Story Circle
Also known as Dan Harmon's story circle · Harmon story embryo
Dan Harmon's eight-step story structure: a character wants something, goes into the unknown, gets it, pays for it, and comes home changed.
In practice
The story circle is a story structure created by Dan Harmon, co-creator of Rick and Morty and creator of Community. It reduces Joseph Campbell's hero's journey to eight steps arranged around a circle: a character in a comfortable place wants something, goes into an unfamiliar situation, adapts, gets what they wanted, pays a price for it, returns, and has changed.
Harmon developed it in the early 2000s while making short films for Channel 101, a monthly short-film festival he co-founded, and wrote it up on the festival's wiki. He describes it as a story embryo: the shape that almost every story shares, whether it is a two-hour film or a two-minute sketch.
Its strength is that it fits any length. A TV episode can run the circle for the A story and again for the B story, and a single scene can make a small circle of its own. Because the circle ends where it started, it is especially useful for series, where characters must be back in their world by the next episode.
Steps 3 and 4 of a story circle: go, then search
INT. CITY HALL - PUBLIC MEETING ROOM - NIGHT
PRIYA (30s), who has never spoken in public, stands at the podium. Two hundred angry residents. One microphone, too low.
PRIYA
Hi. I'm the new... I'm here about the parking.
Silence. Then a man in the front row starts to boo.
Priya bends the microphone up. It squeals. Half the room covers their ears, and for one second, everyone is quiet.
PRIYA (CONT'D)
Okay. Now that I have your attention.
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Step 3 (go) drops Priya into an unfamiliar situation she chose; step 4 (search) shows her adapting, badly at first, until an accident gives her a way in. The circle's next steps would give her what she wanted and then make her pay for it.
The eight steps of the story circle
You: a character is in a zone of comfort, their ordinary world.
Need: but they want something.
Go: they enter an unfamiliar situation to get it.
Search: they adapt to the new situation, struggling and learning.
Find: they get what they wanted.
Take: they pay a heavy price for it.
Return: they go back to their familiar situation.
Change: having changed, for better or worse.
How the circle is drawn
Harmon draws a circle divided by two lines. The horizontal line separates the top half, the character's ordinary world of order, from the bottom half, the unfamiliar world of chaos. Steps 1, 2, 7 and 8 sit above the line; steps 3 to 6 happen below it.
The vertical line divides the journey down from the journey back. Crossing into the bottom half at step 3 is the point of no return, and step 5, the find, sits at the very bottom: the deepest point of the story, where the character gets what they came for and the cost begins.
Story circle vs. hero's journey and three-act structure
Campbell's hero's journey describes myths in seventeen stages, many of them specific to quests. The story circle keeps the underlying shape, departure into the unknown and return, in eight steps that apply to a family comedy as well as an epic.
Three-act structure divides a story by time and turning points. The circle divides it by the character's movement between the familiar and the unfamiliar, and puts the price of success at the center, which makes it a good check on whether a story has real consequences.
How to use the story circle to outline
Write one sentence for each step before you outline scenes. If a step is missing, the story usually feels thin there: no price at step 6 means the ending is free.
Run separate circles for each storyline in an episode, and check that their steps fall at different moments so the episode keeps moving.
Turn the eight sentences into scenes. In Plot, you can write the steps as a treatment and let it grow into the script where it stands, so the outline and the scenes stay in one document.
Common questions
What is the story circle?
The story circle is Dan Harmon's eight-step story structure: you, need, go, search, find, take, return and change. It simplifies the hero's journey into a shape that fits any story.
What are the 8 steps of Dan Harmon's story circle?
You (a comfort zone), need (a want), go (an unfamiliar situation), search (adapting), find (getting what they wanted), take (paying a price), return (going back) and change.
Is the story circle the same as the hero's journey?
It is based on it. Harmon condensed Joseph Campbell's seventeen stages into eight steps that apply to stories of any genre and length, not only quests.
What shows use the story circle?
Harmon has said he used it to break stories for Community and Rick and Morty, and many TV writers use it to check the shape of an episode's storylines.
Can the story circle be used for a feature film?
Yes. A feature can run one large circle for the main story and smaller circles for subplots or sequences, since the structure works at any length.