Storytelling systems: Progress towards generation informed by models of the reader

Abstract

The present paper attempts to identify specific points of contact between efforts to generate narrative in the field of artificial intelligence and the field of narratology. Such points of contact centre around the tasks of modelling processes related to the construction of narrative in computational terms. A number of existing research efforts to develop systems related to storytelling are reviewed. An analysis of the functionalities that they cover suggests that storytelling might be profitably studied in terms of at least four different sub-tasks: Fabula generation, narrative discourse composition, text generation, and narrative interpretation. An analysis from a computational point of view of the context in which narrative is used as a means of communication between author and reader is presented. This shows that parts of the cognitive processes involved are yet to be modelled, which suggests that the set of sub-tasks identified may continue to grow with further research.