Plot-creation support with plot-construction model for writing novels

Abstract

When starting to write a novel, an author often creates a structure for it, which is called the plot. The format of plots is not defined, and authors create plots using their own format. Unfortunately, plots often do not include sufficient information and thus authors may be unable to complete their novel. This study aims to support novice writers in creating a sufficient plot. We first analyse the items that support writing a novel and create a plot-construction model. We then propose a support method for creating plots by incorporating the concept of a story, which corresponds to the events ordered along the time sequence of the narrative world. Third, we define the format of the plot and the story and implement the support method. We conducted experiments to evaluate the validity of the plot and the story and the effectiveness of the system, and found that the structures of the plot and the story of already published novels could be adequately constructed. In addition, our system helped authors create plots for specific genres. As the number of participants in the experiment was small, we need to conduct further experiments to demonstrate the validity and effectiveness of our system.

Keywords

• Novel writing
• plot
• creativity support
• plot-construction model