Love this post! I think about the screaming / necessity / waistcoats problem a lot when considering what kinds of fiction sticks with me vs. does not over time. Game of Thrones (books) is a good example for me: I vaguely remember that there are a lot of betrayals, people being jerks to one another, cringey sex scenes. But I don't remember what the Starks like to eat for breakfast or what the Lannisters do in my spare time. The story sticks in my mind like a giant bundle of screaming without much context to it.
Contrast with something like Shadowrun: Dragonfall, which tells an epic story while still making room for Alistair's fashion choices or the drug habits of 24th-century Berliners. The epic bits of Shadowrun: Dragonfall hit especially hard for me, just as you write, because I know wha the characters are like outside of their epic lives.
Breath of the Wild is another example (can you tell I've been gaming a lot during the pandemic ;)) -- it is a gigantic world with an epic story, as every Zelda game; but the thing that makes it stick so clearly in my mind are the tiny, heartfelt details you get when you come to a stables or talk to a random NPC. The flashbacks in the game balance this very nicely as well -- you get a sense of the Epic Backstory but also the very personal tale of Link and Zelda literally just hanging out in meadows and awkwardly flirting with each other.
I love hearing about the Athena Club device and should check it out! I for one would be happy to see a revival of the more "slow" kind of 19th century literature that the series seems to echo. I feel the best story is like a labyrinth, or at least a hint of a labyrinth, in a Borges-sense: yes, to capture the reader's attention, you want the focus on the High Octane Action / Feelings / Drama as much of the time as possible, but the reader (or player, etc.) should come away with a feeling that the High Octane stuff is just one of many branching paths, and that others are similarly fascinating. And in order for the paths to be fascinating, they should also be believable: the audience should feel that they could just end down one of them if they were running late for breakfast and accidentally took a wrong turn, or finally got up the courage to talk to that handsome merchant at the weekend market they've seen week after week.
Love this post! I think about the screaming / necessity / waistcoats problem a lot when considering what kinds of fiction sticks with me vs. does not over time. Game of Thrones (books) is a good example for me: I vaguely remember that there are a lot of betrayals, people being jerks to one another, cringey sex scenes. But I don't remember what the Starks like to eat for breakfast or what the Lannisters do in my spare time. The story sticks in my mind like a giant bundle of screaming without much context to it.
Contrast with something like Shadowrun: Dragonfall, which tells an epic story while still making room for Alistair's fashion choices or the drug habits of 24th-century Berliners. The epic bits of Shadowrun: Dragonfall hit especially hard for me, just as you write, because I know wha the characters are like outside of their epic lives.
Breath of the Wild is another example (can you tell I've been gaming a lot during the pandemic ;)) -- it is a gigantic world with an epic story, as every Zelda game; but the thing that makes it stick so clearly in my mind are the tiny, heartfelt details you get when you come to a stables or talk to a random NPC. The flashbacks in the game balance this very nicely as well -- you get a sense of the Epic Backstory but also the very personal tale of Link and Zelda literally just hanging out in meadows and awkwardly flirting with each other.
I love hearing about the Athena Club device and should check it out! I for one would be happy to see a revival of the more "slow" kind of 19th century literature that the series seems to echo. I feel the best story is like a labyrinth, or at least a hint of a labyrinth, in a Borges-sense: yes, to capture the reader's attention, you want the focus on the High Octane Action / Feelings / Drama as much of the time as possible, but the reader (or player, etc.) should come away with a feeling that the High Octane stuff is just one of many branching paths, and that others are similarly fascinating. And in order for the paths to be fascinating, they should also be believable: the audience should feel that they could just end down one of them if they were running late for breakfast and accidentally took a wrong turn, or finally got up the courage to talk to that handsome merchant at the weekend market they've seen week after week.