Do story agents use rocking chairs? The theory and implementation of one model for computational narrative

Narrative structure models are useful tools for understanding how and why narratives of any medium affect an audience’s level of participation in their role of story reconstruction and understanding. [14] With the advent of the computer comes the potential to negotiate through many such models and variables within models as a means of generating multiple narratives quickly and semi-autonomously. The computational narrative model presented in this paper offers one approach to narrative generation, that of splitting the task into three functional areas: 1) defining an abstract narrative structure; 2) defining a collection and organization of story pieces with some representation of their meaning; and 3) a navigational strategy or reasoning through that collection of story pieces. Agent Stories is a story design and presentation environment for non-linear, multiple-point-ofview cinematic stories. It is designed to be placed in the hands of the non-linear story writer to use as a tool to promote structuring and re-writing of non-linear narratives before and as they are realized in audio and video.