# The Dynamical Principles of Storytelling

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.07797 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.07797/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 3 of its 12 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 14 Sep 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Efficient Estimation of Word Representations in Vector Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1301.3781/) (2013)
- [Distributed Representations of Words and Phrases and their Compositionality](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1310.4546/) (2013)
- [Narrative as a Dynamical System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.06600/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

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.