David Comberg
5 HN recommenders · recommended in 9 months, 2012–2022
4:37 · 2.2M views · Oct 30, 2010
A short lecture in which Kurt Vonnegut graphs the simple shapes of stories, such as Man in Hole and Boy Gets Girl. He sketches how fortune rises and falls over a narrative.
HN cites it as a charming, funny way to see story structure and a source for the idea that plots have shapes.
9 comments from Hacker News
Agreed. It's a shame to think about all the interesting things that might be getting built instead. Programming a novel generator is a great example. What a fantastic challenge being overlooked. It reminds me of this great video of Vonnegut graphing the emotional shape of stories. this video
Vonnegut is really special. I always like coming back to his Shape of Stories talks: this video Here's a longer one: [LINK] It's interesting to see the difference in him with age. He seems to giggle more as an older man.
It's not about logic vs. illogic. Logic is important to understand for a technical person- if they do not understand logic, their programs do not work, and their bugs cannot be fixed. But normal humans do not respond to logic. Normal humans respond to stories, and this is what tech people are really BAD at. You know who is good at telling stories? The entertainment industry, and politicians. What is a story? A linear sequence of cause and effect, with some kind of overall shape. see this Kurt Vonnegut video where he explains story shapes this video If you can construct a compelling narrative- which is empathetic with the listener enough that you know they will be able to insert themselves into the story, and imagine that they are them main character, then you win- that one battle. If you try to program a person like they are a computer, by simply listing a series of what you feel are logical statements, you will come across as condescending, and self absorbed. You will fail. When you notice that they are not following you, and you interpret this as "Oh they must be missing a library. var TCPIP = import("internets").tcpip;" you just make the problem worse.
i read this and liked it, only after I scrolled up did I realize it was Kurt Vonnegut. Also, I really love this video of his, on the shape of a story this video As a side note I found the formatting, or lack of formatting, interesting. It felt very much like a document, or a piece of paper, than a web page. That surprised me.
Vonnegut drawing graphs of famous story plots: this video I saw him do this bit in person in the early 90s and never forgot it.