Narration
Narration
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This is an example of a piece of writing in the narrative "mode." Another example, at this link, shows how, using Inform 7, the story might be presented as an expository "how to" essay, explaining, to a computer, how to present the narrative as an interactive story. Searching
A-221 Oh,
no! I'd lost my red English binder.
It was the day before a test, and I knew I would need the notebook, but,
fortunately, here came Mr. Alltext, my teacher.
Perhaps he'd seen it. “Maybe,” he said, when I’d
asked him if he had it. “I just
locked a binder in the filing cabinet in Room A-221.
See if it's yours. You'll
have to find the key first, though. I'm
not quite sure where I left it.” Negotiating
my way through the familiar halls, I soon found my way to A-221 to begin the
search. A-221
was a fairly drab classroom, quiet and nearly deserted when I arrived, with
twenty-four student desks and a like number of computers, all turned off. It
sported at least ten teacher-made signs about grammar and literature and one
long, commercial poster. Most of
the signs were plain-text efforts to introduce parts of speech or literary
concepts, such as plot and theme, in three-inch-high blue letters.
The commercial poster wasn’t much more colorful, tracing, in great
detail, the history of computer-based interactive fiction, up to the year 2003.
A filing cabinet was the room's most prominent storage unit.
It was obviously designed to store and organize all sorts of papers, but
it could hold lots of other things, too. Right
then, a little silver bar in the upper left corner of the cabinet was pushed in,
suggesting that the cabinet was locked.
A student, whom I recognized as Jeff, a somewhat rough character wearing
a baseball shirt, was the only person in the room when I got there, and I
noticed a key on top of the cabinet.
Anxious to avoid trouble with Jeff, I figured I’d engage him in a
little conversation, and I asked him about the key.
“It’s the key to the filing cabinet,” he said, in a friendly-enough
way. “Mr. Alltext is always
leaving it behind.”
I picked up the key, and unlocked the cabinet, causing the little bar to
pop out with a click. When I’d
opened the top drawer, I immediately recognized my English binder.
“A lucky break,” I thought. “But
why didn’t Mr. Alltext notice my name in big black letters on the front of the
binder? How could have not been
sure that it was mine?”
Anyway, I felt pretty relieved as I picked up the book.
But there, under the binder, was a real surprise, an English homework
pass, all filled out with my name and signed by Mr. A.
This was definitely turning into a good day. |