The 8 Shapes of Stories

Kurt Vonnegut’s failed thesis is a masterpiece in understanding story

I first shared this essay in 2023, and the idea has only grown on me since.

A story is a constant swing between good and ill fortune. More than any specific trick or framework, for your story to land it needs to be interesting, and for it to be interesting it needs to involve swings in emotion.

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

“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

Across all 8 shapes, the line never stays flat. Stories live in the constant push between good fortune and bad. The specific shape matters less than keeping that oscillation alive.

Let’s look at the 8 shapes.

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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.”

2. Boy Meets Girl

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.”

3 quick points 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.”

The Line is Never Flat

By far the most important takeaway to help you tell better stories is to avoid the flat line at all costs.

We can debate for hours if there are 8 or 6 or 75 shapes of stories. But if you look at all of them, that line is never flat. The ‘fortune’ of the protagonist needs to always be changing. Moments of humor shine in a dark story, while moments of deep sadness hit hardest when juxtaposed with joy.

Stories are a constant swing between good and ill fortune, and your job as the storyteller is to amplify that swing.

Have an awesome week,

Nathan

PS. Let me know if a follow up newsletter on how I think about making this oscillation happen would be helpful.

PPS: Here’s the video of Vonnegut explaining the idea. It’s brilliant.