School of Culture and Communication - Theses
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ItemUnputdownable: how the agencies of compelling story assembly can be modelled using formalisable methods from Knowledge Representation, and in a fictional tale about seduction( 2012)As a story unfolds, its structure can drive a reader to want to know more, in a manner that writers sometimes refer to as unputdownable. I model this behaviour so that it can be applied in two fields: creative writing and Knowledge Representation. Two forms of answer to my thesis question therefore emerged – a formalisable diagrammatic method, and an excerpt from a fictional novel, The Snakepig Dialect. The opening section of my thesis accounts for the theoretical exploration. This framework is designed to support a specific target product: a knowledge base capable of assembling fragments of information into causally coherent ‘stories.’ This assembly would be achieved through the identification of causal agents that connect the fragments, and a causal impetus that would enable the projection of possible outcomes, even when there is no precedent for them. This integration is managed by two novel features of my Dynamic Story Model. First, in order to facilitate accurate interpretation, I consider that multiple contextual situations must be arranged into relationships, just as concepts are positioned in semantic networks. Second, the associative priorities of these multiple inferences are managed by a principle that I term governance, in which the structures of some networks are able to modify and connect others. In order to extend current devices in Knowledge Representation so that these features can be represented, I draw on my own creative writing practice, as well as existing theories in Narratology, Discourse Processes, Causal Philosophy and Conceptual Change. This model of unputdownability is expressed differently in my fictional submission. The tale is set in a future Australia, in which China is the dominant culture, the weather seems to be developing intentional behaviours, and Asia's largest defence laboratory sometimes selects unusual talents to work in its invention shop. One apprentice in this institute, Lilah, falls in love with someone who seems unattainable. Instead of solving the assigned problem, she develops a formula for seduction, testing it on her beloved before she is capable of controlling her strange gift. Lilah’s seduction technique is based on a principle of governance similar to that described by my theoretical model. She learns to how to seduce by offering only fragments of information about herself, drawing her beloved into her story by provoking wonder, which eventually bends her lover’s desires. Lilah’s tale also explores the challenge of modelling a new scientific theory, and she struggles with the same difficulty of articulating an elusive phenomenon that I have in this research (but iii! with more dramatic consequences for her failures). At the same time as featuring the core concern of my research question in the plot, I have also used my model to revive this novel. By establishing terms of agency and allowing them to evolve, each section of text came to build on the next, so the reader could wonder how they might resolve. In this way, I anchored my theoretical propositions about stories in fictional practice, and gained insight into the writing process, in order to revive my ailing novel.