A computer-aided system for narrative creation

For many people, writing is a difficult task because finding a good topic and suitable elements is just not an easy job. In this study, we put our focus on narrative creation and propose that a Picture-Attributed-Note (PAN) framework can help with writing job. Picture and attributed notes were used to present and record story elements and to stimulate creativity. The attributed notes are presented in texts and characterized through the following six attributes: Character, Location, Object, Situation, Action, and Theme (CLOSAT) were used in this study to categorize the texts. We hope that stimulated through the pictures and attributed notes, users can better utilize creativity for their stories. In this study, we have implemented the PAN framework as a computer-aided system and conducted experiments to find out how one user would utilize the PAN system for story writing. Four participants were invited to create a story, including one without using the PAN system. We used content analysis to analyze the data through four main categories of coding: Conceptual, Operational, Perceptional and Evaluation (COPE), proposed by Chen [1]. The results reveal that the PAN system helps stimulate user's creativity and did not change their main creating process. In addition, the user interface of the PAN system could allow the user to concentrate more on the writing creation process.