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In this paper we present our continuing efforts to generate narrative using a character-centric approach. In particular we discuss the advantages of explicitly representing the emergent event sequence in order to be able to exert influence on it and generate stories that 'retell' the emergent narrative. Based on a narrative distinction between fabula, plot and presentation, we make a first step by presenting a model based on story comprehension that can capture the fabula, and show how it can be used for the automatic creation of stories.

This paper presents the Interactive Storyteller, a multiuser interface for AI-based interactive storytelling, where stories emerge from the interaction of human players with intelligent characters in a simulated story world. To support face-to-face contact and social interaction, we position users around a shared multi-touch table, which very much resembles the social setting of traditional tabletop board games. To our knowledge, the Interactive Storyteller is the first AI-based interactive storytelling system that combines an emergent narrative approach with the social aspects of traditional tabletop board games. We carried out user experiments to investigate to what extent our system supports social interaction. By analysing the interactions of pairs of children with the Interactive Storyteller, we determined which system aspects triggered cooperation and highly social behaviour and which aspects caused players to behave less socially. We also tried to find out whether the use of tangible playing pieces offered any advantages over touch-only interaction, but we did not find any differences between the two.

We explore the role that story generation feedback may play within the creative process of interactive story authoring. While such feedback is often used as 'debugging' information, we explore here a 'cocreation' view, in which the outcome of the story generator influences authorial intent. We illustrate an iterative authoring approach in which each iteration consists of idea generation, implementation and simulation. We find that the tension between authorial intent and the partially uncontrollable story generation outcome may be relieved by taking such a co-creation approach.

Emergent narrative (EN) is a narrative concept in virtual reality that relies on emergence for a flexible shaping of stories as opposed to fixed pre-determined plots. This has consequences for the creative role of the author in an EN system. In this paper, we aim to clarify the actual function of the author by investigating what is exactly mediated in ENs and how this can be filled in by an author at design time.