[MUD-Dev] story vs. screenplay

[Nicholas E. Walker]

Continuing in the vein of previous posts, I'm just kind of tossing
this idea out there.  I've been reading the "Advanced use of ..." 
posts, and it reminded me of this thought I had about roleplaying
specifically in terms of MUDs.

Most people seem to roleplay in the style of a narrated story.  They
emote what they are feeling, but often try to limit the autonomy of
the response of others.  Speech emits are embedded in lines of
descriptive text.  A lot of people consider this real or good
roleplaying.

But people don't talk like that.  People don't compose their
thoughts and emotions in that way, and the only way people have to
influence the thoughts/emotions of other people is through the way
they act.. not through how they write prose.  Does this make any
sense?

The point/thesis of this all is to bring up the difference between
prose storytelling (short stories, novels, fiction or non-) and
screenplays.

With prose storytelling, the author is narrating the story.  A
single point of storytelling.  The author picks a point of view to
narrate from, and perhaps even switches around.  But there is always
a single point of view.  (I may be wrong, but I don't think I have
ever read anything for which this is not true--except maybe
Finnegan's Wake? But that's aside from my point..)

Most important with prose storytelling is that the author gets
inside the head of the characters of the story.  Emotions, thoughts,
beliefs, childhood, any of that is fair game to be explored.

Now, contrast that to a screenplay (or non-screen play).  The
elements of this style of writing include descriptions of the scene,
actions, and speech from the players (perhaps with a modifier such
as "nervous").  They aren't mixed, either.  Speech from the players
is clearly identified as such.  As an example:


                             YOUNG WOMAN
                  After tonight.

   The boy and girl laugh, their laughter putting a pause in there,
   back and forth.

                             YOUNG MAN
                       (with a smile)
                  Correct.  I got all tonight to
                  quack.

   A WAITRESS comes by with a pot of coffee.

                             WAITRESS
                  Can I get anybody anymore coffee?

                             YOUNG WOMAN
                  Oh yes, thank you.

   The Waitress pours the Young Woman's coffee.  The Young Man
   lights up another cigarette.

                             YOUNG MAN
                  I'm doin' fine.

   The Waitress leaves.  The Young Man takes a drag off of his
   smoke.  The Young Woman pours a ton of cream and sugar into
   her coffee.

(end.  this is taken from the first scene of Pulp Fiction.)

Obviously with a MUD, something like "The boy and girl laugh.." 
would more likely come up as two separate events, were they to be
separate players..but i digress..

The crux of the screenplay, the -huge- difference from story-prose,
is that we use the dialog, the actions to get inside the head of the
characters.  There is nobody telling us what they are
thinking/feeling, we have to either observe the character on the
screen, in the theater, or if we are reading the screenplay, in our
head.

I've come to enjoy reading screenplays as much as any other form of
writing.  Reading them is almost a refreshing difference from
reading story-prose.  It requires directing the movie in one's own
mind.

So I just wanted to bring up the difference between acting/RPing a
part in a movie/play, and acting a part in a novel.  There's a
reason books are rewritten as screenplays before acted out...

Any thoughts on this?

--
Nicholas E. Walker <new at gnu.org>

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