Computational Narratology and Storytelling Variants

• How can we characterize the mechanisms by which narrative variants emerge from original tales?
• What role do type interactions play in the formation of storytelling variants across cultures?
• How can semiotic relations be used to systematically generate new narrative variants while preserving coherence?
• What computational methods can effectively blend episodes from different stories to create coherent new narratives?
• How can narrative structure analysis inform the development of automated story generation systems?

This research develops computational methods to analyze and generate narrative variants based on theories from narratology, folklore studies, and semiotics. The work proposes that variants are often the consequence of type interactions, which can be characterized through semiotic relations expressing connection, similarity, unfolding, and opposition.

A central investigation explores how semiotic theory can provide systematic operations for creating story variants. The approach identifies four fundamental ways of composing new narratives from existing ones: along the syntagmatic axis through combination, along the paradigmatic axis through imitation, along the meronymic axis through expansion, and through opposition via antithetic reversal.

The research also investigates computational narrative blending, treating plot generation as a plan-generation problem. This method reuses existing stories to generate new narrative variants by combining and adapting episodes extracted from different stories that share the same narrative structure. By integrating plan validation algorithms with fundamental narrative structures, the approach ensures logical coherence while enabling creative variation.

A transdisciplinary perspective is also explored, integrating concepts from narratology, database design methodology, and computational linguistics to establish theoretical foundations for computational narratology as an emerging field. The research explores how network analysis techniques can aid in plot analysis and composition, providing tools to visualize narrative variants and support writers in the creative process.

A specialized tool was developed for visualizing all possible narrative variants generated from a library of stories by applying semiotic operations. The tool helps writers explore different combinations, understand structural relationships, and compose new narratives.