The Dan Harmon Story Circle 8 Simple Steps to a Powerful Structure

The Dan Harmon Story Circle 8 Simple Steps to a Powerful Structure The Dan Harmon Story Circle: What Authors Can Learn from Rick and Morty Writer Dan Harmon, the creator of TV’s Community, has a reputation for being a story structure evangelist. For over a decade, he’s been known to ‘break’ the stories he’s working on with a system he known as ‘The Embryo,’ ‘The Dan Harmon Story Circle,’ or just ‘The Story Circle.’ It’s an approach that many other writers have since adopted, including IT Crowd creator Graham Linehan. Zone of Comfort: Pip, a young orphan, lives a modest life on the moors.But they want something: He becomes obsessed with Estella, a wealthy girl of his age.They enter an unfamiliar situation: A mysterious benefactor plucks Pip from obscurity and throws him - a fish out of water - into London society.Adapt to it: He learns to live the high life and spends his money frivolouslyGet what they wanted: Pip is finally a gentleman, which he believes will entitle him/make him worthy of Estella.Pay a heavy price for it: Pip discovers that his money came from a convict, he drowns in debt, he regrets alienating his Uncle, he realizes that his pursuit of Estella is futile.Then return to their familiar situation: Pip makes peace with his Uncle Joe (who nurses him back to health). Pip disappears to Egypt for years, and once again returns home†¦Changed: Back once again where the story started, a now-humbled Pip reunites with Estella who, due to some plot, is ready to open her heart to him.Alt hough Great Expectation was a serial, written week-by-week, Dickens must have consciously or unconsciously been aware of this cycle. He sent his characters on a journey towards something they wanted -   only for them to pay the price and return home, changed.As with any sensible advice about structure, the takeaway here is not that you must slavishly adhere to a set formula or risk ruining your story. This story circle, along with other popular story structures like the three-act structure, are simply tools based on observations of stories that have managed to resonate with readers over the centuries. Just know this: if you find yourself at an impasse with any story you’re writing - you could do a lot worse than to crack out the story wheel, identify where you are, and see what comes next in the cycle.What other novels could you break down using the Dan Harmon Story Circle? Take your favorite book and tell us what all 8 plot points are in the comments below.