6 Story Shapes: Intuitive Techniques for Plotting Stories
Theodore Lowry
Watch this class and thousands more
Watch this class and thousands more
Lessons in This Class
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1.
Six Story Shapes: Planning Stories Visually
2:43
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2.
Charting Stories
2:08
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3.
Rise Stories
2:47
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4.
Fall Stories
2:49
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5.
Man (person) in a Hole Stories
2:46
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6.
Interlude
1:48
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7.
Icarus Stories
2:28
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8.
Cinderella Stories
1:59
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9.
Oedipus Stories
2:14
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10.
Scenes Within Stories
2:38
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11.
Extending a Story's Frame
1:47
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12.
Combining a Character's Values
2:42
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13.
Combining Multiple Characters
2:14
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14.
Putting it all together
3:19
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15.
Closing
2:35
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About This Class
A good diagram conveys pages and pages of text. Let’s use THAT power to plan your storytelling. This is powerful stuff, and can help with all kinds of storytelling, including content writing, novels, short stories, videos, blogging, digial marketing, social media ads, social media marketing like on instagram and youtube, and more.
Welcome to the couch where words and images share hot drinks. I'm Theodore Lowry – a multimedia artist and story coach.
Whether it's for a full novel, or for a blog, video, advertisement series, social media series or otherwise, embarking on a storytelling journey can be both exciting and daunting. With characters, settings, and intricate plot lines asking you how they all fit together, it's essential to have a solid overview. If you're dealing with complex narratives, high-level planning can be a game-changer. That's where the art of the overview comes in.
While traditional planning tools like index cards and digital aids are valuable, this course offers another approach which is a rare gem. By visualizing your story's structure, you'll gain a bird's-eye view.
The technique empowers you to identify and address significant structural issues before investing time in scenes and dialogues that might not fit the bigger picture.
This is also helpful for planning stories that will be released in pieces, like content creation: stories that are serialized in ads and stories on social media sites like instagram, tik-tok, youtube and others. It's also great for bringing out stories for your personal brand in blogs and other places.
Inspired by the acclaimed Kurt Vonnegut, this method involves crafting visual representations of your entire narrative. Like a sculptor shaping a basic form before adding intricate details, we'll work from large to small.
What You'll Learn:
   1   Six Main Story Shapes: Dive into the essence of character transformations as we explore different story arcs, each capturing the grand evolution of your tale.
   2   Play: Combine multiple narrative shapes into a dynamic story.
   3   Stories within stories: Fit small story arcs — scenes and beats — within these large shapes.
   4   Make your own shapes: Go beyond these six to create other story structures.
Is This Course for You?
It may be a fit it:
   •   You’ve got a story idea that needs honing
   •   You're struggling with a story that needs a fresh perspective.
   •   You're seeking a new story idea to ignite your creative fire.
Whether you're a budding writer, an experienced scribe, or simply curious about storytelling, this course offers something valuable. It's especially designed for those who have explored various story structures and are keen to experiment with a new creative tool.
Join me on this captivating journey where we'll reshape narratives, ignite creativity, and navigate the differently shaped waves of the story ocean. Sail on to bring your storytelling to a new dimension.
Meet Your Teacher
Theodore Lowry drenches life with the lively liquids of play. A scribe and a speaker, he gathers community and casts his voice across the airwaves. What brought him to story? First, the myths from his homeland in Turtle Island’s great northern grasslands. Later, a far eastern monastery steeped him in stories and ceremonies. Finally he is learning to swim in the lore of his own people, sprouted from the stones of a fabled frosty isle.
Theodore has studied with the School for Sacred Storytelling, the School of Mythopoetics, Tom Hirons, and others. He is deeply moved by the work of Bill Plotkin, John O’donohue, Martin Prechtel, and Srila Narayana Maharaja, to name a few.
Hands-on Class Project
Class Project: Sketch the Shape of Your Story
Welcome to your creative playground! The class project is designed to join two kinds of thinking: visual and textual. So let's dive into the captivating world of crafting stories that resonate deeply with your readers.
 Project Overview
For each of the six shapes, you'll post a simple short stories.
As you go through, you'll add stories to your project description for each of the six shapes.
At the end, you'll choose one of these stories and develop it some more, then add that to the end of your project description.
 Materials and Guidelines
   •   Paper: I recommend a pad of newsprint because it’s large and cheap.
   •   A pencil and eraser: For drawing the shapes!
   •   Colored pencils/crayons/markers: For colour coding and making legends, like on a map.
   Join me in crafting stories using the power of shapes!
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