WRITING

What Shapes Your Stories?

Almost every life story is a tragedy and a comedy and a drama and a romance

I randomly picked up one of Diana Gabaldon’s paperbacks to read in the pool about 25 years ago and then was hooked and started buying them as soon as they came out in hardback. (Guess which one I read in the pool. Go on, guess.) (Photo by Michelle Teheux)

An old truism says the thing that determines whether a story has a happy or sad ending depends on when you end it.

If your character falls in love and gets married, you have a romance. If that character dies, you have a tragedy. But if you had ended the story before the partner became ill, you would have had a happy ending.

I’ve written two romance series (under a pen name) and of course, as required by law (practically!) each ends with a happily ever after. If we revisited each couple 10 years later, would they all be ecstatically happy with each other? Officially, I will say yes, but we all know better.

Real life is never just one thing

Many great stories have some elements of tragedy, comedy, drama and romance. You probably could envision telling at least part of your life story through any of those lenses.

Whether you focus your story through one lens is one way of distinguishing genre novels from literary novels. Genre novels have conventions to follow, while literary novels can and should tell the story in whatever way you the author believe best serves the story.

I’m a huge fan of Kury Vonnegut — so much so that I placed numerous Vonnegut Easter eggs in my novel,* **The Trailer Park Rules*.* Vonnegut is known for having devised eight different story “shapes.” While he was studying anthropology, he happened to notice that stories’ shapes can be drawn on graph paper. In fact, he said he noticed early Christianity and Cinderella* follow the same plot points!

This is more or less an autobiography. I have loved Vonnegut’s books since I learned about him in a college creative writing class. (Photo by Michelle Teheux)

For a good explanation, including graphs of “Boy Meets Girl,” “Man in Hole,” “From Bad to Worse” and others, read **this. Or watch [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3c1h8v2ZQ&t=45s)** old video, which is pretty entertaining.

Vonnegut is not the only one to envision stories as shapes. Have you read the work of Diana Gabaldon? Her first Outlander book was initially pegged as romance but ultimately, her series doesn’t conform to any genre. Yes, the romance between Jamie and Claire is a big part of it, but so is military history. And science fiction — because there’s time travel. It’s also action, adventure, drama and historical fiction.

Gabaldon has written on her **blog* that each of her books has an “internal geometric or natural shape.” Outlander is three overlapping triangles, Voyager is a braid, The Fiery Cross *is a rainbow of shower of fireworks and so on. (I check her blog periodically, looking for news that Book Ten will be out soon. No date yet.)

You have eight shapes to choose from

As an author, you have infinite decisions to make. Considering what “shape” it is should be one of them. If Vonnegut is right, all stories fit into one of his eight shapes.

Trailer Park doesn’t have one main character. Each of the characters has his or her own narrative arc. Most of them are Man in Hole. One is definitely From Bad to Worse, and another is Which Way is Up.

This is where a good developmental editor can help. What’s your story’s shape? Do you have the right level of conflict? Where is the right place to enter the story, and where is the right place to end it?

About Michelle Teheux

I’m a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe! I also have a Substack about economic inequality called *Untrickled and another aimed at authors who want to self-publish books called[ The Indie Author](https://selfpublishingbookauthors.substack.com/). My new book is[ Strapped: Fighting for the soul of the American working class](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DJNRCQSJ). And yes, those are my husband’s actual boots on the cover! My most recent novel is[ The Trailer Park Rules](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CTHT43L9).* Tips joyfully accepted via Ko-fi:

**All wealthy families are alike; each poor family is poor in its own way. ** — Leo Tolstoy, if he had written about a trailer park

For residents of the Loire Mobile Home Park, surviving means understanding which rules to follow and which to break. Each has landed in the trailer park for wildly different reasons.

Jonesy is a failed journalist with one dream left. Angel is the kind of irresponsible single mother society just shakes its head about, and her daughter Maya is the kid everybody overlooks. Jimmy and Janiece Jackson wanted to be the first in their families to achieve the American dream, but all the positive attitude in the world can’t solve their predicament. Darren is a disabled man trying to enjoy his life despite a dark past. Kaitlin is a former stripper with a sugar daddy, while Shirley is an older lady who has come down in the world and lives in denial. Nancy runs the park like a tyrant but finds out when a larger corporation takes over that she’s not different from the residents.

When the new owners jack up the lot rent, the lives of everyone in the park shift dramatically and in some cases tragically.

Welcome to the Loire Mobile Home Park! Please observe all rules.

**Click to get your copy**