Narrative.

It’s a popular term among those who talk about games in an abstract or intellectual level, but it’s often a misnomer, as in A Word Worth a Thousand Pictures and Narrative Manifesto.

Narrative is not a synonym for ‘story.’ (Nor is story the same as plot.) A narrative can tell a story, but it requires a narrator. For instance, the sentence, “The tragedy of Hurricane Katrina is part of our cultural narrative,” does not mean that Hurricane Katrina is a tragedy. It means that our culture has taken an event and described it as a tragedy. It focuses on the role of culture as storyteller, and the fact that, as a people, we take reality and fictionalize it, often adding a moral or symbolic dimension.

I’m being pedantic about this because I believe having a specific word that emphasizes the narrator and story as artifact[1] is a useful. There are times when you want to focus on the story and times when you want to focus on the telling of the story.

“Schindler’s List is/has a powerful narrative.” – True and accurate, but unless it’s part of a wider context, reads as “Schindler’s List is a powerful movie.”

“In the black-and-white film, the image of a girl in a red coat wandering alone the turmoil of Cracow ghetto is a powerful narrative tool. Like Schindler, the audience cannot absorb the horror of six million people dying, but is deeply affected by the plight of one child.” – I prefer this use.

[1] – Not artifact as in historical relic, but artifact as in the product of individuals, groups, or cultures.