Dan Harmon Story Circle | A Simplified Plot Structure

TV must be a circle hey guys what's up welcome back to the channel my name is Megan Tennant and today we are talking about Dan Harmon's story circle which is a narrative structure I don't actually use and I'll tell you why so if you're a pantser you'll probably find Dan Harmon's story circle as well as other narrative structures pretty pointless but as an outliner I cannot recommend narrative structures enough I have covered other narrative structures in the past so I'll put those in a playlist and link them in the description but today it's Dan Harmon's turn a circle is a daydream so let's talk background so Dan Harmon is a writer and you're probably most familiar with his work on community Rick and Morty and Harmon quest which is sort of a D&D improv show that gets animated later much like Blake Snyder as I covered in my save the cat video Dan Harmon was familiar with the hero's journey but felt like it needed a little bit of tweaking he began developing story circle in the 90s when he was stuck while writing a screenplay in an interview with Wired he says I was thinking there must be some symmetry to this some simplicity and so he took the hero's journey and in search of the simplicity aspect he distilled it down into only eight steps and in search of the symmetry aspect he popped those eight steps into a circle he also calls the circles embryos because they contain everything that you need for a satisfying story so that's led to some people calling this plot embryo instead of story circle so Dan Harmon uses this bad boy everywhere from episodes of the forty five million dollar a year community to his silly homegrown web shorts who wants to see that seventeen million people so then what does this circle look like let's talk story circle basics so you start off with a circle I know what a plot twist and you draw a line straight down the middle vertical style now in the first half you're gonna have the portion of your story where your character is ignorant in denial dishonest or illusion on the other side your character will be enlightened disillusioned honest and or out of denial so this particular line is focused on the internal changes in your character now take a circle and draw a line horizontally splitting it into two halves again these two halves are gonna be focused on the external things your character is gonna face so the top half is the characters familiar world life order consciousness solid ground and the bottom half is the unfamiliar world the extraordinary world death chaos unconsciousness and the depths think of it like your character diving into water they dive and dry and from a familiar place they emerge wet but again in a familiar place so when you combine the two you're gonna have a Circle divided into four pieces and at each of these lines each of these intersections those are gonna be where you're gonna find the most change and that's the most narrative focus crossing the lower vertical line is gonna be where your character confronts themselves and their own internal beliefs that's gonna be where they have their major mental shift so this is generally a time of self-reflection and realization crossing the horizontal line on the other hand is where we see the character facing external conflicts generally enemies often they lose when they're crossing the first threshold and then they win when they're crossing the second one because when they're crossing the second one they've now had that internal change in that realization which gives them the tools that they need to then beat the enemy in that second crossing now let's talk story circle specifics so nestled within those four slices we have eight beats and they are as follows number one a character isn't a zone of comfort or familiarity number two they desire something number three they enter an unfamiliar situation number four they adapt to the situation number five they get that which they desired number six they pay a heavy price for it number seven they return to their familiar situation and number eight they have changed as a result of their journey and because Dan Harmon was searching for simplicity he further broke this down into single words which is the most simple story structure I have basically ever seen and it's eight steps one word each so if you're looking for something that's just super quick to look at to try to orient yourself this is probably a pretty good option so you have step one you step two need step three go step four search step 5 find step six take step seven return and step eight change now a really interesting thing about this circle that I didn't realize until I started researching this video is symmetry see then didn't just slap these bad boys into a circle and call it symmetrical there is actually symmetry to these components and I'm not just talking about the two halves on the vertical side or on the horizontal side but rather the symmetry between each slice and its opposites lights for example a character in a zone of familiarity is across from they get that which they wanted these are two up beats in the story this is the post want and the after want then we have they desire something paired with they pay a heavy price for it which is beautifully symmetrical but in a different way rather than these kind of matching these balance each other out cuz they're on different extremes and they do both completely surround the characters want and need but on opposite sides where one is light and one is heavy because generally in the first one they have a want and then in the next one they kind of realized their need if you want more on want and need in characters I covered a video on it I think it came out pretty good I'll link it in the description then we have they enter an unfamiliar situation and they return to their familiar situation which are points in the story where we truly see the separation between worlds and these two beats allow us to see the character interacting with both their extraordinary world and their ordinary world in both a post change and a pre change state and finally we have they adapt to the situation and they have changed as a result which are both stages where the character reaches sort of a point of homeostasis and becomes familiar with their environment the beauty of this narrative structure is truly the symmetry of it the way that we have the different halves but also the way each slice pairs so well with its counterpart on the opposite side as well as each slice pairing well with the slices beside it everything just flows so well together there's also a really nice repetitive nature to it because it is a circle you come full circle in the end and the character can then start the circle again with differences in each slice so they enter a different unfamiliar world and they have a different wand and they continue on and this the character can keep cycling so in things like TV shows which is what Dan Harmon writes for for the most part this is what you see in character arts generally each episode they have kind of a mini character arc they go around the circle multiple times but each time the circle is different now it should be noted that not all of these slices should get the same time dedication for example the first two and the last two tend to be shorter and bleed into each other a lot and the bulk of your story in most cases will take place in the bottom half so don't feel like this is a representative of on page time and that's true of basically every narrative structure out there so despite my Sunstone decision to stick with the hero's journey for my own personal writing endeavors I cannot deny that there is a beauty to this story method and what it comes down to is that its symmetry has rhythm and balance that the human mind just craves because we evolved to love recognizing patterns it's part of the problem-solving abilities that set us apart from most other mammals and symmetrical things let us easily pick out patterns and connect things into a hold it feels bigger than the sum of its parts and if you can impart that symmetry and balance into your story by using this structure your audience will connect to it on a deeper level because again the human mind craves that symmetry it feeds into the sense of duality that surrounds us our entire lives we have life and death good and evil consciousness and unconsciousness order and chaos the other truly interesting thing is that the circle doesn't have to be applied just your main plot and your main character but it can also be applied to subplots other characters one of the things a lot of people have mentioned that they love about ilithyia is how real the characters feel and how the characters still exist off page they each have their own character arcs going on and although we don't see the entirety of their arcs because I don't have the time to dedicate to that we see enough glimpses that we know they're there and that makes the story feel a lot more real so a great way to achieve this is to give all of your main characters stories circles of course you want to focus mainly on your protagonists and the other circles are gonna be sparse and they're gonna be less detailed because you can't put as much time into them and of course some of those circles will skip steps and they're not gonna all start at the same time and they're not gonna all transpire at the same speeds but if you stop for half a second to consider what these circles would look like for the rest of your main cast and maybe even your sag characters you'll start thinking about these sort of things that you'll naturally start adding in little details that will end up making them feel so much more real remember each of your characters is the protagonist in their own story I'll be honest with you when I started scripting this video I planned on saying that the hero's journey and all of its variations could run circles around Dan Harmon's pot embryo in fact that exact line existed in this portion of the script but after discovering the symmetry that exists within the circle I'm no longer convinced personally I'm gonna continue using the hero's journey because as a long form writer I find the additional steps and structure helpful I'm building really large stories so I need a big-ass structure to hold them up who can be able to tell the tower but with that being said there is a true beauty to this pot embryo method and there are a lot of writers out there that I truly feel will mesh better with this than any of the other structures and beyond the symmetry I believe that one of the best parts of this plot embryo is in the simplicity of it whereas I like complexity my narrative structures there are a lot of writers out there especially those who prefer pantsing who really like to have more gaps in their narrative structures so they have the freedom to stretch out their wings and flex more of their creative muscles and writers of short form fiction who try to hit all of the beats in a structure like save the cat or the hero's journey will find that that's gonna stretch their story too thin so hopefully this video helped you see if maybe you're one of the writers who will mesh well with the structure in the past I've covered multiple examples in the same video on which I cover the narrative structure but this time I'm actually breaking it up so if you want to see these principles applied to an actual story make sure to subscribe and keep your eye out for the video that's gonna be going up very soon where I'm gonna break down a story and apply these different stages so let me know in the comments do you call this plot embryo or a story circle because I can't decide which one I prefer also let me know have you ever used this with a story and if so are you a long form writer or a short form writer and that was it for this video if you want to learn more about save the cat stick around for the end cards if you found this video helpful make sure to drop a like thank you so much for watching as always I will see in the next video you [Music]

Channel: Cloud Kitten Chronicles

Views: 34,891

Rating: 4.8213763 out of 5

Keywords: story circle, story circle dan harmon, story circle examples, story circle explained, story circle rick and morty, story circle structure, dan harmon story circle, dan harmon story circle rick and morty, dan harmon's story circle, dan harmon's story circle template, rick and morty story circle, story structure, different story structures, creative writing, how to outline a novel, narrative structures, plot embryo, script structure, storytelling advice, writing advice

Id: CoUSX4Y_WS0

Length: 12min 15sec (735 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 19 2019