Kurt Vonnegut makes it simple

I first discovered this hilarious lecturette through one of Maria Popova's posts on the ridiculously addictive literary blog BrainPickings last year, and recently shared it with some students at the end of my first class of the new year on short stories.
The BrainPickings post includes some further examples of these character arc diagrams. For some reason I felt a particularly strong sense of identity with this one of Kafka's Metamorphosis...