Dan Harmon Story Circle
In “Every Story is the Same“, filmmaker Will Schoder explains the history of story structure, starting with Joseph Campbell whose theory of the Monomyth, also known as the “Hero’s journey“, explained what every fictitious story has in common.
How do you structure a story? We all know that a story has a beginning, a middle and an end, but is there any more depth to it than that? Yes, yes there is, and if you’ve ever tried to digest Campbell’s Hero With A Thousand Faces you’ll know exactly how deep and complex story structure can get. For this reason, the universe gave us Dan Harmon and he, in turn, gave us his Story Circle.The Story Circle is essentially a boiled down version of Campbell’s monomyth. Here, we’ll boil down the Story Circle for ease of understanding.
Once you’ve got the idea, its well worth heading over and reading as he goes into much more depth than I will here.The Basic Structure Of Every StorySo let’s start with the basics. This is how every structurally sound story plays out:1. A character is in a zone of comfort,2. But they want something.3.
They enter an unfamiliar situation,4. Adapt to it,5. Get what they wanted,6. Pay a heavy price for it,7. Then return to their familiar situation,8. Having changed.Or, boiled down only to the most important bits:1.
Change.Memorise it. It won’t be hard to, it’s already ingrained in the part of your brain that recognises a good story.The Steps Explained1. “You.”All you need to do here is show your protagonist. We need to know where we are and who we’re following. This is exposition, a quick tour of the world we’re inhabiting. This is your character’s life, the world he lives in, his roots.2. “Need.”Now show the problem.
The world has a flaw, all is not right, your character’s life is imperfect in some way. His need will drive his personal journey. Whatever problem is presented here, he is offered a way of solving it, of fulfilling his need. He might refuse to solve it straight away, but rest assured he will give in and begin his journey, because this need is what the story is really about.3.
“Go.”Everything changes. Whatever the hook of your story is, the thing you tell your friends the story is about to get them excited, it begins right here. The protagonist is thrown into a new world, crossing the first threshold into the unknown. We’ve crossed into a dark, mysterious world and our protagonist cannot leave until he has completed the trials that lay ahead.4. “Search.”The protagonist can’t just get what he wants by wanting it — he has to work for it, earn it. Campbell calls this “The Road Of Trials”. This is where the protagonist proves himself, overcoming challenges and in the process gaining the tools he needs in preparation for the events ahead.
He is confronting his own limitations.5. “Find.”He finds what he is looking for, whether he knew he was looking for it or not. His trials have paid off. He couldn’t have got here without them. This is an intense moment, a moment of naked joy, weightlessness and vulnerability. This is the story’s midpoint, and marks the moment when the universe stops pulling the protagonist around and he must act on his own volition in order to proceed.
It may be tempting to stay here, but he moves forward nonetheless.6. “Take.”Now to begin the journey back to the familiar world. This won’t be easy in the least, it is its very own road of trials, set to prepare our protagonist for his return to the familiar world.
These trials strip away any remaining ego and by the time he’s through every last one of them he has become a living god. These trials are the price he has to pay for the previous step and for his return to the familiar world.7. “Return.”The last threshold. This is an epiphanal, defining moment, returning at last to his world as a new man. His journey has taught him all it could, and by crossing this threshold he tells the world he is ready to show what he has learned.8. “Change.”And he does. The tools and powers he acquired on his road of trials, or “Search”, have completed him.
Story Circle Activity
He has one last thing to do, a thing for which he needed to complete this journey, and this is where he does it. And the universe will bend to his will and give him what he wants, because he has become more than a man.Applying The Story CircleGo back to the basic outline. Whenever you’re putting together a story, no matter what form, see how well you can fit it to the steps outlined there. If it’s too much of a struggle then you probably have a problem with the structure of your story.
Use the steps to see if you can change the story to better fit the structure laid out here and you’ll find your story will be more engaging.What you shouldn’t do is use the Story Circle as a starting point, that’s a one way street to a formulaic, boring plot. It’ll be structurally sound, but it’ll have no style and no creative edge. This is a tool to aid the structure of your story, not a paint by numbers guide on how to write one.The important thing to remember is that you’ll know intuitively if your story is lacking structure because it’ll feel incomplete.
The structure laid out here is not invented, it’s discovered. It’s ingrained in the human psyche, the definition of a good story in its basic form.Now that you’ve read my boiled down version of Dan Harmon’s Story Circle, you should head over and read the for extra depth and theory.
Dan Harmon Story Circle Youtube
You should also try to spot this structure when you’re reading or watching a story and write down the steps. Post the results in the comments below.As always, keep writing.Enjoy this post? Join our to receive a weekly roundup of posts we think you’ll enjoy, as well as news and special offers! It’s free, takes less than a minute and you can unsubscribe at any time with the click of a button.
Dan Harmon Story Circle
Dan HarmonThere's perhaps no better example of this system in action than the sci-fi comedy series, Rick and Morty, which Harmon co-created. In little over 30 episodes, Rick and Morty has gained one of the most devoted fan-bases of any animated show since Matt Groening’s Futurama. Known for its fast-paced, pop-culture inflected humor, (and its not-so-passing resemblance to characters from Back to the Future) the show has also been praised for its dense storytelling, often fitting in a feature film’s worth of plot within a 21-minute runtime.But you might be thinking, this is a blog for authors, not TV comedy writers. Why are they talking about a cartoon with a? Well, it has to do with something no novelist can avoid:. What is the Dan Harmon Story Circle?The Story Circle is an approach to plotting that Harmon adapted from — which itself derives from the work of academic Joseph Campbell.
It lays out a kind of that's commonly used by myths from all over the world and emphases how almost all forms of storytelling have a cyclical nature. The Story Circle in Rick and MortyIn the video below, Harmon applies the story circle to an episode of Rick and Morty entitled “Mortynight Run.” For enough context to understand the clip, here’s some background info:Rick is a mad, drunk, egomaniacal scientist who has invented a portal gun that allows him to have debauched adventures across time and space. He almost always drags his sensitive, anxious grandson Morty along for the ride. In this episode, the also bring along Morty’s father, Jerry, for whom Rick only has disdain.Let's take another look at how the episode’s “A” story — which centers on Morty's journey — fits into the story circle. A character is in a zone of comfortThe first beat of the story sees Rick and Morty on what seems like just another one of their adventures. “Morty exists in comfort until he finds out that Rick is an arms dealer,” which leads to. But they want somethingAs Harmon points out, “This is an ethical quandary for Morty.” The boy is put in a situation of guilt that compels him to “go across a threshold and search for a way to undo the ethical damage that he perceives Rick as doing.” That takes us to the next stage.
They enter an unfamiliar situationEven though he rarely defies his grandfather’s instructions, Morty takes Rick’s car keys and chases after the assassin, accidentally killing him. Adapt to itMorty discovers an alien gas entity named ‘Fart’ — who was the assassin’s target. Going against Rick’s instructions once more (and making what he believes to be the ethical choice), Morty liberates Fart from space jail. Get what they wantedMorty has achieved his goal: he’s saved a life — and can now rest assured that he’s done the right thing. Pay a heavy price for it“In the second half of the story, we start finding out that the act of saving that life is going to cost a lot of other people their lives,” Harmon explains, as we see Fart slaughter many space cops while Rick and Morty make their escape. Then return to their familiar situationAfter the escape, the gang returns to a place resembling ‘normal life,’ crossing what Harmon calls “the return threshold.” At this point, Morty realizes that Fart is a truly malevolent creature and means to return with his people to destroy all carbon-based life.Note: On the circle diagram, Step 7 is directly opposite to Step 3, where Morty crossed the threshold into the unfamiliar situation. Balance and harmony are a big part of storytelling.
Having changed“So Morty makes the decision to change into someone who kills.” He terminates Fart, thereby saving the universe and becoming someone different from the person he started as. As Harmon points out, this is not a show for kids: not all protagonists need to learn universally positive messages for a story to ring true.Harmon has laid out his process for using the story circle in a (warning: contains swears) where he also talks about the nature of storytelling, answering questions like Why is this structure a circle?You might be asking why Harmon doesn’t just lay this structure out in a flat line. He lightly touches on the rhythms of biology, psychology, and culture: how through phases of life and death, conscious and unconscious, order and chaos.The fascinating thing he points out is that cycles like these are, in part,. “Behind (and beneath) your culture creating forebrain, there is an older, simpler monkey brain with a lot less to say and a much louder voice. One of the few things it's telling you, over and over again, is that you need to go search, find, take and return with change.
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(image: BBC)According to Harmon, yes.“Start thinking of as many of your favorite movies as you can, and see if they apply to this pattern. Now think of your favorite party anecdotes, your most vivid dreams, fairy tales, and listen to a popular song (the music, not necessarily the lyrics).”So let’s put that theory to the test. This is great. One difficulty about using the Hero's Journey and other Plot Structures is that the main character needs to end up in a different place than at the beginning. That is fine for a movie or a stand-alone book, book but what about episodic series such as Perry Mason, Poirot, or just about any TV series.
The Story Circle solves this problem by bringing the MC (actually the entire cast) back to the beginning waiting for the next case, next mission, next customer to enter the bar etc. Even if the series has a long arc (Breaking Bad) Read more ».