Outcome inference based on threat resources in suspenseful scenes

Suspense is a complex phenomenon and a key narrative issue in terms of emotional gratification. However, despite its complexity, existing automatic storytelling systems based on suspense commonly implement it by restricting the success options of the main character. In order to provide coverage to other components of suspense, in this paper we focus on elements that potentially influence the anticipation of the protagonist’s final state. In particular, we present a study of how the threat’s resources impact the foreseen outcome of the scene. To achieve this, we collected a list of threat resources and possible outcomes from a set of suspense films. Then suspense evoked by each these resources and outcomes were gathered. These data were analysed and classified to obtain the most common resource-anticipated outcome pairs. An automatic story generation system was adapted to generate plots including these pairs but not show the outcome to the audience. Results evidence that it is possible to omit the outcome in suspenseful automated storytelling if the threat resource is given.