Kurt Vonnegut on the Shapes of Stories

Kurt Vonnegut lectures on the shapes of stories, drawing simple curves on a blackboard that plot the fortunes of a main character over time. He shows how familiar story types, such as man in a hole or Cinderella, follow recognizable emotional arcs.

HN people return to it as a witty, simple way to understand narrative structure, and refer to it whenever story shape comes up.

“Vonnegut is really special. I always like coming back to his Shape of Stories talks”