to me was how much you learn about the characters and story in the actual gameplay and fights. How the developers took some of the game mechanics that you become accustomed to and start using them differently to convey how the characters were feeling.
A lot of storytellers often say “show, don’t tell,” and I really think games have an advantage in that rule of storytelling. Picking up artifacts or objects and then the dialogue as you’re running around the world tells a lot of the story itself. Then you add in the cinematic scenes, and you have the story delivered to you in the most unique and intimate way. The game allows you to become the characters instead of just watching or reading about what happens to them. You are manipulating their very movements and many other aspects of their character which we’ve already touched on a bit. This makes the story extremely real for the audience. As you play as the character, you feel their wounds and feel their joy. You are the character and I think that is what games offer audiences as their unique delivery.
Like I said before, I had never played a story-driven game before. I was actually very anti-game. Growing up I watched my brothers, dad, cousins, and uncles play these games about warriors and dark and bruting men and I guess I just never saw myself interested in the actual characters very much and thus not very interested in the story.
But The Last of Us, which had been on my radar for a few years, had characters I could see myself in and see my family in. These characters were and still are very real to me and the story caused me physical reactions (i.e., I was screaming and laughing and sobbing at multiple points in the story) which I had never experienced before. So, after playing not only the first game but part two and the DLC (which was extremely anxiety-inducing by the way!) I completely understand why people go to games for the story.
Now, my point isn’t to say one of these is better than the others because I think they all clearly serve a different purpose in what they are trying to make the audience feel, but more so I wanted to emphasize what these different options can offer you when looking for your next story. All of them are amazing options and bring something different to the table. I would suggest trying out the one you’re not as familiar with and seeing if it surprises you.
As a big reader, I’ve heard a lot of people tell me they hate reading. It’s boring and can’t keep their attention or it’s too time-consuming. But I said the exact same thing about games and the lesson I came out with is you just have to find the story that’s right for you. That’s the great thing about stories, they are different to different people. Characters I like, you might hate and the characters you like, I might hate. It’s all up to the individual taste. All the games I had ever seen were not for me, I was not the intended audience.
So even if it might take some time and you might have to do a little digging around to finally find a story that is waiting for you, it’ll be 100% worth it when your new favorite story came from somewhere completely unexpected.