April 2019
Last month, a few MBA students did an interesting exercise as part of an Individual Leadership Development course. We had to draw the shape of our lives based on Kurt Vonnegut’s “Shapes of Stories” for our professor, Dr. Janet Marcantonio’s session. Let’s see the evolution of the “Shapes of Stories” theory.
In 1947, Kurt Vonnegut, an anthropology student in University of Chicago, proposed that every story in the world can be plotted on a 2-dimensional graph. He said that every main character of a story has ups and downs that can be graphed to reveal the taxonomy of the story as well as something about the culture it comes from. His point was that stories have shapes that can be drawn on a graph paper.
Vonnegut plotted stories on a vertical “G-I axis,” representing the good or ill fortunes (in terms of prosperity and health) of the main characters, and a horizontal “B-E” axis that represented the course of the story from beginning to end of life.
Vonnegut’s thesis was rejected by the University, cited as too simple and looked like too much fun. However, Vonnegut continued to work on his thesis and wrote several books. He continued to carry the idea with him for many years after that, and spoke publicly about it more than once. It was, essentially, this: “There is no reason why the simple shapes of stories can’t be fed into computers. They are beautiful shapes.” He delivered a speech on this (filled with simplicity and humor) –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3c1h8v2ZQ
Years later in 1971, his thesis was finally accepted by the University.
In 2016, a group of researchers from the University of Vermont and the University of Adelaide decided to put his theory to the test. They analyzed the shape of over two-thousand works of fiction using math and machine learning and found the six main shapes of stories:
Kurt’s point was that knowing the arc can help writers, film directors, or musicians simplify their approach. It can guide in terms of visual design and kick start creative collaboration. No wonder Kurt went on to write several books using this technique.
But Kurt’s theory is not just limited to literature and storytelling. It has broader usefulness too. While doing this exercise (plotting your life journey on the chart), you can derive significant meaning of your life. Kurt while explaining “Shapes of Stories” says one should always ask while drawing the graph – “if this isn’t good, then what it is?”. People are often skeptical and pessimistic about their life journey. They don’t realize the trajectory they have covered and how they might be way more blessed than other people.
Plotting this graph can help you realize the significance of your achievements, be aware of the fortunes you had, and be thankful to many people who uplifted your trajectory. It also tells us that although multi-dimensional lives cannot be judged in black and white, they can still be simplified for interpretation.
If you want to plot your graph, make use of MS Excel. Create a 2x2 table with 2 columns – age and fortune. Enter various ages where you feel, you had a significant event in life. Rate that event in the fortune column on a scale of -2 to 2 (you can take any evenly distributed scale; range of scale doesn’t matter until its even). -2 meaning a really tragic incident and +2 meaning a blissful event. Do this for various stages of life, select the table and then go to Inset -> Insert Scatter -> Insert Scatter -> Scatter with smooth lines and markers. Name X-axis “age in years” and Y-axis “G-I”. You can put comments on each data point to remind you of what happened and how your shape of life changed at that point. Think about the number of people in the world whose lines would plot much below yours!
--- Jay Jani
Jay Jani is a Masters student attending Mays Business School
In 1947, Kurt Vonnegut, an anthropology student in University of Chicago, proposed that every story in the world can be plotted on a 2-dimensional graph. He said that every main character of a story has ups and downs that can be graphed to reveal the taxonomy of the story as well as something about the culture it comes from. His point was that stories have shapes that can be drawn on a graph paper.
Vonnegut plotted stories on a vertical “G-I axis,” representing the good or ill fortunes (in terms of prosperity and health) of the main characters, and a horizontal “B-E” axis that represented the course of the story from beginning to end of life.
Vonnegut’s thesis was rejected by the University, cited as too simple and looked like too much fun. However, Vonnegut continued to work on his thesis and wrote several books. He continued to carry the idea with him for many years after that, and spoke publicly about it more than once. It was, essentially, this: “There is no reason why the simple shapes of stories can’t be fed into computers. They are beautiful shapes.” He delivered a speech on this (filled with simplicity and humor) –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3c1h8v2ZQ
Years later in 1971, his thesis was finally accepted by the University.
In 2016, a group of researchers from the University of Vermont and the University of Adelaide decided to put his theory to the test. They analyzed the shape of over two-thousand works of fiction using math and machine learning and found the six main shapes of stories:
- Rags to Riches (rise)
- Riches to Rags (fall)
- Man in a Hole (fall then rise)
- Icarus (rise then fall)
- Cinderella (rise then fall then rise)
- Oedipus (fall then rise then fall)
Kurt’s point was that knowing the arc can help writers, film directors, or musicians simplify their approach. It can guide in terms of visual design and kick start creative collaboration. No wonder Kurt went on to write several books using this technique.
But Kurt’s theory is not just limited to literature and storytelling. It has broader usefulness too. While doing this exercise (plotting your life journey on the chart), you can derive significant meaning of your life. Kurt while explaining “Shapes of Stories” says one should always ask while drawing the graph – “if this isn’t good, then what it is?”. People are often skeptical and pessimistic about their life journey. They don’t realize the trajectory they have covered and how they might be way more blessed than other people.
Plotting this graph can help you realize the significance of your achievements, be aware of the fortunes you had, and be thankful to many people who uplifted your trajectory. It also tells us that although multi-dimensional lives cannot be judged in black and white, they can still be simplified for interpretation.
If you want to plot your graph, make use of MS Excel. Create a 2x2 table with 2 columns – age and fortune. Enter various ages where you feel, you had a significant event in life. Rate that event in the fortune column on a scale of -2 to 2 (you can take any evenly distributed scale; range of scale doesn’t matter until its even). -2 meaning a really tragic incident and +2 meaning a blissful event. Do this for various stages of life, select the table and then go to Inset -> Insert Scatter -> Insert Scatter -> Scatter with smooth lines and markers. Name X-axis “age in years” and Y-axis “G-I”. You can put comments on each data point to remind you of what happened and how your shape of life changed at that point. Think about the number of people in the world whose lines would plot much below yours!
--- Jay Jani
Jay Jani is a Masters student attending Mays Business School