Kurt Vonnegut on the 8 “Shapes” of Stories

“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t from the center.” – Kurt Vonnegut Author Kurt Vonnegut developed a theory about stories as part of his rejected master’s thesis in anthropology. He posited that stories have shapes, which can be drawn as graphs. Studying these re

There are endless riffs on story shape – sometimes subtle, sometimes brutal explorations and excavations of an original tune. Often you may have to search long and hard to find it, but the tune – even in its absence – will be there. In music, poetry, film – arguably all art – digression merely confirms the archetype’s importance.