# TaleStream: Supporting Story Ideation with Trope Knowledge

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.03790 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.03790/

## Key facts

- Cited by 9 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 7 Sep 2023.

## Built on by (most cited first, 9 of 9)

- [Patchview: LLM-Powered Worldbuilding with Generative Dust and Magnet Visualization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.04112/) (2024)
- [ScriptViz: A Visualization Tool to Aid Scriptwriting based on a Large Movie Database](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.03224/) (2024)
- [Toyteller: AI-powered Visual Storytelling Through Toy-Playing with Character Symbols](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.13284/) (2025)
- [Narrix: Remixing Narrative Strategies from Examples for Story Writing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.07643/) (2026)
- [Investigating Video Reasoning Capability of Large Language Models with Tropes in Movies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.10923/) (2024)
- [PlayWrite: A Multimodal System for AI Supported Narrative Co-Authoring Through Play in XR](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.02366/) (2026)
- [Narrative Keyframing for Generative Creative Writing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.10337/) (2026)
- [Designing Proactive Thought Partners for Writing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.01588/) (2026)
- [VeriForge: Mitigating Latent Knowledge Gaps in Narrative Drafting via Mixed-Initiative Scaffolding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.09698/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Story ideation is a critical part of the story-writing process. It is challenging to support computationally due to its exploratory and subjective nature. Tropes, which are recurring narrative elements across stories, are essential in stories as they shape the structure of narratives and our understanding of them. In this paper, we propose to use tropes as an intermediate representation of stories to approach story ideation. We present TaleStream, a canvas system that uses tropes as building blocks of stories while providing steerable suggestions of story ideas in the form of tropes. Our trope suggestion methods leverage data from the tvtropes.org wiki. We find that 97% of the time, trope suggestions generated by our methods provide better story ideation materials than random tropes. Our system evaluation suggests that TaleStream can support writers' creative flow and greatly facilitates story development. Tropes, as a rich lexicon of narratives with available examples, play a key role in TaleStream and hold promise for story-creation support systems.