Kurt Vonnegut, Shape of Stories (subtitulos castellano)
Why Hacker News recommends it
Frequently recommended as a delightful, influential way to think about story structure.
What it is
Kurt Vonnegut's 2004 Case College lecture, with Spanish subtitles, in which he sketches the shapes of stories on a blackboard. He plots story arcs as good and bad fortune against time.
Recommended by 6 HN commenters across 6 different months, 2019 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec bmitc · 2020-11 · on “Kurt Vonnegut, The Art of Fiction No. 64 (1977)”
Vonnegut is really special. I always like coming back to his Shape of Stories talks: [LINK] Here's a longer one: [this video] It's interesting to see the difference in him with age. He seems to giggle more as an older man.
Strong rec urxvtcd · 2021-08 · on “Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?”
Not a blog post, but a piece of Kurt Vonnegut's talk randomly found on youtube had an impact on me: [this video]
Recommends iaw · 2019-01 · on “At the Blackboard: Kurt Vonnegut diagrams the shapes of stories (2005)”
There's an excellent video where he goes through these [0], worth a watch if you have the time. [0] [this video]
Recommends sam_0123 · 2021-07 · on “No More Movies”
Yes, Hero's Journey plot ( [LINK] ) is very well understood and yet continues to sell well and generally the idea of certain shapes to stories is beautifully explored here among other places: [this video]
Recommends f0e4c2f7 · 2021-11 · on “Ask HN: How do I learn how to tell a good story?”
There is a video of Kurt Vonnegut talking about story telling called Shape of Stories thats pretty good. [this video]
Recommends plussed_reader · 2024-02 · on “The emotional arcs of stories are dominated by six basic shapes”
You can find variations of this talk across his life but Vonneguts 'Shape of Stories' kept ringing in my head while going over this paper. I like the later-in-life version of the talk. [this video]
Cites bmitc · 2021-07 · on “No More Movies”
That's what I meant by presentations of his shapes of stories. There are a couple of lectures posted on YouTube. [LINK] [this video] The thinking originated in his (rejected) master's thesis at the University of Chicago. Here are some photos of some of the graphs: [LINK] Even there, in an incomplete copy, there are seven unique story shapes. And there's a major difference between saying here are some shapes of some stories and here are the only story shapes.