The Dynamical Principles of Storytelling

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the structural principles of storytelling, revealing a common directional pattern in the initial paragraphs of stories that aligns with traditional Western narrative conventions.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the first dozen paragraphs of stories follow an action principle and that shuffling disrupts this pattern, highlighting a universal storytelling tendency.

Findings

Initial story paragraphs follow an action principle.

Shuffling paragraphs disrupts the observed pattern.

Suggests a common Western storytelling tradition.

Abstract

When considering the opening part of 1800 short stories, we find that the first dozen paragraphs of the average narrative follow an action principle as defined in arXiv:2309.06600. When the order of the paragraphs is shuffled, the average no longer exhibits this property. The findings show that there is a preferential direction we take in semantic space when starting a story, possibly related to a common Western storytelling tradition as implied by Aristotle in Poetics.