Tag Archives: Hamlet

Taking Vonnegut’s Story Shape Theory Further

Is it possible to depict all story plots in graphical form? If you could, would you find some graph shapes more common than others? The late author Kurt Vonnegut thought so.

In 2004, he gave a lecture describing his system and that talk is so good, you ought to watch the video, at least the part starting at minute 38. He’s entertaining. Someone has animated Vonnegut’s graphs at this delightful website.

His lecture covers several basic story types illustrating a protagonist’s experiences of good or ill fortune as ups and downs on the graph. If the author writes well, the reader will feel uplifted during the ‘good fortune’ periods and sad during the ‘ill fortune’ portions.

The main story types Vonnegut presents in his lecture are ‘Man in a Hole,’ ‘Boy Meets Girl,’ ‘Cinderella,’ and ‘Metamorphosis.’ Watch the video to hear his descriptions of each one.

Vonnegut comments that we humans often struggle to recognize and appreciate times of good fortune in our own lives. Therefore, I think, we often experience, and can relate to, the uncertainty of Hamlet.

Then Vonnegut’s system breaks down. He tries to illustrate Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ and ends up drawing a boring, straight line. Since Hamlet doesn’t know if the ghost he’s seeing is real, or significant, he spends much of the play in a state of uncertainty, not knowing if he’s experiencing good fortune or ill fortune.

Still, it is possible to depict uncertainty on a graph. Scientists use error bands, often shown as shaded areas.

My graph is one possible way to depict the uncertainty faced by Hamlet. In general, readers don’t like uncertain characters or vagueness about their state of mind. If a character doesn’t know if her life is good or bad at a given moment, the reader could dismiss her as being stupid.

With a skilled writer, like Shakespeare, however, we understand Hamlet’s confusion and sympathize with him. We don’t think he’s dimwitted or insane, despite his attempts to feign madness.

You can depict uncertainty on a Vonnegut-style story graph. In fact, I think the entire mystery genre involves uncertainty to some extent. For much of these stories, the detective can’t tell if a given clue gets her closer to solving the case or not. The detective strives to diminish uncertainty until the end.

I’ll leave you with one more observation about Vonnegut’s graphs. I don’t believe the ones he covered in his lecture constitute the only possible graphs, and I think he would have agreed. Story graphs may take any shape, but some (the ones he showed) work better with readers than others.

In the end, it’s the writing that matters. It’s how you convey the emotional highs and lows to the reader that counts. If you tell a good story, you can make almost any graph shape work.

This concludes your combined Math and Language Arts classes for the day, thanks to your favorite professor—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 5, 2023Permalink

Does Blogging Help Your Writing?

If you’re thinking of starting up a blog as a way to improve the quality of your fiction writing, I’m here to tell you—blogging will have just as much effect on your golf swing.

Hamlet blogMy answer is different if you write non-fiction.  Well-written blogs are like essays, with the same structure and purpose.  The skills needed are the same.

For fiction writers, there’s very little in common between your stories and your blog posts.  The talents you develop doing one won’t translate well to the other.

It’s even possible for blogging to worsen your fiction writing.  Certainly it’s cutting into your productivity, at least.  Each precious minute spent blogging is sixty seconds lost and unavailable for writing fiction.

Also, let’s say you become an expert in all the aspects of blogging, able to craft persuasive, short essays with well-researched facts, finely structured arguments, and logical conclusions.  It’s possible for that ‘lecturing voice’ to worm its way into your fiction, and you don’t want that.

Am I telling you, the beginning fiction writer, not to blog?  No, I’m just helping you set expectations; blogging won’t make your fiction better.  But there are several valid reasons for fiction authors to blog:

  • It helps enforce schedule discipline, and to associate deadlines with writing.  This is only true if you post to your blog on a regular basis.  Whether you write fiction or non-fiction, getting to ‘The End’ is important.
  • It’s a form of self-education.  When I come across an idea for a future blog entry, I add it to my list, (which is quite long now).  When I look to see what topic is scheduled for any particular week, I find it generally involves a bit of research.  So while blogging about the craft of writing, I’m coming across knowledge I can use.
  • The best reason for a fiction writer like you to blog, though, is to build your platform, increase your web presence, and connect with readers.

Blog if you want to, but don’t go into it thinking it’ll make your fiction better.  For those of you who disagree, that’s what the comment feature is for.  Please comment and let your views be known to the world and to—

                                                          Poseidon’s Scribe 

June 2, 2013Permalink