Christopher Nolan doesn’t write detailed outlines. Instead, he “draws shapes and diagrams and other structural things” to keep the story on track. Like this, the plot map Nolan used for Inception. Let me explain... In storytelling, the idea of structure is everywhere: • 3 Act • StoryGrid • Hero’s Journey But Nolan claims those restrict his creativity. He prefers to think in ‘shapes’ rather than in hard rules. It reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut, who taught about the “shapes of stories” at Harvard. Kurt broke down all stories into 8 unique shapes. The engineer in me loves this view of stories. Instead of vague, hard-to-explain ideas, narrative arcs become data points you can plot. Nolan’s plot map resembles Vonnegut’s “Man In Hole” story shape. The main character gets into trouble then gets out of it again and ends up better off for the experience. But Nolan’s a genius — so he layers on even more. *** As Cobb moves closer to Limbo, he travels “down” the plot map, closer and closer to disaster. Then he fights his way back “up” to reality. Nolan’s plot map isn’t just the shape of his story, It’s also how he designed the world — dreams within dreams. *** Inception is one of the most complex mainstream movies ever, runs 2.5 hours, and made ~$835M at the box office. Yet Christopher Nolan fits the entire arc on a one page map. That’s brilliant. So, next time you tell a story, give the "shape" idea a try. It may come more naturally than you expect.