Agency according to Janet H. Murray ‘is the satisfying power to take meaningful action and see the results of our action.’

Examples of agency as Murray states is when we double click a folder on our desktop and expect it to open. So essentially from what I understand is that agency is a feeling of subconscious satisfaction where we lie expectations in our actions to have them (most of the time) fulfilled.

I’m guessing that agency also applies to when we expect a great result with a doubtful mind as well and to have that result come to fruition – giving us a large sense of satisfaction.

Now as for applying this concept to narrative, it’s a bit difficult to do because we never really think about it I feel. When we read a novel or go through a game, most of the time we’re constantly under the effects of agency but rarely notice it. Especially in games, for example when you fire a gun at an enemy you automatically expect them to fall, die or get hurt in some sort of way, but we pay little to no attention to it because we’re accustomed to the nature of how these things should be – drawn from experienced in real life, other games and many other factors.

In narrative however as Murray states, agency isn’t really a notion we can really experience due to the limited nature of how narrative is structured and how we as the audience/reader participate in the narrative. We’ve got no power to really change things around the way we want because nearly everything is preset and given to us.

However although agency isn’t something that we can grant ourselves freely in narrative most of the time, I believe that doesn’t mean it’s impossible, it could just take a lot of time and creativity to try and grant the audience the same agency they feel as when they’re on a computer.