A lecture from Kurt Vonnegut about how to analyze and critique fictional stories. By graphing the plot along two axes, Good to Bad and Beginning to Entropy, you can visualize the story and compare their shapes to other stories. It also shows that stories seldom tell the truth that we don’t know what the good news is and what the bad news is.
Watch Shape of Stories via YouTube.
See also:
- Story telling is also important for business writing. The Minto Pyramid Principle helps deliver the message, but SCQA could also be thought of as the same axes as the shape of stories.
Links to this note
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How to Write a Sales Narrative
A sales narrative is a cohesive story that explains why customers need your product.
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We Don’t Know What the Good News Is and What the Bad News Is
In Shape of Stories, Kurt Vonnegut discusses story arcs as peaks and valleys from good to bad. It reveals that we don’t know enough about real life to judge whether something that happens is a good thing or a bad thing. He uses Hamlet to illustrate—throughout the story each event is neither good nor bad, despite the tragedy (and murder) Hamlet and the world appear no better and no worse.