How To Outline Stories Like Kurt Vonnegut (In 10 Minutes Or Less!): 5 Proven Arcs

Hey there!

Legendary writer Kurt Vonnegut hypothesized there are 5 simple story structures:

1. Man in Hole

2. Boy Meets Girl

3. Cinderella

4. From Bad to Worse

5. Good News/Bad News

He plotted all the stories on a single grid.

Like this:

On the X axis is time. It starts at the beginning of the story and stops at the end. The Y axis is fortune or luck. If you go up, it means good things are happening, like having a lucky day. If you go down, it means not-so-good things are happening, like having a bad day. The line moves from left to right and follows the protagonist as the story goes from the beginning to the end.

For a quick primer:

• Watch Kurt draw each of the shapes in this very entertaining 5 minute lecture.

• Draw the arcs using this web app to see how the story beats unfold over timeline.

Kurt’s story arcs are incredibly simple.

In fact, the University of Chicago’s Department of Anthropology rejected Kurt’s thesis on the topic. Because they were “too simple.” But that’s exactly why they are so powerful.

In the first 15 seconds of his lecture, Vonnegut says:

“Stories have very simple shapes. Ones that COMPUTERS can understand.”

When Kurt wrote his thesis in the 1950s, computers mainly solved math problems.

How do you do math? Follow a formula and get the right answer. Math “works” every time you follow a proven pattern. Which is exactly what Vonnegut understood and posited about story.

Smart!

And today, we are going to show you how to use AI (“the computer”) to outline each of Kurt’s story shapes. How cool is that?! (Kurt would probably laugh and say, “I told you so.”)

Let’s dive in.

Outline Stories Like Kurt Vonnegut In < 10 Minutes

To get started, you need 2 things:

1. A Sub-Genre

2. A Plot Archetype

Sub-Genre sets the tone for your story—for example, Adventure, Thriller, or Mystery. The Plot Archetype establishes the foundation (Quest, Rebellion, Prophecy, etc). Together, these give your story direction. Click here for help choosing a Sub-Genre and click here for help picking a Plot Archetype.

Once you have your Sub-Genre and Plot Archetype you can structure your protagonist’s journey using any of Kurt Vonnegut’s 5 Story Arcs— and train ChatGPT to auto-generate the outlines for you!

Story Arc #1: Man In Hole

The protagonist in this story get into a big problem but finds a way to fix it.

It goes like this:

• Everything's fine.

• Uh oh, problem.

• Struggle city.

• Lightbulb moment.

• Climbs out.

• Phew, what a ride!

"People love that story. They never get tired of it.,” Vonnegut says.

Here’s the prompt: