Emotional Storytelling

The promise of engaging immersive virtual environments has long been a motivating factor within Virtual Reality (VR). One of the greatest potentials in VR has been in the realm of telling stories and provide new and engaging experiences. Research in Virtual Environments is now shifting its focus to creating structures to enable such stories and experiences. In this paper we present a concept we feel can help to enable such experiences, Emotional Storytelling. Storytelling has long been centered on emotions. Whether a break room anecdote or a well crafted drama, the storyteller is hoping to evoke emotions in the audience. We propose extending the structures for Interactive Storytelling, both for VR and generally, to deal explicitly with this implicit emotional aspect. We outline an extension of existing Interactive Storytelling systems with emotional modelling and tracking. The proposed components are an extension of story segments with information about the expected user response, a modelled emotional path for each emotion category through the story, and an internal emotion tracking system, trying to predict the current emotional state of the user. CR Categories: H.5.1 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: Multimedia Information Systems—Artificial, augmented, and virtual realities; I.6.8 [Simulation and Modelling]: Types of Simulation—Gaming; J.5 [Computer Applications]: Arts and Humanities—Fine Arts; J.5 [Computer Applications]: Arts and Humanities—Literature;