Designing a Story Database for Use in Automatic Story Generation

In this paper we propose a model for the representation of stories in a story database. The use of such a database will enable computational story generation systems to learn from previous stories and associated user feedback, in order to create believable stories with dramatic plots that invoke an emotional response from users. Some of the distinguishing characteristics of our proposal are the inclusion of what we call ‘narratological concepts’ and user feedback in the story database

IndieBook

Ausgehend vom Wunsch als Leser und Leserin Geschichten mit zu gestalten, präsentiert diese Diplomarbeit das theoretische Konzept IndieBook für ein System zur Generierung fiktiver Welten für individualisierte Bücher. Die ideelle Basis von IndieBook bildet das kollaborative Einwirken von Autor, Leser und Computer in den Generationsprozess: Der einzigartige Stil des Autors bestimmt die statischen Voreinstellungen. Über interaktive Wahlmöglichkeiten und personalisierte Informationsquellen bringt sich der Leser ein. Das System fügt dies zusammen und generiert daraus Narrationen. Voraussetzung dafür ist eine grundlegende Formalisierung fiktiver Welten. Dafür wurden Modelle aus der Narratologie, Kognitionswissenschaft und Soziologie herangezogen und mit Techniken der Informatik formalisiert. Nach allgemeinen Voreinstellungen werden die Weltmodelle über die Realitätsrelationen und den daraus resultierenden Fiktivitätsgrad generiert. Die eigentlichen Bestandteile der Welt sind das Setting, die Charaktere und die Ereignisse. Das sozial-historisch-räumliche Setting konkretisiert die Relationen zu einem Rahmen für die Charaktere und Ereignisse. Die Charaktergeneration erfolgt in einem 6-stufigen Modell, das in einer detailierten, strukturierten Datenbank für jede einzelne Figur resultiert. Nach der Formalisierung der verschiedenen Formen von Ereignissen, wurde deren Narrativität und Struktur diskutiert.Based on the wish of many readers to co-create a story, this diploma thesis presents a theoretical concept called IndieBook to generate fictive worlds for individualized books. The idea behind IndieBook is the collaboration of author, reader, and computer in the generation process: The unique style of the author provides the static defaults. Then, the reader interacts through a range of possibilities and personalized information is integrated. Finally, the system merges these inputs and defaults and generates narrations. One major condition for this concept is a fundamental formalization of fictive worlds. Therefore, models were adopted from Narratology, Cognitive Science, and Sociology, modified to meet the requirement, and formalized with techniques of Computer Science. After the general presettings, the world models are generated through their relations to the reality and the resulting degree of fictivity. On this foundation, the components of the world are established: the setting, the characters, and the events. The socio-historico-spatial setting concretizes the relations and works as a referential frame for the characters and events. The generation of characters proceeds in a 6-layered model, that results in a detailed, structured data base for each protagonist. After formalizing the modes of events, the tellability and structure of events were discussed

Designing a Story Database for Use in Automatic Story Generation

Abstract. In this paper we propose a model for the representation of stories in a story database. The use of such a database will enable computational story generation systems to learn from previous stories and associated user feedback, in order to create believable stories with dramatic plots that invoke an emotional response from users. Some of the distinguishing characteristics of our proposal are the inclusion of what we call ‘narratological concepts ’ and user feedback in the story database

‘Chronovist’ conceptualisation method: exploring new approaches to structuring narrative in interactive immersive audio/visual media.

This research investigates whether the application of the initially literary concepts of Bakhtin’s ‘chronotope’ and ‘utterance’ to the field of interactive narrative audio-visual media can lead to the development of new approaches to structuring narratives. By extending Bakhtin’s concepts to the analysis of interactive immersive audio-visual media I analyse interactive immersive cinema as a first-person experience of a chronotope. Further, I propose to approach chronotope as a real physical space or environment and I supplement the concept of chronotope with an architectural concept of Benedikt’s isovist, expanding its definition from ‘location-specific patterns of visibility’ to a general term for calculating the distribution of a certain spatial or temporal attribute from a vantage point throughout the space. The result is a new conceptualisation tool, which I call ‘the dynamic isovist of a chronotope’, or a ‘chronovist’. The research discusses the implications of this tool for interactive immersive cinema authorship and shows how it can lead to new narrative paradigms (models). It maps the practical uses of such approaches for interactive authors, as well as for authors migrating to interactive i mmersive cinema from conventional (non-interactive) filmmaking, and suggests how existing interactive works by other artists can be ‘remixed’ using the chronovist approach. Using one of my feature films, ‘Dog’s Paradise’, which was completed while undertaking this research, I analyse narrative devices used in the film that were developed using the chronovist approach and suggest how the film could be further developed as an interactive cinema piece. The research also suggests how this conceptualisation tool can be extended to other ‘genres’ of interactive art and what its implications might be for future researchers and interactive authors