Stories with Memory

The previous section explored the concept of a story’s geography; it focused on thinking of your story in terms of connected nodes, of the “places” it could potentially go, the channels along which it could flow. In the next section, the focus is on the story’s narrative coherence and continuity. We will create stories that can remember where along the map the reader has been, and adapt the resulting narrative accordingly.

Through the use of only a few simple commands and mechanics, a writer can instruct an Ink story to note specific details as it moves through its flow—for example, which choice was selected, or how many times a room has been visited—and ensure that the text presented later stays consistent with those details.

This can be as simple as changing a character’s greeting from “It’s nice to meet you” to “It’s great to see you again.” However, Ink is capable of understanding far more complicated instructions as well. With enough practice—and with elaborate enough instructions—it is possible to use Inky to write stories that function like fully-featured role-playing games, complete with rule-sets and statistics.

As we move into the following lessons, take them at your own pace. For writers with little or no programming experience, the techniques introduced here may initially feel intimidating. You can, and should, start small. As we start to introduce some basic programming to our stories, remember the purpose for it: we are giving the story simple instructions. Using Ink, we can tell the story what to remember, and what to do about it.