Dan Harmon’s Story Circle: Eight steps to a complete narrative

Storytelling may be an art, but it’s also a craft. A good story contains a framework that’s like the hidden supports in a building. It not only has a beginning, a middle, and an end, but it has a series of events that tie into each other and give rise to each section of the story. A sound structure will prop up your work and give it a flow that feels natural, earned, and satisfying to the reader.

A novel that lacks structure will feel sloppy and confusing. The pacing will be off, leading to parts that feel slow and boring, and other parts that will feel rushed, causing the reader to lose interest.

A strongly structured novel with clear story beats will move along with energy and momentum. The events will build on each other and the stakes will increase, holding the reader’s attention until the climax is reached. No room will exist for boring stuff. The narrative will be oriented towards one goal, with a sense of clarity and momentum that will hold the reader captive.

While there’s several different story structures out there, one of the most popular ones amongst novelists is the Dan Harmon Story Circle, invented by Dan Harmon.

What is the Dan Harmon Story Circle?

Dan Harmon’s Story Circle is a framework that provides a simple eight-step outline of the events that happen in a story. He developed it in the late 1990’s when working on the screenplay to the TV series Rick and Morty.

Harmon created it to simplify the Hero’s Journey, or monomyth, which was described by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with A Thousand Faces. This book was published in 1949 and contains seventeen steps. Campbell goes into great detail when he describes story structure, and while his structure can be applied to any story, it was intended to be a breakdown of myths and epic fantasy stories.

Dan Harmon’s Story Circle, on the other hand, is a simplified version that can be applied to any story as well, although it is best suited for stories that focus on character development.

His story circle, which he also calls the ‘embryo’ or ‘plot embryo,’ contains eight steps that follow the hero from their ordinary world to their pursuit of a goal outside their ordinary world.

These eight steps look like this:

1. You. The hero is in their ordinary world.
2. Need. They are discontent, or want something.
3. Go. Some event happens that propels the plot into motion.
4. Search. The hero pursues a goal and faces obstacles that test their mettle.
5. Find. The hero finds what they want.
6. Take. However, this comes at a great cost.
7. Return. They are able to use what they’ve learned along the journey to win the day.
8. Change. The hero is changed…for better or worse.

Why is it a circle?

Dan Harmon explains that the structure is a circle firstly because so much of life is cyclical. The seasons, the day, the water cycle, the way we become conscious and unconscious through sleep, and many other natural processes occur in a cyclical manner.

Our journey through life is also cyclical. We go through stressful situations where we’re in over our heads, but then we learn and grow from that experience, and in the future, we can face that same experience with more confidence. And by going through that experience, we can take the knowledge we have gained and use it to help others.

The circle also descends downwards and up again, demonstrating the protagonist’s descent into the unknown and her rise back to the ordinary world. As the protagonist descends into chaos, or the unknown, she adapts, and gradually becomes familiar with the unknown world. By gaining new skills and mastering her new world, she is able to ascend back to the known world and help both worlds with the new talents she has gained.

With that in mind, let’s explore the eight steps of Dan Harmon’s Story Circle and how they are used in popular stories.

The eight steps of a hero’s pursuit of a goal

1. The hero is in their ordinary world.

When we first meet our hero, we see them in their status quo. This could be Dorothy in Kansas from The Wizard of Oz, Hiccup in the Viking village from How to Train Your Dragon, or Belle living with her father in Beauty and the Beast. In this part of the story, they are living their ordinary life and going about their daily routine.

2. They want something.

However, in most cases they aren’t content with their status quo.

• When we meet Dorothy, she is singing about how bored she is of Kansas.
• In Beauty and the Beast, Belle is a bookworm who longs for adventures, and she’s also busy dodging a narcissistic suitor.
• Hiccup wants to fight dragons with the other Vikings, but he’s too small and weak.

Want vs. Need

In this part of the story, it’s important to remember that while your character wants something, they may need something else. While Hiccup may want to be a mighty dragon slayer and a strong fighter like his father, it later becomes clear in the story that what he needs is actually something else. Belle, as well, loves to read and wants adventure. However, we’ll find out that what she needs is something a little different.

Your character may want to leave her current situation and become something more, but she may need humility, kindness, patience, or some other quality to help her achieve her goals.

3. An event compels them to leave.

Soon, a major event happens that propels the protagonist to leave their ordinary world. This usually happens within the first fifteen pages or so of the book.

• In Dorothy’s case, she gets swept away by a tornado and dropped into a new land.
• In Belle’s case, her father gets lost in the woods and taken prisoner by the beast. Belle goes to rescue him, and ends up taking his place as the beast’s new prisoner.
• For Hiccup, he shoots down a night fury dragon and finds it in the woods. He can’t bring himself to kill it, and sets it free instead.

This event marks the point of no return for the hero. They have now left their ordinary world and must face the challenges that come with exploring new territory.

Other examples of this step include the scene in Great Expectations where Pip goes to London and meets Miss Havisham; the scene in Star Wars when Luke comes upon his murdered aunt and uncle; and the scene when Harry Potter finds out that he’s a wizard.

The Hero’s Perspective Changes

Often, the hero gains a bit of new maturity and insight at this moment. Until now, Hiccup thought that all he wanted was to be a mighty dragon slayer, but now he realizes he can’t bring himself to kill one. Belle has always dreamed of adventure in faraway lands, but now she’s come to the realization that sacrificing for her family is much more important. Dorothy comes to the realization that even though home is boring…it does have its merits and perhaps she should return there.

In other words, this is where the hero’s need becomes more clear…even if they themselves don’t recognise it yet. Hiccup needs to embrace his compassion for dragons, Belle her compassion for people, and Dorothy her appreciation for having a comfortable home.

4. Search: they face new challenges and must rise up to meet them.

This is where the plot thickens. Your hero is now searching for something and trying to achieve a specific goal. He or she faces new adversities and must learn to overcome them.

• Dorothy meets all the various creatures in the land of Oz: the witches, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and everyone else. She follows the yellow brick road, looking for home.
• Belle meets all the enchanted objects in the beast’s castle. At one point she runs away and is rescued by the beast. They start forming a relationship, and her goal becomes to teach him to be more well-mannered and civilized.
• Hiccup finds out that the dragon he shot down is injured and can’t fly anymore. His goal is to make the dragon fly again, so he tames it and fits it with a prosthetic. Meanwhile, he’s in training to be a dragon slayer.

Your protagonist should be proactive.

In this stage of the story, your protagonist should become very proactive. Before, they were going about their routine and reacting to events that were happening to them. Now, they should be the one driving the story by taking action to reach a goal. In this stage, Hiccup is actively working with his new dragon and helping it to fly again. He’s also learning more about dragons, which is helping him to excel in his dragon slaying school.

In the same way, Belle is now guiding the beast in becoming a better version of himself, and Dorothy is actively searching for a way home.

5. The hero finds their heart’s desire.

Now we are at the very bottom of the story circle. Our hero finds his heart’s desire…but it’s not what he initially desired at the beginning of the story when we first met him. He has changed and grown, and has found something much better.

• Dorothy has dozed off from the Wicked Witch’s enchanted poppies, but when she wakes up, she sees the beautiful castle and realizes that she and her companions are almost at their goal.
• Belle and the beast have a dance together and fall in love.
• Hiccup wanted to be a dragon slayer, but now he has tamed the dragon, helped it to fly again, and he and his newfound best friend go on a thrilling flight together with the girl of his dreams.

This part of the story is often called the ‘meeting with the goddess.’ It often includes some sort of flight, as it does with Hiccup and his dragon, or Aladdin and Jasmine in Aladdin.

• In many stories that feature a male protagonist, especially traditional action-adventure stories, it is when the hero finally gets the girl.
• In a romance, it is when two people fall in love with each other.
• In a thriller or a mystery, this may be a stunning twist.
• If the protagonist and another character have been at odds with each other, this may be when they become friends.

After this event, your hero starts moving upwards through the circle. They are now acting confidently and with their own volition. If they started out as naive, shy, or incompetent, this is when they cast off their old self and start acting as a master of their new world.

6. The hero loses something important.

Unfortunately, this win comes at a great cost. The hero loses something significant to them, be it a loved one, an opportunity, or their good name. Sometimes, this can take the form of the hero being stranded somewhere, or having to escape a dire predicament.

• Dorothy and Toto get captured by the flying monkeys and taken to the Wicked Witch of the West.
• Belle finds out that her father is being thrown into an insane asylum and needs help. She leaves the beast and returns home, risking the fact that he could now be stuck as a beast forever. She proves her father is sane, but Gaston decides to take the villagers to kill the beast, and Belle is locked in the insane asylum.
• Hiccup has won a competition that means that he will have to kill a dragon in front of the entire Viking village. However, he’s too small to kill dragons and he can’t bring himself to anyway. The entire event turns into a fiasco and the village and his father turn against him. His dragon is captured and taken away from him, and all the Viking warriors head off to find the dragon’s nest, which Hiccup knows is a death trap for them.

7. The hero returns, and uses their new knowledge to win the day.

In this stage of the story, the hero uses what he has learned throughout his journey to help him rise out of his predicament. If he literally returns back to his ordinary world, he uses his new skills to help out his homeland.

• Dorothy and Toto face the Wicked Witch of the West and defeat her, using the allies they have made along the way.
• Belle escapes from the insane asylum and hurries back to the castle to save the beast and his servants. She is able to save him through her love and strength of character.
• Hiccup has gained tremendous knowledge through taming and training his dragon, so he shows the other students of the dragon slaying school how to tame the captive dragons that the Vikings keep. They fly off to the dragon’s nest and defeat the Red Death, the queen that is controlling the dragons and making them steal the Vikings’ livestock.

8. The hero has fundamentally changed, for better or worse.

At the end, the protagonist has changed.

• Dorothy has gained a new appreciation for her home in Kansas. As she says, ‘There’s no place like home.’
• Belle is now in love with the beast, who has transformed into a human.
• Hiccup has become a master dragon rider and now understands how to interact with these animals.

In these cases, they have changed for the better.

There are cases where the protagonist can change for the worse. In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo emerges from his long journey exhausted and traumatized. He can no longer find happiness. He’s not the carefree, cheerful hobbit he used to be. Eventually, he has to leave Middle-earth forever in order to find peace.

The more the protagonist changes, the greater the emotional response will be from your reader. Stories where characters change for the worse can be very powerful as well, and they often resonate because many of us have changed for the worse due to events in our lives. Most tragedies, such as Shakespeare’s tragedies, feature protagonists that change for the worse and ultimately fail to reach their goals.

How to use this framework to create your story

Dan Harmon’s Story Circle was invented for television episodes, and as such, it lends itself well to short, precise stories that need a limited runtime but also feature character and plot development. You’re likely to find that many episodes in a TV series fit well with this structure. While it lacks many of the steps that are included in the Hero’s Journey, the upside is that this structure is easy to understand and allows for a lot of flexibility and imagination within its framework.

If you have a basic idea of where you want your story to go, you can track your protagonist’s journey through the eight different stages, adding in notes on what will be happening during each step.

Ask yourself how your character is going to change and how they will be different from the beginning of the circle, compared to the bottom, and compared to the top when they emerge at the end of their journey. Is there enough contrast in each of these stages? Does your hero evolve in a natural and believable way as he progresses through each of the steps?

If your story still seems to lack momentum or isn’t hitting the beats as you would like, then it’s likely you need to go back and work on your hero. Make sure you’ve established a strong need and desire for them, and given them enough strength and motivation to work for their goal. No framework is strong enough to support a poorly written character, so you must make sure you have a strong protagonist in place if you want the story structure to work for you.

To gain more understanding of this structure, try reading your favorite book again or watching a movie or TV episode and applying the framework to it.

Dan Harmon’s Story Circle is best understood as a loose structure for helping you outline your novel, not as an end-all be-all. However, it can be a great help in making sure your book has a plot that moves along in a rhythmic way.

Limitations of Dan Harmon’s Story Circle

While it’s easy to fit most stories into the Story Circle in some way, it is best suited for stories that are primarily focused on character development. If you’re writing a mystery or thriller that’s mainly focused on the plot, you may want to consider using another framework.

Longer novels and full-length movies, especially series, will contain more steps and fit better with the Hero’s Journey description.

However, even for those stories Dan Harmon’s Story Circle can still be a great starting point. Eventually, you may want to try a more detailed framework that is specifically geared towards your genre.

Alternative frameworks

If you want a more detailed framework, you can try a framework such as ‘Save the Cat’ which was described by Blake Snyder for the film industry and outlines fifteen story beats, or the Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell. If you’re a fan of Shakespeare and Greek tragedies, try the Fichtean Curve. If you have no idea what your story is about, the Snowflake method by Randy Ingermanson may be just for you. Explore each of the various story structures that have been described, and find which one suits your work the best.

Because Dan Harmon’s Story Circle is so simple and universal, it can be a great foundation for almost any story. As your work develops, or you become a more experienced writer, you may want to explore other options.

The Novel Factory provides many resources for outlining your story and structuring your novel, so make sure you check them out here.

Author bio: Monica Shannon is a freelance writer who specializes in writing about various topics, especially the craft of writing and storytelling. She enjoys exploring different storytelling techniques and educating up and coming writers. You can check out her website at https://www.gracewriting.com/.