Vonnegut, The Shapes of Stories

In the short video posted below, author Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions) explains how stories can be charted according to the positive and negative events in the story. Watch his examples, and then do the same for A Long Way Gone. Though Ishmael Beah’s memoir recounts a number of tragic events, consider how they compare to one another when you are drawing the chart. What is the low point for Beah?

 

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