Authoring Issues beyond Tools

Abstract

Abstract. Authoring is still considered a bottleneck in successful Interactive Storytelling and Drama. The claim for intuitive authoring tools is high, especially for tools that allow storytellers and artists to define dynamic content that can be run with an AI-based story engine. We explored two concrete authoring processes in depth, using various Interactive Storytelling prototypes, and have provided feedback from the practical steps. The result is a presentation of general issues in authoring Interactive Storytelling, rather than of particular problems with a specific system that could be overcome by 'simply' designing the right interface. Priorities for future developments are also outlined.

Propositions for Innovative Forms of Digital Interactive Storytelling Based on Narrative Theories and Practices

“…As well, as we mentioned in the introduction, systems do exist today with the technical capacity to produce stories using some of the narrative forms presented in this article. What systems are lacking are authors [9] who can use them to produce interesting stories. With the various narrative forms presented in this article, we hope to provide insight into the possibilities DIS can become.…”

“…Looking through the various systems it becomes clear that the DIS community has not yet achieved its goal of providing the reader with a high quality story experience while at the same time providing him with a key role in affecting the outcome of said story. Several challenges still obstruct this goal, and these can be divided into two categories; technical feasibility and creative contributions -or authoring as it is referred to within the DIS community [9]. DIS must generate story fragments based on a user's actions and insure that their addition to the current story keeps the latter coherent.…”

“…It could thus be argued that one should wait for the domain to gain maturity and for professional authors to get comfortable with the DIS approach, systems and authoring tools. However, this is a typical chicken and egg problem as explained in Spierling and Szilas [9]: artists wait for mature DIS systems, but DIS need artists' guidance to evolve in an appropriate and innovative direction. In light of the current situation, this paper explores new possibilities of expression that advanced DIS research could offer authors.…”

Structural Writing, a Design Principle for Interactive Drama

“…Abstraction has been identified as a key issue in authoring [20,21,23]. Although some forms of linear writing (such as screenwriting) involves a kind of abstract thinking, what characterizes generative writing is the fact that authors need to directly enter abstract data into the system.…”

“…However, these approaches have rarely gone beyond the stage of the "technical prototype" and have not produced many convincing playable stories [15]. The authoring issue may explain this situation [21]. Authoring such systems is quite difficult, not only because of a lack of user-friendly authoring tools, but also and more importantly because of inherent conceptual difficulties in handling the computational data needed to produce an interactive drama.…”