The long path to narrative generation

Abstract

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. This paper reviews a set of story generation systems developed by the authors of this contribution, 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 behaviors or the evolution of affinities between them, either reporting or fictionalizing events observed in real life, and revising a story draft to maximize 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.