Author Kurt Vonnegut Breaks Down the Shapes of Stories

American writer Kurt Vonnegut wrote for more than 50 years, publishing 14 novels, three short story collections, five plays, and five works of non-fiction. He is most famous for his darkly satirical, best-selling novel Slaughterhouse-Five (1969).

He is also known for his rejected master’s thesis involving the emotional arcs of popular stories, depicted in graphical form.

As Vonnegut once said, “There is no reason why the simple shapes of stories can’t be fed into computers, they are beautiful shapes.” In this video, you’ll see Vonnegut himself explain and demonstrate how to chart basic story arcs. Watch as he visualizes classic story lines along the ‘beginning – end’ and ‘ill fortune – great fortune’ axes.

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