Despite the long tradition of interactive storytelling researchers drawing inspiration from narratology, and recent interest from narratologists in interactive storytelling, there is still a gap between the two research fields. Even when interactive storytelling researchers make use of narrative models, it is not clear whether or how authors of interactive stories can make use of these models to create the stories they want to tell. This workshop explores ways to bridge these gaps.

Details

This full-day workshop will bring together narratologists, developers of interactive storytelling authoring systems, and creative practitioners who are creating new interactive stories. The workshop will involve sharing of experiences by participants, followed by prototyping of new approaches to authoring, grounded both in the needs of authors, and the latest approaches to narratology and narrative modeling.

The first half of the workshop will involve informal sharing of experiences by authors, tool designers, and technologists regarding narrative models, approaches to authoring interactive stories, and the design and use of interactive storytelling authoring tools. The second half of the workshop will consist of small groups brainstorming and prototyping new approaches to authoring based on narrative models and approaches to representation and authoring discussed during the first half of the workshop.

Information on existing tools, narrative theories, and computational models is available on the IRIS narrative wiki (http://tecfalabs.unige.ch/narrative).

Call for submissions

Participants are encouraged to submit short (1-4 page) informal position papers and/or descriptions of authoring tools or creative works for distribution to other participants prior to the workshop. These will form the basis for the presentations during the first part of the workshop. Position papers should be submitted as a single PDF file, and may be formatted using the Springer LNCS format used by the main conference (although this is not a strict requirement).

Topics of particular interest include:

1. Recent insights in story modeling and authoring tools
2. Generalized models for creating interactive stories
3. Tools without an explicit story model (e.g. Twine)
4. Content structures and patterns, and genres of patterns
5. Representations and abstractions of narrative models
6. The impact of authorial affordances on storytelling
7. New narrative models as inspiration for designing tools, such as unnatural narratology, possible worlds theory, and cognitive narratology
8. Approaches that allow authors to craft their own narrative models

Please send an email to Alex at the address below to indicate your interest in attending and/or submit a contribution. Submissions received before 28 October 4 November 2016 (note extended deadline) will be reviewed for inclusion in the workshop. Contributors will be notified of acceptance by 7 November. Accepted contributions will be made available to registered participants before the workshop.

Note that you do not need to submit a position paper or prepare a presentation to take part in the workshop, although you are encouraged to do so. We invite anyone with an interest in this topic to attend the workshop and take part in the discussion.

Schedule

The schedule for the workshop will be roughly as follows:

• 9:00 Introductions and settling in
• 9:15-10:30 Informal talks
1. Encountering Authoring Systems: Considering Authors' Needs in Authoring Tools. (Steven Wingate, South Dakota State University)
2. Data visualizations for complex computational narratives (Jacob Garbe, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, and Michael Mateas, University of California Santa Cruz)
3. Authoring tools for location-based sculptural hypertext (Charlie Hargood, Bournemouth University)
4. Authoring tools for location-based stories (Antonia Kampa and Ulrike Spierling, RheinMain University of Applied Sciences Wiesbaden)
5. Experiences with the Expressionist authoring tool for in-game text generation (Jonathan Lessard, Concordia University)
• 10:30-10:45 (coffee break)
• 10:45-12:00 Informal talks
1. Enriching the Interactive Narrative Experience with Backstories (Nicolas Szilas, University of Geneva)
2. Narrative theory formalization and story modelling (Chien-Yuan Su and Fanfan Chen, National Tsing Hua University)
3. Towards analyzing semantic structures in cinematic choice-based games (John Murray, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, and Michael Mateas, University of California Santa Cruz)
4. Exploring a Novel Computational Narrative Model for Games-for-Health Applications (Chrysanne DiMarco, George Ross, Ricky Rong, Chantelle Gellert, Samantha Fowler, Salman Jivani, University of Waterloo)
5. “Echoes of Nature”: a transmedia project to foster dialogue about the natural capital of Madeira Island (Valentina Nisi and Nuno Nunes, Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute)
• 12:00-1:30pm (lunch)
• 1:30-3:00 Small group brainstorming and mockups inspired by morning talks
• 3:00-3:15 (coffee break)
• 3:15-4:15 Groups present their ideas
• 4:15-4:30 Summaries and wrap-up

Contact information

Alex Mitchell, alexm@nus.edu.sg