Initial Results for Measuring Four Dimensions of Narrative Conflict.

Conflict is an essential element of interesting stories. In previous work, we proposed a formal model of narrative conflict. We also described 7 dimensions which can be used to distinguish one conflict from another: participants, subject, duration, balance, directness, intensity , and resolution . This paper presents the results of an experiment designed to measure how well our metrics for balance, directness, intensity , and resolution predict the responses of human readers when asked to measure these same values in a set of four stories. We conclude that our metrics are able to rank stories similarly to human readers.