Works & References

The works this part’s articles discuss and the texts they cite. The print edition carries the credited works and the references; the web edition adds the wider research consulted.

Works discussed

• 87th Precinct (beginning with Cop Hater). Ed McBain, 1956.
• Alone Among the Stars. Takuma Okada, 2018.
• Apocalypse World. D. Vincent Baker and Meguey Baker (lumpley games), 2010.
• Apothecaria. Anna Blackwell, 2021.
• Best of Three. Emily Short, 2008.
• BioShock. 2K Boston (Irrational Games), 2007.
• Birdland. Brendan Patrick Hennessy, 2015.
• The Black Company. Glen Cook, 1984.
• Blades in the Dark. John Harper (Evil Hat Productions), 2017.
• Boyfriend Dungeon. Kitfox Games, 2021.
• Burning Wheel. Luke Crane, 2002.
• Call of Cthulhu. Sandy Petersen and Lynn Willis (Chaosium), 1981.
• Choose Your Own Adventure. Edward Packard and R. A. Montgomery (Bantam Books), 1979.
• Cicada 3301. Anonymous, 2012.
• Dark Souls. FromSoftware, 2011.
• Dead Space. Electronic Arts (Visceral Games), 2008.
• De Profundis. Michał Oracz, 2002.
• Disco Elysium. ZA/UM, 2019.
• Dragon Age II. BioWare, 2011.
• Dungeon World. Sage LaTorra and Adam Koebel, 2012.
• Fighting Fantasy (beginning with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain). Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone (Puffin Books), 1982.
• Fiasco. Jason Morningstar (Bully Pulpit Games), 2009.
• Frasier. David Angell, Peter Casey and David Lee, 1993.
• Gone Home. The Fullbright Company, 2013.
• The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925.
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. J. K. Rowling, 1997.
• Her Story. Sam Barlow, 2015.
• The Hollow Man (US title The Three Coffins). John Dickson Carr, 1935.
• Ironsworn. Shawn Tomkin, 2018.
• Jubensha. A script-driven venue form, China, from c. 2016.
• Just a Little Lovin’. Tor Kjetil Edland and Hanne Grasmo, 2011.
• Leverage. John Rogers and Chris Downey, 2008.
• M*A*S*H. Larry Gelbart, 1972.
• Mass Effect. BioWare, 2007.
• Mistborn: The Final Empire. Brandon Sanderson, 2006.
• Monster Prom. Beautiful Glitch, 2018.
• Mythic Role Playing / Mythic Game Master Emulator. Tana Pigeon (Word Mill Games), 2003 / 2006.
• Of Mice and Men. John Steinbeck, 1937.
• Paranoia. Greg Costikyan, Eric Goldberg and Dan Gelber (West End Games), 1984.
• Psy High. Rebecca Slitt (Choice of Games), 2014.
• Quill. Scott Malthouse (Trollish Delver Games), 2016.
• Reign. Greg Stolze, 2007.
• Resident Evil. Capcom, 1996.
• Rififi. Jules Dassin, 1955.
• Sleep No More. Punchdrunk (Felix Barrett), 2011.
• Stardew Valley. ConcernedApe, 2016.
• Stars Without Number. Kevin Crawford (Sine Nomine Publishing), 2017.
• The Sting. George Roy Hill, 1973.
• Thousand Year Old Vampire. Tim Hutchings, 2020.
• The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. CD Projekt Red, 2011 and 2015.
• Werewolf. Andrew Plotkin, 1997 (reskinning Dmitry Davidoff’s 1986 Mafia).
• Wolf Hall. Hilary Mantel, 2009.
• The Wretched. Chris Bissette, 2020.

References

• Aristotle. Poetics. c. 335 BCE. https://iep.utm.edu/aristotle-poetics/
• Berlin, Isaiah. “Two Concepts of Liberty.” In Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford University Press, 1969.
• Boss, Emily Care. “Bleed” (coinage). Ropecon, 2007.
• Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. 1757. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Philosophical_Enquiry_into_the_Origin_of_Our_Ideas_of_the_Sublime_and_Beautiful
• Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Pantheon Books, 1949.
• Card, Orson Scott. Characters and Viewpoint. Writer’s Digest Books, 1988.
• Carson, Don. “Environmental Storytelling: Creating Immersive 3D Worlds.” Gamasutra, 2000. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/environmental-storytelling-creating-immersive-3d-worlds-using-lessons-learned-from-the-theme-park-industry
• Chandler, Raymond. “The Simple Art of Murder.” The Atlantic Monthly, December 1944. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simple_Art_of_Murder
• Clarke, Arthur C. “Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination.” In Profiles of the Future, revised edition, 1973. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws
• Clover, Carol J. Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton University Press, 1992. https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691166292/men-women-and-chain-saws
• Fagerholt, Erik, and Magnus Lorentzon. Beyond the HUD: User Interfaces for Increased Player Immersion in FPS Games. Master’s thesis, Chalmers University of Technology, 2009.
• Fatland, Eirik. “Emotional design as building a container.” Knutpunkt anthologies.
• Genette, Gérard. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Cornell University Press, 1980.
• Giner-Sorolla, Roger. “Crimes Against Mimesis.” rec.arts.int-fiction, 1996. https://www.ifwiki.org/Mimesis
• Green, Melanie C., and Timothy C. Brock. “The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narratives.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_theory_(psychology)
• Hale, Constance. Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose. Broadway Books, 2013.
• Harper, John. Blades in the Dark (the engagement roll). Evil Hat Productions, 2017. https://bladesinthedark.com/planning-engagement
• Hayes, Gwen. Romancing the Beat: Story Structure for Romance Novels. 2016.
• Hemingway, Ernest. Death in the Afternoon. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceberg_theory
• Hon, Adrian. “Here’s What Makes Jubensha Different.” mssv.net, March 2025. https://mssv.net/2025/03/26/heres-what-makes-jubensha-different/
• Ignacio, Dino. “Crafting Destruction: The Evolution of the Dead Space User Interface.” GDC 2013. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/game-ui-discoveries-what-players-want
• Jenkins, Henry. “Game Design as Narrative Architecture.” In First Person, MIT Press, 2004.
• Joos, Martin. The Five Clocks. Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Joos
• Jung, Carl Gustav. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Princeton University Press, 1959. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_unconscious
• Kenner, Hugh. Joyce’s Voices. University of California Press, 1978. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Charles_Principle
• King, Stephen. Danse Macabre. Everest House, 1981. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danse_Macabre_(King_book)
• King, Stephen. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Scribner, 2000.
• Knox, Ronald. “The Detective Story Decalogue.” Introduction to The Best English Detective Stories of 1928, 1929. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Knox
• Köhler, Wolfgang. Gestalt Psychology. Liveright, 1929.
• Leonard, Elmore. “Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle.” The New York Times, 16 July 2001. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/16/arts/writers-writing-easy-adverbs-exclamation-points-especially-hooptedoodle.html
• Lovecraft, H. P. “Supernatural Horror in Literature.” 1927 (revised 1933 to 1935). https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/essays/shil.aspx
• Maass, Donald. The Fire in Fiction. Writer’s Digest Books, 2009.
• McKee, Robert. Dialogue: The Art of Verbal Action for the Page, Stage, and Screen. Twelve, 2016.
• McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. ReganBooks, 1997.
• Nielsen, Jakob. “How Users Read on the Web.” Nielsen Norman Group, 1 October 1997. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-users-read-on-the-web/
• Pinter, Harold. “Art, Truth and Politics.” Nobel Lecture, 2005. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2005/pinter/lecture/
• Provost, Gary. 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing. New American Library, 1985. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Provost
• Radcliffe, Ann. “On the Supernatural in Poetry.” New Monthly Magazine, 1826.
• Ramachandran, V. S., and E. M. Hubbard. “Synaesthesia: A Window Into Perception, Thought and Language.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 8(12), 2001.
• Rosenfelder, Mark. The Language Construction Kit. Yonagu Books, 2010.
• Ruskin, John. Modern Painters, vol. III. 1856. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathetic_fallacy
• Sanderson, Brandon. “Sanderson’s First, Second and Third Laws.” brandonsanderson.com, 2007 to 2013. https://www.brandonsanderson.com/blogs/blog/sandersons-first-law
• Short, Emily. “Conversation.” Emily Short’s Interactive Storytelling. https://emshort.blog/how-to-play/writing-if/my-articles/conversation/
• Snyder, Blake. Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need. Michael Wiese Productions, 2005.
• Stein, Sol. Stein on Writing. St. Martin’s Press, 1995.
• Sterling, Bruce, and Lewis Shiner (compilers). “Turkey City Lexicon: A Primer for SF Workshops.” SFWA, 1988. https://www.sfwa.org/2009/06/17/turkey-city-lexicon-a-primer-for-sf-workshops/
• Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction. Yale University Press, 1979. https://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/estrangement-and-cognition/
• Tolkien, J. R. R. “On Fairy-Stories.” In Essays Presented to Charles Williams, Oxford University Press, 1947. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Fairy-Stories
• Truby, John. The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller. Faber and Faber, 2007.
• Van Dine, S. S. “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories.” The American Magazine, September 1928. http://gaslight-lit.s3-website.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com/gaslight/vandine.htm
• Vogler, Christopher. The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. Michael Wiese Productions, 1992.
• Walton, Jo. “SF Reading Protocols.” Reactor (Tor.com), 2010. https://reactormag.com/sf-reading-protocols/
• Wieslander, Emma. “Ars Amandi.” In Nordic Larp, ed. Stenros and Montola, Fëa Livia, 2010.
• Zinsser, William. On Writing Well. Harper & Row, 1976.

Research basis

Consulted while writing; not cited in the text.

• Genre and trope references (TV Tropes on Chekhov’s Gun, Lampshade Hanging, The Chosen One, subversion, said-bookisms, retcon and continuity; Wikipedia on Bildungsroman, grimdark, space opera, police procedural, hard SF). https://tvtropes.org/
• Craft and point-of-view guides (Gardner, The Art of Fiction; Wood, How Fiction Works; Mamet, On Directing Film; Kennedy and Nelson on deep point of view; Casagrande on punctuation; Fludernik).
• Worldbuilding and naming references (Le Guin, “From Elfland to Poughkeepsie”; Jemisin’s craft essays; Ekwall and the English Place-Name Society on toponymy; etymology of “scientist” and “OK”; car-naming case studies via Snopes and Wikipedia).
• Detective-fiction background (P. D. James, Talking About Detective Fiction; “Detection Club,” Wikipedia; Kaminsky, American Film Genres).
• Audience and reading-level references (ESRB, PEGI, Common Sense Media; Flesch-Kincaid, Lexile and ATOS readability frameworks; Reedsy and Mary Kole on middle-grade and YA; sensitivity-reading guides).
• Interactive-fiction and game-narrative references (Emily Short on the prose medium, agency, and the Mysterious Package Company; choice-of-games and IF craft posts; Murray and Bordwell on screen narrative).
• Story-bible and continuity references (Friedman and “Bible (screenwriting),” Wikipedia).
• Music and sound references (Collins, Game Sound; Gorbman, Unheard Melodies; Winters on the non-diegetic fallacy).
• Philosophy and psychology touchstones (Foot on double effect; Cialdini, Influence; Britannica on catharsis).
• Solo-journaling craft (Cameron, The Artist’s Way; Carroll, The Bullet Journal Method; Soloist on journaling tips).
• Immersive-theatre reference (Machon, Immersive Theatres).