A large part of the initial problem in learning Storytron is the language used within the program–and I’m not questioning the choice of the creators; in fact, I trust that they have explored all possibilities and for the program to open itself up to full use, the language was carefully considered. Therefore, and they do warn of this, a writer or user must first spend quite a bit of time learning and often relearning or reassigning meaning to words used in the commands. "Role" for example, means point of view, and it will take into consideration who and how any particular character will react in an event.
The "Event" is the situation or current action, and must consist of subject, verb, and direct object. In Storytron, the subject will always be a character, as will the direct object–people relating to people.
Operators are programs using arguments to come up with output. But the arguments are not disagreements per se, but possibilities that either match or don’t match.
It’s all very confusing and the learning process–for me, at least–is slowing down the actual working with the SWAT program.
Not unusual; I remember having trouble with some literary terms that seemed contrary to their less formal or colloquial use. It takes a while and almost a conscious effort to remember that this doesn’t mean this here, but means that instead.
As far as selecting a story or scenario, I’m going to work a bit on this story, Faith, and prepare it for when I’m ready to really start working with Storytron on a more defined basis once I am more comfortable with the controls. While it is obviously way too soon to write the story for the program, I think that if I use the situation and the characters planned for this story in the learning process then I will have some sort of framework for the verbweb and idea of characters in mind rather than randomly selecting options. It should, if I’m guessing correctly, add focus to the learning and perhaps give clues along the way of how the program is working together to form a cohesive whole.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology