Legendary writer Kurt Vonnegut cleverly explains how to write the 3 stories everyone loves
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Legendary writer Kurt Vonnegut cleverly explains how to write the 3 stories everyone loves
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Kurt Vonnegut explains the shapes of stories.
To be a great fiction writer requires understanding basic story structures and being clever enough to disguise them so your audience doesn’t know they’re watching or reading something they’ve seen before.
Academics suggest that there are only a finite number of plots and structures, but that number varies based on who’s doing the talking.
Writer Kurt Vonnegut, best known for his satirical works on American politics and culture, including "Slaughterhouse-Five," "Cat’s Cradle" and "Sirens of Titan," was obsessed with the shapes of stories and summed up his views in one powerful sentence: "The fundamental idea is that stories have shapes which can be drawn on graph paper and that the shape of a given society’s stories is at least as interesting as the shape of its pots or spearheads."
In the video below, Vonnegut explains why the shapes of three different types of stories, from "person gets into trouble" to "boy meets girl" to "Cinderella," can all be summed up on two axes: the Y represents good and bad fortune, the X represents the beginning and end of a story.
The first question is where the main character or protagonist starts their journey. Are they in a state of good or bad fortune, and how does that change from beginning to end?
"Somebody gets into trouble, then gets out of it again. People love that story. They never get tired of it," Vonnegut says with a smirk.
The video is an intriguing look into the mind of a highly original writer and gives excellent insights into the basics of storytelling.
Wonder how volunteering can change your life? Ask a Peace Corps Volunteer.
Those who give back get so much in return.
Larissa Gummy was first introduced to the work of the Peace Corps in high school. All it took was seeing a few photos shared by her ninth-grade teacher, a returned Peace Corps Volunteer, to know that one day, she would follow in those footsteps.
This inspiration eventually led Larissa away from her home in Minnesota to Rwanda in East Africa, to give back to her family’s country of origin and pursue her passion for international development. Though her decision confused her parents at first, they’re now proud and excited to see what their daughter has accomplished through her volunteer work.
And just what was that work? Well, it changed from day to day, but it all had to do with health.
Mostly, Larissa worked for Rwanda’s First 1,000 Days Health project, which aims to improve the conditions that affect the mortality rate of kids within the first 1,000 days of being born (or almost three years old). These conditions include hygiene, nutrition, and prevention of childhood diseases like malaria and acute respiratory infections (ARI). Addressing malnutrition was a particular focus, as it continues to cause stunted growth in 33% of Rwandan children under the age of five.
In partnership with the local health center, Larissa helped with vaccination education, led nutrition classes, offered prenatal care to expecting mothers, and helped support health education in surrounding communities. Needless to say—she stayed busy with a variety of tasks.
Teacher tries to simulate a dictatorship in her classroom, but the students crushed her
"I’ve done this experiment numerous times, and each year I have similar results. This year, however, was different."
Each year that I teach the book "1984" I turn my classroom into a totalitarian regime under the guise of the "common good."
I run a simulation in which I become a dictator. I tell my students that in order to battle "Senioritis," the teachers and admin have adapted an evidence-based strategy, a strategy that has "been implemented in many schools throughout the country and has had immense success." I hang posters with motivational quotes and falsified statistics, and provide a false narrative for the problem that is "Senioritis."
This guy breaks down why he thinks a 90 percent tax rate is actually good for the economy
A pretty compelling argument for the top earners that most people don’t think about.
Man explains how taxing the wealthy at 90 percent works.
Taxes are confusing for a good number of people, but we pay them anyway, and we think raising taxes is a bad thing based on how a tax hike would affect our personal finances. But no one really explains how having higher taxes for extremely wealthy people doesn't trickle down to mean higher taxes for lower tax brackets.
Apparently, the top earners used to pay up to 90% in taxes, and it helped stimulate the economy and create infrastructure in a way that hasn't been seen since. There has not been much of an effort to make taxes less confusing, so hearing the breakdown of how these absurdly high tax rates are helpful is refreshing.
Jordan Waggoner, who goes by @off_jawaggon on TikTok, often creates videos of him musing about policies, historical events and U.S. presidents. In a recent video, he explained how heavy taxing on the extremely wealthy actually works and people are thanking him for the easily digestible lesson.
Woman who lives on a cruise ship shares the hardest part about her perfect life
She's a little afraid to leave her cabin.
Christine Kesteloo has one big problem living on a cruise ship.
A lot of folks would love to trade lives with Christine Kesteloo. Her husband is the Chief Engineer on a cruise ship, so she gets to live on the boat pretty much for free as the "wife on board." For Christine, life is a lot like living on a permanent vacation.
"I live on a cruise ship for half the year with my husband, and it's often as glamorous as it sounds," she told Insider. "After all, I don't cook, clean, make my bed, do laundry or pay for food."
Living an all-inclusive lifestyle seems like paradise, but it has some drawbacks. Having access to all-you-can-eat food all day long can really have an effect on one’s waistline. Kesteloo admits that living on a cruise ship takes a lot of self-discipline because the temptation is always right under her nose.
Stop blaming the 'Karens.' The people who complain the most have a different name.
The stereotype has been wrong all along.
A woman giving a stern warning.
Over the past few years, women named Karen have taken a lot of heat in the media. The term "Karen" has been used to describe a specific type of entitled, privileged and often middle-aged white woman. Typically, "Karen" is depicted as demanding, self-important and constantly seeking to escalate minor inconveniences to authority figures, like demanding to "speak to the manager."
Identifying the folks who create unnecessary drama in our world is important. But calling them a "Karen" isn’t the best way to solve the problem. There are many reasons to have an issue with the "Karen" stereotype. First, it’s terrible for people named Karen, and it’s also a connotation that many feel is racist, sexist and ageist.
Further, according to a new study by Trustpilot, the stereotype isn’t accurate. A recent survey by the online media site found that the people who leave the most one-star reviews aren’t female, and the women who do it the most aren’t named Karen.
Woman has a funny reaction to waking up under anesthesia: ‘They took my tonsils and my hat!’
She also had a rather embarrassing wardrobe problem.
Skye wants to see her tonsils after having them removed.
It’s pretty common for people to exhibit some strange behaviors after coming out of anesthesia. Anesthesiologists call it "postoperative delirium." It can happen after major surgery and after dental work. Dentists say it’s common for patients to weep uncontrollably after waking up from having their wisdom teeth removed.
A Utah woman named Skye is going viral after a video taken by her mother, Shani Jensen, shows her crying while saying some hilarious things after having her tonsils removed. Skye is upset because the nurses didn't let her see her tonsils, and her mom let them dispose of the cap she wore, which she refers to as "her hat."
Dad takes 7-week paternity leave after his second child is born and is stunned by the results
"These past seven weeks really opened up my eyes on how the household has actually ran, and 110% of that is because of my wife."
There's a lot to be gleaned from this.
Participating in paternity leave offers fathers so much more than an opportunity to bond with their new kids. It also allows them to help around the house and take on domestic responsibilities that many new mothers have to face alone…while also tending to a newborn.
All in all, it enables couples to handle the daunting new chapter as a team, making it less stressful on both parties. Or at least equally stressful on both parties. Democracy!
TikTok creator and dad Caleb Remington, from the popular account @ustheremingtons, confesses that for baby number one, he wasn’t able to take a "single day of paternity leave."
This time around, for baby number two, Remington had the privilege of taking seven weeks off (to be clear—his employer offered four weeks, and he used an additional three weeks of PTO).
The time off changed Remington’s entire outlook on parenting, and his insights are something all parents could probably use.
Tags: Storytelling, Author, Semiotics, Writing, Zas