I tried to plot a story like Dan Harmon

welcome to cc rights my name is cece lefke and today i'm plotting a story for a fiction writing contest this contest is on webtoons.com and it's for a short webcomic like three to five chapters with about 30 panels per chapter i don't really expect to win the contest but i did think that this would give me a decent practice with writing scripts and it would also give me a unique opportunity to try out a new plotting method i'm really excited to give this new plotting method a shot and see if it's something that might work better for me in the future [Music] so before i get into the plotting for this story i thought i would give an overview of how to use this method i'm using a revised version of the dan harmon method of plotting a story for those of you who don't know dan harmon is the creator of a show called community which is beautifully written and a highly character driven story that's definitely worth watching at least once in your life the harman method uses a circle graph where the plot is divided up into four basic segments as the story moves from one segment to another it represents a major change in the plot harmon divides this up further until the story is represented by eight individual segments that each represent one part of a hero's journey this is where i revised the method a little bit primarily just to match the vocabulary that i typically use to detail how a story works the way that i think about this plot structure each segment of the graph represents story conflict and each dividing line represents a decision or a major point of change a point of change is basically what readers would call a cliffhanger you've probably heard that without conflict there's no story a good rule of thumb is that each segment of this story graph represents some kind of conflict and that conflict leads to a decision that creates more conflict in simpler terms conflict results in change which creates even more conflict the reason this writing method works actually has to do with basic human psychology whether young or old male or female or any color of the rainbow all people pretty much want the same basic things we want comfort safety and meaning when you disrupt one of our basic desires it causes change which is uncomfortable to us when we're uncomfortable we take action to try to get our sense of comfort back and action always results in more change the cycle of change continues until we reach a state of stasis where we're comfortable with the place we've ended up or it leads to self-destruction as we pursue our desire without regard for anything else a story is basically a cycle of change and action and pursuit of someone's greatest desire so using this model of character-driven storytelling i created a plot outline and began creating my story i started with my character's greatest desire this is a story about a ghost who thinks he's a human so his greatest desire is to be alive there has to be conflict with him attaining his desire and in this case it's easy our hero wubul is a ghost he is clearly dead i also included his greatest fear which is attached to his greatest desire namely he's afraid of ghosts but that fear goes deeper he's afraid of ghosts because he's afraid of his own death he fears himself his own self-realization above all else i also added in a reason for his desire because i thought it would help drive the story a little bit google's reasoning is that he was in the prime of his life when he died and so he feels unfulfilled in death he wasn't ready to die so obviously he can't be dead now that i have motivation filled out i use that motivation to drive every decision wubul makes just like in my graph where people keep taking more and more action so they can fix the disruption in their life wubo follows the same pattern of taking further escalating action to try to be a living person again like all stories we start with him in a place of comfort he has a roommate the roommate knows he's dead and the roommate struggles with the idea of trying to tell wubel that he's dead to try and help wubel come to terms with his death he challenges him to do things living people do like get a job at first wubal refuses he has a perfectly legitimate excuse for not wanting to do it but then he recognizes that his friend needs help with the rent so wuba relents and he decides to pursue work but it isn't that easy for a ghost to get a job in portland oregon and he struggles as people in the world either can't see him or are afraid of him he also comes across a road that gives him the creeps and he decides to avoid it finally he meets a cute girl who decides to help him out and his immediate goal is achieved but all still isn't perfect after a rough first day at work wubble walks home he sees the creepy street looming in the distance and decides to take a detour only to end up at a graveyard at the graveyard he sees his mom and he goes to say hi but she can't see him she's crying over a gravestone and when he looks he realizes it's his name on the grave marker wubble runs away and bumps into the girl that helped him before distraught he tells her that he's dead and she tells him just because he's dead it doesn't mean he's not human she kisses him and they decide to start dating and meanwhile wuvo goes back to pretending that he's alive the roommate is uncomfortable with their relationship he keeps trying to get wubul to admit he's dead because he thinks that wubel pretending that he's alive is really mentally unhealthy wubul becomes more and more irritated and his outbursts get more terrifying by the day the roommate can't take it anymore so he leaves and he sublets the apartment to wubel's girlfriend one day wuba finds his girlfriend crying over a photo when he looks at it he realizes it's a picture of the two of them from when he was alive wubul panics and she tries to explain but he runs away he finds himself at the same creepy road as before but now he musters his courage and walks down the street wubul begins to remember things from his past that he didn't know he'd forgotten he starts to remember his girlfriend and the last semester of college then he remembers his own death at the hands of a drunk driver on that road he remembers his girlfriend getting hurt and watching him die and seeing her cry at his funeral he decided that he had to stick around to take care of her but the longer he stayed the less he remembered wubal returned to the apartment to find his girlfriend hysterical and suicidal because she just wants to be with him again he talks her down and admits that he can't stay because he's losing more and more of his humanity as time goes on he says one last goodbye and he disappears after he's gone the roommate returns to find the girlfriend inconsolable he comforts her as she cries and as he does so he looks at his cell phone where he received one last test text message from wubal thanking him for everything and asking him to take care of the girlfriend the roommate cries for his lost friend and the story ends i had a lot of fun planning this story and i surprised myself by crying like a baby as i wrote the ending as far as stories go i kind of feel like my ending right now is a little bit sappy but sometimes happy can be a good thing we'll wait and see if i want to change it later on to something different and next time i think i'd like to make a video where i learn a little bit more about script writing and storyboarding so i can plan out the look of the comic that i want to upload until then this is all i've got for you today thanks for watching cc rights i hope you enjoyed your time with me today if you'd like to support my work you can find my books on amazon.com you can also support me by making a donation to the cc rights patreon page there are links in the description below for more everyday content about my life my thoughts on writing and my dog find me on twitter at cc lefty rights and finally don't forget to like subscribe and hit the bell notification button so you'll know when the next video comes out see you later

Channel: CC Writes

Views: 7,193

Rating: 4.9755354 out of 5

Keywords: I tried to plot a story like Dan Harmon, Dan Harmon, writing, story, story story, story in english, book youtuber, book vlog, writing vlog, community, plotting, plot, how to, tutorial, writer, write

Id: XsBnyPXk28k

Length: 10min 13sec (613 seconds)

Published: Sat May 02 2020