The Shape of Story: Share Your Journey like Kurt Vonnegut Would

Nick had made a promise to himself. By the age of thirty, he would be a self-sustaining entrepreneur. He had six years and the biggest opportunity yet, directly in front of him. He had led the creation of a social gaming site. A promotional gaming platform with connected retail partnerships. It had the chance to bring in the best of the gaming community and top brands. It could bring in buyers for the games, and have them spend their money with sponsors.

The concept was there, and for Nick, the proof was in the capital raised...$4 million worth. But, there was no social proof and in two years Nick had lost all of his investor’s money and their trust. This one was hard. As high as his hopes had risen, now they had fallen off a steep cliff along with the entire .com bust of 2001.

Four years left to reach his entrepreneurial goal, and Nick did not have a business idea. He planned a five month surfing trip to feed his passion. The trip would take him to Australia and Indonesia. However, before he even left, he would be set on the path of a lifetime.

Nick needed a way to document his trip. He wanted to photograph his friends and himself surfing, while out in the water. No product existed at the time other than the disposable, water proof, one-use camera.

Nick crafted a wrist strap to fit the disposable cameras he would use on the trip, but the cameras kept breaking. Cameras weren’t designed for such rigorous activities like surfing. He discovered that there was a bigger issue in durability, beyond just water-proofing and portability. This led him to question quality. Why couldn’t resolution be improved?

He searched all over the camera industry, trade show to trade show. He needed to find a product that met his standards and had the capability of being crafted to match his vision. After a year, he found a manufacturer that could design the perfect camera, He worked through the language barriers with the Chinese manufacturer. He wired $5,000 for them to build the first prototype, after only communicating via email and one phone call. Thankfully for Nick Woodman, the company was legit. The GoPro Hero was born.

Now, this “life capture device” had it’s founder, the first eight employees of GoPro, and a journalist from Forbes on a wild adventure. Using their GoPro, they captured footage from a private jet, beneath a helicopter, from the tops of their heads to the edge of their ski poles, and down to the end of their skis as they took a morning trip down the slopes of Yellowstone. Nick has shared his journey with Forbes, media of all types, and entrepreneurs all over the world.

Sharing your personal story is vital. The challenges you have experienced allow an audience to relate. It makes you human. The element of a human connection has long been known by fictional writers. It’s the essence of fictional writing. Turning time, place, imaginary characters, and conflict into a story that makes people care. That’s exactly what an entrepreneur must do.

Great fictional writers take a likable main character and show struggle. They show how the character has failed, but failed intelligently. Knowing that Nick failed intelligently is important. It gives him a respectable quality. It allows us to admire what he has overcome. Your personal journey is both desired and expected by an audience. They want to see you succeed, but they want to see how you have failed first.

When you share your struggle, an audience is given the chance to make a human connection with you. Thereby, turning yourself into a great storyteller of your own personal story. Struggle and vulnerability is a requirement. Start with what you know and where you’ve been. Dissect the elements of your own story. Map out the flowing highs and lows. Your story has a shape and curves to it...not a flat line.

Kurt Vonnegut had an idea on the shape of story. It was his master’s thesis in Anthropology. Decades later in Palm Sunday, An Autobiographical Collage (1981), he self-proclaimed it, “my prettiest contribution to my culture.” The idea was simple. “The fundamental idea is that stories have shapes which can be drawn on graph paper, and that the shape of a given society’s stories is at least as interesting as the shape of its pots or spearheads.”

The thesis was rejected by the University of Chicago. “It was rejected because it was so simple and looked like “too much fun.” One must not be too playful,” he quipped. In his thesis he had collected various popular stories from various societies and graphed each one. There was a pattern. Time and again, the same three shapes reappeared.

The thesis, and the shape of stories, proudly haunted Kurt his entire career. He loved to share his shape of story theory when lecturing to students and aspiring writers. In a funny, satirical and irreverent lecture, he shared an evolved view on the shape of story. The illustrations on the following pages represent that monologue and include his live, off-script improvisation. Whereas, the sections below are portions of the original script published in Kurt’s, A Man Without a Country (2005).

Kurt’s theory on the human preference to hear stories of above average people, refers to the entertainment of story. When applying your personal story, your opinion, or the story of your idea to this design, it must be kept entertaining. Stories are shared to inform, educate, and most of all entertain. This shape is simple and clean. It’s intentionally free from noise and clutter. The “Man In Hole” story is common and hopeful. The entertainment of the story is in the dramatic flow. The flowing up, down, and up. The key is understanding where to begin in your story design. Kurt would suggest to start as close to the end as possible. Think about how you have failed intelligently. Then begin at the closest peak. Here's what it looked like for Kurt and Nick.

Kurt Vonnegut, Man-In Hole:

Nick Woodman, Found of GoPro: