Kurt Vonnegut on 8 ‘shapes’ of stories

Re:Kurt Vonnegut on 8 ‘shapes’ of stories by whitten on Friday December 18, 2020 @08:25AM (#25466800)

I was surprised when I reviewed this page, I thought 'Rags to Riches' was one of his story shapes, but I don't see it there. I thought it was a vertical flip of 'From Bad to Worse'. Starting very low, and becoming wonderful eventually. Stories with Genies granting Wishes would fit this shape.

What shape would you use to graph the Monkey's Paw stories ? (where you think you are getting a great wish, but end up with a bad cause for the good thngs)

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Re:Kurt Vonnegut on 8 ‘shapes’ of stories by Myto on Friday December 18, 2020 @08:41AM (#25466934)

Rags to riches is Cinderella, which indeed is featured.

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Re:Kurt Vonnegut on 8 ‘shapes’ of stories by briankelly on Friday December 18, 2020 @12:55PM (#25469846)

Monkey's Paw fits well with "From Bad to Worse" in my opinion. There's a couple of Twilight Zones that follow a similar pattern. Usually in these stories there is a brief blip of good but in soon the characters find themselves into a deeper hole as a trend.

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Re:Kurt Vonnegut on 8 ‘shapes’ of stories by darkerside on Friday December 18, 2020 @08:49AM (#25467011)

And also, different characters have different desires and motivations. The story had its own arc, but it's oversimplifying to act like there aren't many mini arcs performed by the characters of every story.

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