mailto:jrose@mit.edu
A good example of structured stories are Mad Libs. By removing the description and action words, a frame remains for the reader to reinsert nouns, verbs, or whatever is called for, to recreate a story different from what the original was, but close enough to be able to laugh at word misusages.
Here's an example from Twisted Tales:
At KNEECAP Park in southern ATLANTIS, there is a OUTRAGEOUS rollercoaster known as "The ANNOYING QUARTER!"
The ANNOYING QUARTER begins by climbing 95.8 feet of track. Then it decends almost straight down. People's FINGER NAIL jump into their throat's! They scream things like "Wheeee!" and "YO!" It reaches speeds of SEVERAL MOOSE per hour. The rollercoaster makes a HILARIOUS turn to the left. Then it horrifies it's occupants by WRECKING through 3 loops. People are SNACKING all over. A few more twists and turns later, the ride will SKIPS home. Let's go on it again!
It's a pretty pathetic story, I know, but given a group of intoxicated people who know it's not going to be displayed to the class, they can get funnier. What's cool about the web is the instantaneousness of it. No longer do you have to wait for a new Mad Lib book to come out. Sites like Digital Dementia deals with the Lewinsky Tapes, TV's Ellen's coming out, and the Olympics, among other current events.
Checking on random story generators, KT's Random Rumours spits back a prewritten paragraph about people I don't know, Pretty crappy. This untitled random story generator works the way the fairly famous sonnet generator works, similar to Eliza. It uses rules of grammer and a stock of words to make up a story. Here's one:
The infected cargo bay gets perverse satisfaction from a fundraiser. Furthermore, the Bhali shits in his pants, and the werewolf secretly sanitizes a Bitch-ass. Any submarine can borrow money from an elusive football team, but it takes a real razor blade to befriend some linguistic submarine. If a foreign foot organizes the gratifying pig pen, then the hesitantly raspy tet daydreams.
A muddy oil filter organizes a so-called particle accelerator. Sometimes a tripod goes to sleep, but a stoic queer always learns a hard lesson from a tape recorder under the roller coaster! Indeed, a reactor over the reactor knowingly reaches an understanding with a frozen pubic hair. Furthermore, the lover beyond the artichoke wakes up, and a miserly bowling ball greedily assimilates the ski lodge.
Most people believe that a reactor toward a warranty takes a shit on a squid, but they need to remember how hesitantly an asparagus related to a photon self-flagellates. Indeed, a cheese wheel toward the traffic light slyly competes with the particle accelerator living with the testicle. If a frustrating fire hydrant wisely ignores a bowling ball, then a shot glass reads a magazine. The roller coaster buries the wedding dress. A judge between the light bulb takes a coffee break, but an anal canal on top of the cargo bay tries to seduce a spider.
A federal paper napkin almost knows a poster. Any apartment building can can be kind to the razor blade from a tripod, but it takes a real hole puncher to have a change of heart about the abstraction under a vacuum cleaner. For example, a loyal judge indicates that a fire hydrant between a cab driver learns a hard lesson from the freight train between a power drill. Most people believe that the cyprus mulch cooks cheese grits for an eggplant, but they need to remember how single-handledly a cargo bay between a briar patch ceases to exist.
Unfortunately, there's only a small kernel of a story here, if there's even one at all. But the rules set it up so that it's at least structured like a story.
Then there are pseudo-Mad Libs that use pull-down menus to make selections for story creation as opposed to the user typing in the necessary words. This is less fun, I think, because it shows the words in the context of the story, which, while may aid in creating a story that makes sense, isn't any better than writing the damn thing yourself. An example is the Bitch Letter Generator, which lets the uncreative scorn their ex. Here's one I made:
Dear Pig,
I've been burning with hatred, and, unable to verbalize my feelings in a manner in which you would understand, put the matter aside until I could conjure up a more focused thought to bear.
In a nutshell, you are worthless.
And another thing, if you ever want to get laid again, then
you'd better pay more attention to me, or I'll kill you, I swear.
There's then a spot to stick in your own message, followed by:
I hate you.
Your mistress
A nice touch is the spot for your email, and the person you wish to send it to, which is in fact functional.