From Umberto Eco (via Corvus Elrod):
The fabula is the basic story stuff, the logic of actions or the syntax of characters, the time-oriented course of events. [...] The plot is the story as actually told, along with all its deviations, digressions, flashback, and the whole of the verbal devices. [...] The fabula is not produced once the text has been definitely read: the fabula is the result of a continuous series of abductions made during the course of the reading. [...] the reader collaborates in the course of the fabula , making forecasts about the forthcoming state of affairs.
Elrod further translates this into terms more relevant to games:
The story is not produced after the book/movie/game is finished. The story is built as a direct product of the audience's imagination during the course of experiencing the narrative. The audience actively collaborates in the development of the story.
This line of thinking often leads narrativists to conclude that interaction begins in the mental, thereby justifying an equivocation between stories and games as examples of narrative. (Although Elrod himself does not say this).
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