Vonnegut's Story Shapes
Daily #308 | Applying Vonnegut's 8 Story Types
George Samuels
August 24th, 2023
Overview
Kurt Vonnegut’s famous storytelling lecture
Vonnegut’s “Shape of Stories” storytelling framework
The simplicity of Nathan Baugh’s World Builder newsletter
How I cleaned up my own newsletter by learning from both Nathan and Kurt
I saw an X post recently about Kurt Vonnegut, a professor who explains stories in an extremely efficient way. And if you know anything about being human, we’re wired for stories — so it plays out in all areas of our lives involving communication.
Vonnegut plots his stories on two axes: X for time and Y for good or bad fortune. People love stories where someone gets into trouble and then out of it, which is incredibly fitting for micropreneurs.
In 4 minutes, Kurt Vonnegut explained stories better than anyone I’ve ever heard.
“The shape of the curve is what matters. Not their origins.”
He plots stories on 2 axes:
X: Time
Y: Good fortune / ill fortuneHe goes on to say,
“Somebody gets into trouble, then gets out of… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
— Nathan Baugh (@nathanbaugh27)
Aug 21, 2023
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