The 8 Shapes of Stories

Kurt Vonnegut’s failed thesis as a way to understand story

Hey — it’s Nathan.

The year’s 2018. I’m sitting in calculus 3 trying to solve integrals. Thinking I’d never look at a graph like this after school. But then I came across Kurt Vonnegut’s “Shapes of Stories” theory. And it clicked with my analytical brain like no other story theory has.

In the early 1950s, Kurt Vonnegut submitted his thesis paper to the University of Chicago’s Department of Anthropology. His idea?

“There is no reason why the simple shapes of stories can’t be fed into computers. They are beautiful shapes.”

But the university rejected the thesis.

Vonnegut quips it “was rejected because it was so simple and looked like too much fun.” But the idea persisted. Maybe for those exact reasons. Today, it’s one of the most compelling analytical takes on storytelling.

Before you get into the 8 shapes, let me quickly explain how the graphs work.

Vonnegut plots stories on 2 axes:

• X: Beginning to end

• Y: Good fortune / ill fortune

With the story line following the protagonist’s arc. You get the idea. Let’s look at the 8 shapes.

The 8 Shapes of Stories

1. Man in Hole

A character’s doing fine, gets herself into a huge problem, and must overcome it. They end up better than they started.

“You see this story again and again,” Vonnegut says. “People love it, and it is not copyrighted.”

Example — Die Hard.

2. Boy Meets Girl

The protagonist finds something wonderful (usually love), loses it, and then goes on a journey to get it back again.

Example — The Proposal.

3. From Bad to Worse (Kafkaesque)

The protagonist starts off bad but things manage to get worse from there. Sometimes, you turn into a bug.

Example — Metamorphosis.

4. Which Way is Up? (The Complicated One)

The character(s) goes through a series of seemingly random ups and downs. Often, the overall line slopes up despite the constant zigzag.

Example — Game of Thrones.

5. Creation Story

This represents the idea of coming out of chaos and moving toward order and happiness. The shape slopes upwards but isn’t common in western culture.

Example — The Lion King.

6. Old Testament

Characterized by cycles of good fortune and bad fortune, but typically ends in a downward direction. Think of it as a series of ups and downs that finally go down.

Example — No Country for Old Men.

7. New Testament

The main character has progressively better fortune until, one day, something horrible happens. Then they have to figure out how to find “off the chart bliss.”

Example — Shawshank Redemption.

8. Cinderella (Rags-to-Riches)

I’ll leave this description to Vonnegut:

“We’re gonna start way down here. Worse than that, who is so low? It’s a little girl… the shoe fits, and she achieves off-scale happiness.”

Example — Harry Potter.

3 quick points from Vonnegut to pull this idea together:

• “Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — so the reader may see what they're made of.”

• “It’s not accidental that the line ends up higher than where it began. This is encouraging to readers.” (True for 6 of the 8)

• “The shape of the curve is what matters. Not their origins.”

Map enough stories, and you’ll see these shapes over and over.

Have an awesome week,

Nathan

PS: Here’s the video of Vonnegut explaining the idea. It’s gold.