sequaturare

Sequaturare is a neologism used in discussions of narrative design and computational storytelling to denote the practice of organizing a text so that each element follows from defined prerequisites, producing coherent sequential progression. The term draws on Latin roots, notably sequor for "to follow," and is intended to signal a process of ordering events or facts in time or causality. In theoretical use, sequaturare describes a design principle rather than a genre or technique.

In practice, sequaturare means making narrative or data states available only after their prerequisites are satisfied. This often involves modeling events as nodes in a directed structure where edges indicate prerequisite relationships, and generation or reading proceeds only when prerequisites hold.

Applications appear in interactive fiction, game design, procedural storytelling, and data visualization, where users experience a controlled, stepwise reveal. Implementations may use directed acyclic graphs or rule-based filters to enforce sequencing, ensuring logical causality, traceability, and explainability of outcomes.

Critics note that excessive sequencing can reduce spontaneity and complicate authorial workflow, especially in branches with many conditional paths. Proponents argue that sequaturare enhances clarity, reproducibility, and user comprehension by making dependencies explicit.

See also: narrative coherence, sequential logic, procedural generation, event-driven storytelling.