Generating a Search Space of Typical Narrative Plots (original) (raw)

Generating a Search Space of Acceptable Narrative Plots

2019

Research on narrative generation needs to consider that a run-of-the-mill would-be novelist is usually much more concerned with getting the form of his output right than with finding new techniques or new materials. Resorting to prior techniques and materials is considered an acceptable practice, and rewrites of classic stories, sequels or series of novels set in an already described world are highly valued. In this light the need to produce outputs that are recognisable as instances of stories seems to have priority over other criteria for a narrative generation solution. The present paper follows accepted engineering practice in choosing this particular challenge as starting design goal for an initial module, to be later extended with solutions for selecting or achieving “good” or “novel” stories at a later stage. The paper proposes a representation of plot that captures both a surface structure in terms of adjacency in a discourse sequence and conceptual connections between eleme...

Schemas for Narrative Generation Mined from Existing Descriptions of Plot

2015

Computational generation of literary artifacts very often resorts to template-like schemas that can be instantiated into complex structures. With this view in mind, the present paper reviews a number of existing attempts to provide an elementary set of patterns for basic plots. An attempt is made to formulate these descriptions of possible plots in terms of character functions, an abstraction of plot-bearing elements of a story originally formulated by Vladimir Propp. These character functions act as the building blocks of the Propper system, an existing framework for computational story generation. The paper explores the set of extensions required to the original set of character functions to allow for a basic representation of the analysed schemata, and a solution for automatic generation of stories based on this formulation of the narrative schemas. This solution uncovers important insights on the relative expressive power of the representation of narrative in terms of character ...

The long path to narrative generation

IBM Journal of Research and Development

Narrative generation, understood as the task of constructing computational models of the way in which humans build stories, has been shown to involve a number of separate processes, related to different purposes to which it can be applied, and focusing on specific features that make stories valuable. The present paper reviews a set of story generation systems developed at the NIL research group, each focusing on different aspects and functions of stories. These systems provide an initial breakdown of how the term storytelling might be either instantiated or broken down into component processes. The systems cover functionalities such as: generating valid plot structures, simulating character's behaviours or the evolution of affinities between them, either reporting or fictionalising events observed in real life, and revising a story draft to maximise the suspense it induces in its readers. These functionalities are not intended to exhaust the set of possible operations involved in storytelling, but they constitute an initial set to understand the complexity of the task. The paper also includes two proposals-one theoretical and one technological-for understanding how a set of such functionalities might be composed into a broader operational process that produces more elaborate stories.

A survey on story generation techniques for authoring computational narratives

IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, 2016

Computers are often used as tools to design, implement and even visualize a variety of narrative forms. Many researchers and artists are now further attempting to engage the computer actively throughout the development of the narrative itself. Any form of computational narrative authoring is at some level always mixed-initiative, meaning that the processing capabilities of the computer are utilized with a varying degree to automate certain features of the authoring process. We structure this survey by focusing on two key components of stories, plot and space, and more specifically the degree to which these are either automated by the computer or authored manually. By examining the successes of existing research, we identify potential new research directions in the field of computational narrative. We also identify the advantages of developing a standard model of narrative to allow for collaboration between plot and space automation techniques. This would likely benefit the field of automated space generation with the strengths in the field of automated plot generation.

The automatic generation of narratives

2007

We present the Narrator, a Natural Language Generation component used in a digital storytelling system. The system takes as input a formal representation of a story plot, in the form of a causal network relating the actions of the characters to their motives and their consequences. Based on this input, the Narrator generates a narrative in Dutch, by carrying out tasks such as constructing a Document Plan, performing aggregation and ellipsis and the generation of appropriate referring expressions. We describe how these tasks are performed and illustrate the process with examples, showing how this results in the generation of coherent and well-formed narrative texts.

Slant: A blackboard system to generate plot, figuration, and narrative discourse aspects of stories

We introduce Slant, a system that integrates more than a decade of research into computational creativity, and specifically story generation, by connecting subsystems that deal with plot, figuration, and the narrative discourse using a blackboard. The process of integrating these systems highlights differences in the representation of story and has led to a better understanding of how story can be usefully abstracted. The plot generator MEXICA and a component of Curveship are used with little modification in Slant, while the figuration subsystem FigS and the template generator GRIOT-Gen, inspired by GRIOT, are also components. The development of the new subsystem Verso, which deals with genre, shows how different genres can be computationally modeled and applied to in-development stories to generate results that are surprising in terms of their connections and valuable in terms of their relationship to cultural questions. Example stories are discussed, as is the potential of the system to allow for broader collaboration, the empirical testing of how subsystems interrelate, and possible contributions in literary and artistic contexts.

Narrative planning: balancing plot and character

2010

Abstract Narrative, and in particular storytelling, is an important part of the human experience. Consequently, computational systems that can reason about narrative can be more effective communicators, entertainers, educators, and trainers. One of the central challenges in computational narrative reasoning is narrative generation, the automated creation of meaningful event sequences. There are many factors–logical and aesthetic–that contribute to the success of a narrative artifact.

Seeking the Ideal Narrative Model for Computer-Generated Narratives

Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Computational Creativity in Natural Language Generation (CC-NLG 2018), 2018

The aim of this paper is to discuss and sketch an ideal narrative model based on post-classical narratology approaches, namely Cognitive Narratology to help to improve the interestingness of the output in computer-generated narratives. This model will be further tested in a prototype of a generative system in the Portuguese language that will be based on Brazilian urban novels.