DuoDrama: Supporting Screenplay Refinement Through LLM-Assisted Human Reflection

TL;DR

DuoDrama is an AI system designed to enhance screenwriting refinement by providing feedback that supports reflection from both character and story perspectives, improving feedback quality and depth.

Contribution

The paper introduces DuoDrama and the ExReflect workflow, enabling AI to coordinate internal and external story perspectives for better screenplay refinement.

Findings

DuoDrama improves feedback quality and alignment.

It enhances the effectiveness, depth, and richness of screenwriter reflection.

Professional screenwriters found the system beneficial for refinement.

Abstract

AI has been increasingly integrated into screenwriting practice. In refinement, screenwriters expect AI to provide feedback that supports reflection across the internal perspective of characters and the external perspective of the overall story. However, existing AI tools cannot sufficiently coordinate the two perspectives to meet screenwriters' needs. To address this gap, we present DuoDrama, an AI system that generates feedback to assist screenwriters' reflection in refinement. To enable DuoDrama, based on performance theories and a formative study with nine professional screenwriters, we design the Experience-Grounded Feedback Generation Workflow for Human Reflection (ExReflect). In ExReflect, an AI agent adopts an experience role to generate experience and then shifts to an evaluation role to generate feedback based on the experience. A study with fourteen professional screenwriters shows that DuoDrama improves feedback quality and alignment and enhances the effectiveness, depth, and richness of reflection. We conclude by discussing broader implications and future directions.