Distributed Narrative

Typically, all narratives follow a very similar style to each other. They have a beginning, middle, and end, and tend to happen in a single session. It's almost like having a blueprint for storytelling. However, distributed narratives completely shake up the basic form of writing stories. In Aristotle's "Poetics", he describes his three unities, which consist of the unity of time, space, and action. These "dramatic unities" basically state that the play should take place in a single day, location, and have a single idea. In "Distributed Narrative : Telling Stories Across Networks", Jill Walker describes how todays modern media is breaking the rules that Aristotle set for narratives, with the use of distributed narratives. A distributed narrative is a story that doesn't take place in any single location, time, and doesn't focus on a single action. This leaves the author with much more creative flexibility on their story, opening up the possibilities of what can happen to the characters. A lot of modern media today can be seen as a distributed narrative

Walker describes how only only short narratives, such as movies or short stories, are meant to be taken in one session. Most narratives now are better experienced over a period of time. Examples of works that are better with more time include most games and full length novels. These are generally divided up into chapters so the story can be completed in multiple sessions. Other examples could be soap operas or sit-coms that are put on TV in a weekly or daily format.

When I started thinking about Distributed Narratives in current media, I immediately though of the TV show Seinfeld. Seinfeld was a weekly comedy that dived into the lives of four friends who live in New York City. I feel this show is a great mix of the classic narrative that Aristotle envisioned and the new age distributed narrative. A large portion of the show is located in Jerry's apartment, as the characters are always meeting up there. This can be related to Aristotle's unity of space. However, the show still uses other various locations such as a coffee shop, the New York City streets, and a few other apartments. Another way the show can

relate to Aristotle's unities is through the unity of time. Most of the episodes occur in one single day, though there are times when an episode will show two days. The show agrees with the distributed narrative when thinking about the unity of action. Aristotle described how stories should only have a single overarching idea. Seinfeld completely turns this idea around. Throughout each episode, there are multiple plots going on with each character. Most of the time, you will get to view four different stories for each individual character. Some intertwine and some are not as detailed as others, though it is still normally separate problems the characters deal with for the whole episode.