The Plot And Story Feature Model

Check this one out (machine generated):

The day before yesterday in an old castle, a cute girl named Fatty was walking 
along, minding her own business. Fatty looked and dressed like Mother Theresa. 
Suddenly, she saw Bevis, who was homely and looked a little like Donald Duck. 
Bevis proceeded to take a athletic boy's car. The boy's name was Elvis.

"Stop, you idiot!" Fatty yelled out. But Bevis started to run away.

Fatty chased Bevis for 3 minutes. Bevis could run fast and seemed to be 
getting away. But then in a final great effort, Fatty caught a taxi cab 
and surprisingly caught the scoundrel!

Elvis was so happy, that he made a sandwich. 

Thus ends a good story.

If you want to experience it yourself, try generating and reading random story or a movie plot using these generators:

• An Automatic CS Paper Generator
• Randumbness Random Story Generator by Derek Clark
• Slashdot Story Generator
• Simple Plot and a Random Story Generator by Ron Kurtus
• The Postmodernism Generator by Andrew C. Bulhak
• Random Story Generator
• Random Logline Generator by Brian Stokes
• Gibberish Generators by Kevan Davis and/or Holly Gramazio

Very similar to games generator, creating the tools of this kind requires a feature model of the plot and the story. Is there a simple feature model behind movie plots and fiction stories?

After looking around a bit I indeed found that screen writer and fiction authors have this all figured out for them. There seems to be well known structure to plots and stories after all. After doing some research I have created a plot & story feature model that I am presenting below.

The Characters

The protagonist or main character is the central figure of a story. The story follows and is chiefly concerned with the protagonist (or, sometimes, a small group of protagonists). The protagonist is also characterized by his ability to change or evolve. The protagonist is, it should be pointed out, not always the hero of the story. Many authors have chosen to unfold a story from the point of view of a character who, while not central to the action of the story, is in a position to comment upon it. However, it is most common for the story to be "about" the protagonist; even if the protagonist's actions are not heroic, they are nonetheless usually vital to the progress of the story.

A foil character is either one who is opposite to the main character or nearly the same as the main character. The purpose of the foil character is to emphasize the traits of the main character by contrast only. The protagonist is often faced with a "foil"; that is, a character known as the antagonist who most represents or creates obstacles that the protagonist must overcome. The antagonist is the character (or group of characters, or, sometimes an institution) of a story who represents the opposition against which the heroes and/or protagonists must contend. In the classic style of story wherein the action consists of a hero fighting a villain, the two can be regarded as protagonist and antagonist, respectively. Note that the antagonist is not necessarily human; often, the forces of nature or psychological elements provide this element of opposition. As with protagonists, there may be more than one antagonist in a story.

The Plot

Elements of plot in a narrative are:

1. Initial situation - the beginning. It is the first incident that makes the story move.
2. Conflict or Problem - goal which the main character of the story has to achieve.
3. Complication - obstacles which the main character has to overcome.
4. Climax - highest point of interest of the story.
5. Suspense - point of tension. It arouses the interest of the readers.
6. Denouement or Resolution - what happens to the character after overcoming all obstacles/failing to achieve the desired result and reaching/not reaching his goal.
7. Conclusion - the end of the story.

The Conflict

There are only three or four "simple plots" according to most books:

• Man versus man.
• Man versus nature.
• Man versus self.
• Man versus man’s work.

Roles

The functionalist approach, which is largely borrowed from anthropology, sees a "role" as the set of expectations that society places on an individual. By unspoken consensus, certain behaviors are deemed "appropriate" and others "inappropriate".

The Drama Triangle

Experience has shown that many interactions between 2, 3 or more human beings reproduce this ancestral though often damaging pattern. The scenario of most novels, plays, movies and television series are based on the drama triangle. The drama triangle model illustrates a power game that involves three different but tightly bound together roles:

• Persecutor: this player acts as an attacker, an aggressor. In a wider context, the persecutor can be an innovator, an initiator, or anyone who disturbs the equilibrium.
• Victim: this player is subjected to the attacks of the persecutor. In a wider context, the victim can be the one undergoing the change, struggling against the change, or the one whose equilibrium is disturbed.
• Rescuer: this player acts as a protector, a servant-knight. In a wider context, the rescuer can be seen as the one who strives to restore the equilibrium.

The Rescuer pretends or professes to helping the Victim, a person who may or may not actually need help. Note that the "game" position of Rescuer is distinct from that of a genuine rescuer such as a firefighter who saves a victim from a burning building or a lifeguard who saves a victim from drowning. There is something dishonest about the Rescuer's attempts, or at best, a mixed motive.

For the drama triangle to come into full flower, one of the players must shift positions as drama evolves. For example, a Victim may become a Persecutor complaining of getting too much help, not enough help, or the wrong kind of help. A Rescuer may become a Persecutor, complaining that the clients don't appreciate her enough.

Typical examples of common triangular situations are:

• criminal, victim and police
• father, son and mother
• teachers, children and parents
• illness, patient and therapist
• colleague, me and manager
• drawback, me and the rest of the world
• situation, coachee and coach.

There are many forms of educational drama that all share one common goal, to create awareness or an understanding of an idea or issue. These dramas usually have an emphasis on moral dilemmas, and good always triumphs over evil, this kind of play is also very entertaining making it a very effective way of reaching many people.

The Drama Theory

Six dilemmas (formerly called paradoxes) are defined, and if none of them exist then the characters have an agreement that they fully trust each other to carry out. Until a resolution meeting these conditions is arrived at, the characters are under emotional pressure to rationalize re-definitions of the game that they will play. Re-definitions inspired by new dilemmas then follow each other until eventually, with or without a resolution; characters become players in the game they have defined for themselves. In a drama, emotions trigger rationalizations that create changes in the game, and so change follows change until either all conflicts are resolved or action becomes necessary. The game as re-defined is then played.

The dilemmas that character A may face with respect to another character B at a moment of truth are as follows.

• A's Cooperation dilemma: B doesn't believe A would carry out its actual or putative promise to implement B's position.
• A's Trust dilemma: A doesn't believe B would carry out its actual or putative promise to implement A's position.
• A's Persuasion (also known as Deterrence) dilemma: B certainly prefers the threatened future to A's position.
• A's Rejection (also known as Inducement) dilemma: A may prefer B's position to the threatened future.
• A's Threat dilemma: B doesn't believe A would carry out its threat not to implement B's position.
• A's Positioning dilemma: A prefers B's position to its own, but rejects it (usually because it considers it unrealistic).

Final Word

Such mediation involves a computer receiving and interpreting the various signals from the humans. These signals come in the form of the written text or as a sequence of abstract actions (like pressing a button or clicking a link). It also involves a computer generating the response back to the human also in the form of written text or as a sequence of abstract actions (like showing a picture or loading a new web page).

If we are to make computers better server people, we must model the computer-human interactions after the human-human interaction. This means that the modeling of software is more and more about modeling social aspects of human behaviors.

I am researching the Plot And Story Feature Model to better model and explore the computer-human interactions. I hope it will help to create a better social software application aligned with human goal and behavior.

It helps me to see that the Spyware Bot is a typical Persecutor, and the Antivurus Software Vendor is a Rescuer with unclear intentions. A lot of drama is to unfold in there if roles are reversed… And as the feature model dictates, my personal goal is not to be the Victim of either one!

Appendix

• Plot and Story Charts For Story Generators
• The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations For Story Generators
• 20 Basic Plots For Story Generators
• Story Structure For Story Generators