My Hypothesis was COMPLETELY WRONG and I couldn’t be HAPPIER (Liz Strauss)

My scientifically accurate representation of a dinosaur…I have an art degree.

I’m back, and as promised, we’re taking a deeper dive into the narrative metrics for Michael Crichton’s famed novel: Jurassic Park.

On the whole, Jurassic Park scores pretty well for the narrative metrics. The “and” frequency (AF) is 2.45%, and the narrative index (NI) is 26.

Given these strong scores, I hypothesized that–at the chapter level–the NI would be high in chapters with higher action and intensity and low in more sedate, descriptive chapters of the novel. In short, action should equal high NI. Dialogue & description should equal low NI.

But when I ran the analysis chapter by chapter, it was clear: I was wrong. No one was getting chased by velociraptors or eaten by T-rexes in the high NI chapters. No action-packed chaos or mayhem.

Pictured above is the chapter-by-chapter “flow” of the NI for Jurassic Park. The NI clearly moves up and down with each chapter, peaking at its highest point at almost exactly the center with the chapter “Control.” The five highest scoring chapters are highlighted, with their data points marked.

Instead, it was mostly just…talking. Just dialogue and observation.

Pictured in order of highest to lowest scoring, the chapters which scored the highest NI in Jurassic Park. Note that I’m not counting the chapter “Return” in this assessment (highlighted above) as its total word count is below the desired sample size of 1000.

While these chapters don’t have a lot of running, screaming, roaring, or overall dinosaur-filled mayhem; they are critical in building narrative tension. Each one involves debate, investigation, or discovery of vital information that changes the direction of the narrative and heightens the tension.

For example, in the highest scoring chapter, “Control” (scoring an NI of 117), the folks running the Park believe they have total control and know exactly how many dinosaurs are in the Park, but Ian Malcolm proves to them that they are completely wrong.

Excerpt from the chapter “Control” that scored 117 for its NI. For context, we consider 35 to be extremely high. We rarely see anything score above 50.

As for the action chapters, yes, there is some initial contradiction (aka problem)—i.e. when the T-rex shows up to eat someone–but most of what follows is the consequence of the contradiction. The T-rex arrives, therefore now Dr. Grant and the kids run away from it.

So where does that leave my initial hypothesis?

Completely blown away! The NI may actually be an indicator of narrative tension and not action. What the action actually indicates is the results–the THEREFORE–of the narrative.

Stay tuned for more revelations from the world of Narrative Metrics!